A friend told me about the adventures of Matteo Ricci today, and it seems that he and other Jesuits had a very successful time in China doing things that foreigners were not typically allowed to do and gaining access to people and places that were otherwise forbidden even to Chinese scholars. Was it just because of Ricci, or was there something else at work?
Unlike other Christian missionary orders, the Jesuits were willing to adapt Christianity to local customs and conditions. Ricci, for instance, recognized the importance of Confucianism in Chinese culture and formulated a conception of Christianity which completed Confucianism instead of conflicting with it. For instance, he said that Chinese Christians could still perform Confucian rites because they were civil and not religious rituals. The Dominicans and Franciscans took a more uncompromising stance and vehemently disagreed with the Jesuits's accommodating approach to missionary work. The Jesuits willingness to adapt their teachings on Christianity to existing local belief systems probably made people more receptive to them.