History
Maryknollers have been involved in education and study in their missions in China since the 1920s.
Education was a focal point of the Sisters’ early mission work in Hong Kong. In 1925, the Sisters founded the Maryknoll Convent School in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong. The Sisters then opened the Holy Spirit School in 1927 on Hong Kong Island. These two schools began as kindergartens and quickly grew into large, highly-acclaimed K-12 schools. Maryknoll Convent School was operated by the Maryknoll Sisters until 2005, when leadership transferred to the Maryknoll Convent School Foundation. Holy Spirit School (now called Marymount School) was operated by the Sisters until 1978, when leadership transferred to the Columban Sisters. The Maryknoll Sisters are still involved in the lives of both schools, which are still open and have very active alumni communities around the world. Over the years, the Sisters also operated several parish schools throughout Hong Kong and worked in diocesan pastoral centers and parishes teaching religion, English, healthcare practices, and community organizing methods.
Prior to World War II, the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers did not do mission work in Hong Kong. Instead, Hong Kong served as their administrative headquarters where other mission work was planned. But after the war, the men began working with the growing refugee community who flooded into the area from mainland China and other Asian countries. And since the refugee children needed schooling, the Fathers and Brothers soon found themselves involved in education. Their schools included the Bishop Ford School, Maryknoll Fathers School, St. John the Baptist School, Bishop Walsh Primary School, St. Patrick’s School, Maryknoll Technical School, Kwun Tong Maryknoll College, Pope Pius XII Extension School, Bishop Paschang Catholic School, and Maryknoll Secondary School. These schools had either an academic or vocational focus to prepare children and young adults for further academic study or for their future professions. Since the 1970s, several Fathers and Brothers have also taught at universities in Hong Kong.
The primary education ministry of the Fathers and Brothers in mainland China were seminaries. The Fathers opened seminaries in Kaying, Kongmoon, and Fushun to train Chinese men to become priests. They hoped that eventually the majority of clergy in China would be Chinese, rather than European or American, and through these seminaries they could help that process along.
The Sisters operated many educational works in mainland China. When they arrived at their mission in Dairen (now the port city of Dalian) in the Fushun Mission territory in 1930, they quickly made friends with the local Catholic population, which included European expats and people from China and Japan. Not long after their arrival, the locals requested the Sisters open a school. Maryknoll Academy opened in September 1931 as a kindergarten with both Catholic and non-Catholic students. Within a few years, the kindergarten grew into a K-12 school. In 1936, Maryknoll Academy became affiliated with the Catholic University in Washington DC and had its first high school graduation in 1937. Maryknoll Academy closed in 1947, when Soviet troops took over the area and forced those Maryknollers who had remained during WWII to leave the city.
The Sisters also began educational works at the missions in Fushun City. They operated a catechism school and a girls school, and when they arrived in 1931, they met several young Catholic women eager to join a religious congregation, but there was no Chinese congregation nearby. So, later that year, the Sisters opened a native novitiate, founding the Novitiate of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Fushun. Sr. Veronica Marie Carney was the first Novice Mistress and served in this role until the Sisters were interned by Japanese troops in 1941.
The Sisters also opened several other native novitiates, including the Sister Catechists of Our Lady (originally the Hakka Apostolic School) and the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Hong Kong, the Sister Catechists of the Blessed Mother in Laipo, and the Congregation of the Charity of the Sacred Heart in Pingnam. After the Communist Revolution, several members of these native novitiates joined the Maryknoll Sisters instead and lived in Hong Kong and Macau. There the novices continued their training and participated in the Sisters’ pastoral ministries until they became permanent Maryknoll Sisters.
In 1979, the Chinese government began to allow foreigners to teach secular subjects like English in Chinese universities, which gave the Maryknollers an opportunity to return to mainland China. Since the early 1980s, many Fathers, Brothers, and Sisters have spent various periods of time teaching in Chinese universities – some just for one semester, some for a year or two, and some for many years.
Since the early 1980s, Maryknoll scholars have studied the Catholic Church in China and its relationship to the Chinese state and Chinese people around the world. The primary vehicles for this were the Holy Spirit Study Center, run by the Diocese of Hong Kong, and the Mission Research and Planning Department at Maryknoll. Several Maryknollers have worked at the Holy Spirit Study Center as scholars and researchers, studying the Church in China, writing articles, organizing meetings and lectures, leading research trips, and more. The work of the Mission Research and Planning Department (MRPD) included researching and evaluating Maryknoll’s mission work, studying changing trends in mission work, serving as a general information service for Maryknoll’s mission locations, exploring new potential mission commitments, and liaising with other mission-related organizations around the world. MRPD staff studied the Catholic Church in China and Chinese society and provided information on those topics to Maryknollers in China and the US.
Collections Related to Education and Study
MFBA China Missions Collection, Series 1-4 and 7
MFBA Hong Kong Regional History Collection
MFBA Mission Diaries Collection, Series 2 Subseries 1 and 3-5
MFBA Newsletters, Series 2 Subseries 1-2
MFBA China History Project Records, Series 7 Subseries 3-5
MFBA Mission Research and Planning Department Records, Series 7 Subseries 5
MSA China-Hong Kong-Macau Missions Collection, Series 4-8, and 11
MSA Mission Diaries Collection, Series 2 Subseries 2-6 and 9
MSA Chronicles, Series 2 Subseries 5-6 and 15
United States Catholic China Bureau Records, Series 1-7 and 10