17 A Map of Mankind Love that seeks truth Consider what happens when the depth of Christian love is not there. Margaret Mead, the queen of anthropology, went to the South Seas and studied the mating habits of the natives, resulting in the too-influential and now-discredited Coming of Age in Samoa. She had something of a liberal agenda; the natives caught on to it, and played their cards accordingly. The people under the microscope flipped the lens the other way around. I’m not saying that Mead despised the Samoans; she liked them very much. But Father Ricci had to love the Chinese, with the charity that hopes all things, believes all things, and endures all things. Father Ricci had to love them with a love that would defy one disappointment after another, unto death. He was not martyred, but he would never return to his native land. He never enjoyed the accolades due to a celebrated scholar. I think that the Catholic missionaries had to be most discerning, precisely because the articles of our faith are of ultimate concern. They could not simply say, “The people of China leave food offerings for their deceased ancestors, so they must be worshiping them as deities.” Maybe they were, and maybe they weren’t. Father Ricci determined that the most learned among them considered it an act of filial piety. Since they brought food to their elders
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