RICE-WAFER EASTWARD: SACRAMENTAL NETWORKS IN EAST ASIAN CATHOLICISM, 1880–1910

Abstract

This article examines the contested use of rice-based Eucharistic wafers in East Asian Catholicism between 1880 and 1910, situating the so-called 'rice-wafer controversy' within broader dynamics of sacramental materiality, colonial governance, and transregional religious networks. At the heart of this study lies the tension between Roman doctrinal mandates—insisting on the exclusive use of pure wheat and unleavened bread for the consecrated host—and the agro-ecological realities of rice-dominant regions in southern China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, where wheat cultivation was economically unviable and logistically challenging. Drawing on ecclesiastical archives from the Dominican Order, Vatican correspondence, colonial administrative reports, and local church records, this research employs a transregional methodology to trace the circulation of sacramental materials and the negotiation of liturgical authority across imperial boundaries. The analysis reveals how Spanish-led Dominican missions, particularly those operating under the jurisdiction of the Philippine province, attempted to adapt sacramental practice through experimental rice-based hosts, prompting repeated scrutiny from Rome and generating clandestine production and smuggling networks that circumvented official prohibitions. The aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) further complicated these dynamics, as shifting colonial sovereignties in Taiwan and Korea disrupted established supply chains and intensified both state surveillance and local improvisation. Far from being passive recipients of doctrinal edicts, East Asian Catholics—clergy and laity alike—engaged in acts of vernacular theologizing, reinterpreting sacramental validity through agrarian symbolism and communal memory. These adaptations underscore the interplay between material religion and imperial control, demonstrating how the physical constraints of agriculture and the geopolitics of empire shaped the lived experience of faith. By foregrounding the movement, substitution, and regulation of sacred substances, this study contributes to a reconfiguration of global Catholic history that centers ecological specificity and local agency within the framework of centralized ecclesiastical authority.