[7] In 1724, Yongzheng Emperor's "Amplified instructions on the Sacred Edict" proscribed Christianity in the Manchu-led Qing empire and declared European missionaries personae non gratae.

[14] While works on the Catholic missions in the imperial Chinese capitals are abundant (e.g., Chang'an, Khanbaliq/Karakorum, Nanjing, Beijing), Catholicism in Sichuan has seldom been the focus of study.

[8] In 1640, Lodovico Buglio, a Sicilian Jesuit, arrived in Chengdu (Chengtu), the provincial capital, at the invitation of Liu Yuliang [zh], a Sichuanese native from Mianzhu and Grand Secretary of the Ming dynasty.

There was a certain Peter (Petrus) among them, according to An Account of the Entry of the Catholic Religion into Sichuan (1918), he was a descendant of the Prince Xian of Shu [zh],[15] and quite active in the congregation.

In 1700, he entrusted the city of Chengdu and the western part of Sichuan to the MEP priests Jean Basset and Jean-François Martin de La Baluère.

[23] The Lyonese priest Jean Basset wrote a long memoir in 1702 in Chengdu, under the title of Avis sur la Mission de Chine, lamenting the sad state of the Church in Sichuan after so many past efforts.

Her baptism was confirmed by an MEP priest, Joachim-Enjobert de Martiliat, the fourth Apostolic Vicar of Szechwan and author of the first detailed Rules for Consecrated Virgins (1744).

[33] In 1756, François Pottier [fr], a young priest ordained in Tours just three years ago, arrived in Sichuan, taking charge as provicar of the five or six thousand Catholics dispersed in the province.

Dufresse was imprisoned, brought to Beijing and then exiled to Portuguese Macau and the Spanish Philippines, he secretly returned to Chengdu in 1789 and was put in charge of the Eastern Szechwan and Guizhou missions.

[34][8] In consequence of the persecution, a considerable number of Catholics withdrew into the remote mountains and hinterlands of western Sichuan, becoming "hidden Christians" in order to avoid official attention.

[8] During the persecution in the first half of the 18th century, when all European missionaries were forced to leave Sichuan, André Ly was left as the senior Catholic priest in the province.

[47] Today the Annunciation Church is well-remembered thanks to Armand David, a Lazarist missionary as well as a zoologist and a botanist, who in 1869 arrived at Muping in a sedan chair.

[55] On 29 July 1896, a newly ordained priest Adolphe Roulland, was sent to the Apostolic Vicariate of Eastern Szechwan by Paris Foreign Missions Society.

[62][63] Nine years later (1914), Jean-Théodore Monbeig, another French missionary working in the Sichuan-Tibetan border region, was killed by lamas near Lithang, not long after helping revive the Christian community at Bathang.

[64][65] In 1918, French missionary François-Marie-Joseph Gourdon edited and published in Chongqing An Account of the Entry of the Catholic Religion into Sichuan, by the authority of Célestin Chouvellon [fr], Bishop of Eastern Szechwan.

[3] In 1930, a Spanish Franciscan friar and artist Pascual Nadal Oltra [es] arrived in Moxi (Mosimien), a small town located in Garzê, one of the three Tibetan regions of Western Sichuan.

According to the Valencian Franciscan friar José Miguel Barrachina Lapiedra, author of the book Fray Pascual Nadal y Oltra: Apóstol de los leprosos, mártir de China, and a report published in Malaya Catholic Leader, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Singapore: "The communist soldiers entered the leper colony, they looted the residence and arrested the friars and sisters.

The Franciscans were then brought before Mao Tse Tung, who interrogated them, imprisoned two of them, Pascual Nadal Oltra and an Italian friar Epifanio Pegoraro, and released the rest.

"[71][72][73][74] In her letter to the poet Raymond Cortat, dated 17 January 1937, Marie-Rosine Sahler, a member of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, recounts in detail her journey, her arrival in China and her life in the Mosimien leper colony, a testimony about the political hardship: "In 1935, the leper colony was savagely attacked by communist army and the mission community had to flee to the mountains and stay there for eight days.

"[75] In 1947, Trappist monks from Our Lady of Joy Abbey [zh] (Diocese of Zhengding) transferred their monastery to Xindu, Chengdu, due to the ongoing civil war.

[87] Foreign missionaries who were suspected of being spies were arrested, some were sent to thought reform centers in which they underwent disturbing re-education process in a vindictive prison setting.

After demanding the restitution of two church properties which were seized by communist authorities in the 1950s, Sister Xie Yuming was severely beaten by a group of unknown assailants and had to be hospitalized, while Father Huang Yusong suffered minor injuries.

[101] On 29 June 2022, Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, a celebration of the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party was held at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Leshan (Diocese of Jiading), for political reasons.

According to a Catholic source contacted by AsiaNews, despite the 2018 agreement, the imposition of state sponsored ideology on the faithful and the persecution of "underground church" members never stop.

[143] Jean Basset, a Lyonese missionary of Paris Foreign Missions Society, undertook the translation of the New Testament from Latin Vulgate in Sichuan, with the assistance of a local convert Johan Su.

In 1822, the results were published in Rome as Synodus Vicariatus Sutchuensis, which had guided the apostolate in this province and in many other regions of China until replaced by the decisions of the Council of Shanghai in 1924.

[148] French missionary botanists, such as Jean-André Soulié, Jean-Théodore Monbeig and Paul Guillaume Farges, collected large numbers of plant, fungal and animal specimens in Sichuan and eastern Tibet.

The Imprimerie also became the main promoter of Ecclesiastical Rituals and Practices[e] by producing several of the book's reprint editions, which was originally published in 1900 by the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Szechwan, with the approval of Bishop Marc Chatagnon.

"[151] The 1936 novel Ripple on Stagnant Water by Li Chie-ren gives a detailed account of the conflicts among the three parties in the Chengdu area during the 1890s, namely, the local Christian communities, Elder Brothers Society and the bureaucracy.

[154] The following table is based on An Account of the Entry of the Catholic Religion into Sichuan,[f] published in 1918 by the Imprimerie de la Sainte-Famille for the Apostolic Vicariate of Eastern Szechwan.