This panel explores the diverse ways Catholicism interacts with urban landscapes, state power, and cultural identity across Asia. Through ethnographic and historical analyses in Timor-Leste, the Philippines, Malaysia, and China, it examines how Catholic institutions, spaces, and practices shape and are shaped by urban processes.
The first paper investigates the Catholic Church’s role in urban governance in Timor-Leste, focusing on land politics during Pope Francis’ 2024 visit. The second examines Catholic chapels in Southeast Asian malls, questioning the boundaries between sacred and commercial spaces. The third traces how Catholic elites in Sabah, Malaysia, linked religious and political consciousness to agricultural traditions. The fourth explores inculturation in Shenzhen, China, under state-imposed sinicization policies.
Catholicism predominates urban life in Timor-Leste. From education to healthcare to the built environment, the Catholic Church pervades the social, political, and economic infrastructures of the world’s most Catholic nation. This influence gained international attention in 2024 when half of the country’s citizens–over 600,000 people–attended Pope Francis’ open air Mass as a part of his apostolic journey. This paper examines the overlooked displacement of over 1,000 Timorese families to make way for capital building projects associated with the papal journey. It uncovers the capital partnerships between the State of Timor-Leste and the Church as they co-constitutively make claims to Timorese land over and against informal settlements by indigenous communities. An ethnographic exploration, this paper brings together interviews, event observations, and site analyses to argue that the monumental architectures of the papal visitation both obscure and stridently declare the Church’s imbrication in financial and real estate monopolies in Timor-Leste.
This study explores whether Catholic chapels in shopping malls serve as exceptions or extensions of commercial spaces. While malls are often seen as non-places characterized by transience and anonymity (Augé, 1995), the presence of chapels within them presents a paradox. Through ethnographic research in Manila and Surabaya, this study examines how these chapels mediate between the sacred and the profane.
Findings suggest that while mall chapels share features of non-places, they also foster communal religious experiences, accommodating a mobile urban population. Their accessibility and convenience make them unique spaces where commercial and sacred realms overlap. Rather than existing outside modern consumer environments, these chapels integrate spiritual engagement into everyday urban life. This research contributes to broader discussions on the evolving nature of sacredness and how Catholicism in Southeast Asia adapts to contemporary urban landscapes.
Christianity plays a central role in the political identity of the Kadazan-Dusun community in Sabah, Malaysia, tracing back to the arrival of Mill Hill missionaries in 1881. These missionaries established Catholicism in Papar and Penampang, near the urban center of Jesselton, granting Kadazan Catholics access to administrative, media, and political networks. This facilitated the rise of a Kadazan political consciousness intertwined with Catholicism, particularly among the literate Kadazan intelligentsia in the 1950s and 1960s.
Given the agricultural roots of most Kadazan-Dusun communities, ancestral rice-related rituals were integrated into Catholic practice. A key moment was the first official Kaamatan (Harvest Festival) in 1960, aligned with Corpus Christi and held at St. Michael’s Church in Penampang. This paper examines how the Kadazan intelligentsia shaped Catholic practice within agricultural traditions and used mass media and political platforms to spread this religious-political consciousness throughout rural Sabah.
This paper explores missionary outreach in Shenzhen, China, focusing on inculturation—the adaptation of Catholicism to Chinese cultural contexts—through ethnographic research at Saint Anthony’s Church in Futian. Led by Fr. Francis Xavier Zhang, the church integrates Chinese cultural elements into religious practices, inspired by St. Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci. Central to this approach is fengxian (“offering”), a dedication of one’s life and labor to evangelization.
Amid Xi Jinping’s religious sinicization policies, Fr. Zhang incorporates Chinese symbols into church architecture, artwork, and liturgical practices, including a Marian icon with Southern Chinese features. Parishioners practice fengxian through service, discipline, and evangelistic engagement, seeing their actions as both communal support and spiritual devotion. The paper examines inculturation as both an evangelization strategy and a form of religious subjectivity, contributing to discussions on the localization of global religions, state-religion dynamics, and contemporary Catholicism in urban China.