Page 39 - 香港浸會大學16-17

4. Funded Research Projects

4.9 The Chinese Sisters of the Precious Blood and the
Evolution of the Catholic Church (on-going project)

Principal Investigator: Prof. Cindy Yik-yi Chu

Associate Director of LEWI, Convenor of Cross-
Cultural Studies Working Group of LEWI and
Professor of History

Source of Funding: Faculty Research Grant, HKBU
Amount Awarded: HKD58,880

Brief Introduction:

This project is distinctive as it is a local study of the Catholic Church in a Chinese

society, that of Hong Kong whose population has been over 90 percent Chinese.
This local study reveals the much larger picture of the history of the Catholic

Church in China. It emphasises the evolution of the individuals (nuns), the
community (the society in Hong Kong and Mainland China), and the much wider

global community (the Universal Catholic Church).

It is distinctive as it reveals the transformation of a minority of Chinese sisters

within the minority of Catholic population in Hong Kong. Initially, only one or two
of these Chinese Sisters of the Precious Blood were educated while the rest only

received some basic education. There was the evolution of the sisters from being
subordinate to the Italian missionaries to becoming independent in the early

1920s; and from being lowly educated to attaining professional education from
the 1970s onward. Their status has risen in the Church hierarchy.

HONG KONG BAPTIST UNIVERSITY | David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies 34