An Investigation into the Histoire de la mission de Pékin, 1924–1932

In 1924, the Propaganda Fide launched an investigation into a book entitled Histoire de la mission de Pékin published under the name of A. Thomas. "Thomas" was rumored to be a pseudonym of Jean-Marie-Vincent Planchet, a French Lazarist living in Beijing with a reputation for taking anti-Jesuit stances. The investigation lasted for nearly a decade, finally ending in 1932 when the Propaganda Fide concluded that Planchet was the book author because of his supposed confession and ordered him to leave China. This paper studies the process of this investigation, which evolved from a debate over the book's authorship into an examination of a whole host of issues, including indigenization and the French Religious Protectorate, that impacted China's Catholic communities from the 1920s to the early 1930s.