CABALLERO, ANTONIO

Founder of the modern Franciscan missions in China; b. Baltanás, Spain, 1602; d. Guangzhou (Canton), China, May 13, 1669. He became a friar in 1618, was ordained in 1626, and entered China from Manila in 1633. He worked in Fujian (Fu-chien) and Jiangnan (Chiangnan) but was forced back to Manila. After receiving the decrees appointing him prefect apostolic of China (1643) and forbidding certain Chinese rites as superstitions (1645), he returned to China with two companions (1649). Settling in Jinan (Chi-nan), Shandong (Shanxbtung), he opened his first church and established stations and churches in various towns and villages, baptizing over the years some 3,000 converts and working in perfect harmony with Jean Valat, SJ. In the general persecution of 1665, he was banished with the Jesuits and Dominicans to Guangzhou. He wrote a number of reports, essays, and books. Of his Chinese books the following, written in 1653, have been published: (1) Wan Wu Pen Mo Yo Yen (Compendium on the Origin and End of All Things), published before 1667 and reprinted at Guangzhou, n.d.; (2) T’ien Ju Yin (Catholicism and Confucianism Compared), with editor's preface, 1664, published at Chi-nan: Hsi-t'ang, n.d.; and (3) Cheng Hsüeh Liu Shih (True Science's Touchstone), with editor's preface, 1698, published posthumously.

Bibliography: Sinica franciscana, v.2, ed. a. van den wyngaert (Quaracchi-Florence 1933). m. courant, Catalogue des livres chinois … de la Bibliothèque Nationale, (Paris 1910–12) v.3. a. s. rosso, Apostolic Legations to China of the 18th Century (South Pasadena 1948) 104–122.

[a. s. rosso]