Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
Siddhartha Gautama
By the time Vicar-Apostolic Perros began his ministry in 1909, the Mission in Siam appeared secure. The monarchy, as well as the social and business elite, were sponsoring and supporting some missionary endeavours, although perhaps they were doing so under the threat o f colonial encroachment. At the same time, the Mission also received some support from the French colonial government in Indochina, even though their interests often did not coincide. The tensions between the Siamese fear of colonialism and the M ission’s aim of promoting and integrating the western-style social work of the Mission into the wider Siamese society was a defining factor in the pre-1939 Church.
The Vicar-Apostolic him self probably knew all too much about conflicting loyalties, having grown up in Alsace-Lorraine, an area disputed by France and Germany, before he was assigned to Siam at the age o f 23. At the same time, the situation also provided many opportunities to play on the hopes and fears of various parties, to the advantage o f the Church. Occasionally, the Church was able to synergise these hopes and fears. For example, the Siamese elite, keen to modernise in the face o f the colonial threat, could be induced to support western-style
educational initiatives. Meanwhile, French colonial officials who were keen to see the projection o f the gloire de lapatrie in foreign lands could be persuaded to offer generous financial donations to support certain schools that were teaching French language and culture in a state where they could not exert their influence. Thus the Siamese had their modernised institution and the French could be satisfied that they had projected their gloire.
Yet this strategy placed the Mission on a precarious balance. The
arrangement was perfect when the Mission was able to find a way to bring together the needs and wants o f the various parties without overtly taking sides. But what if these interests could not be reconciled? Where would the loyalties o f the Mission and its foreign clerics then be? Already before 1939 there were troubling indications. When the First W orld W ar broke out in Europe in 1914, the Vicar-Apostolic, along with a number o f French priests, were recalled to France to serve as military chaplains. There was little problem with this reassignment at the time, since King Vajiravudh soon declared him self for the Allies. Nevertheless, to suspicious Siamese observers, the situation begged an urgent question: if a crisis occurred between France and Siam, which country would the French missionaries and their congregation support? The question was not only pertinent to the French
missionaries but also the various ethnic minorities that made up the congregation of the Mission. Whom would they serve - their country o f birth or their adopted country?
The natural, safe answer for the clergy was neither - that they were serving the Catholic Church and, had they limited their social and financial association with their home government, this answer could have been convincing. Yet had they limited their dealings in such a manner, they would have denied the Mission critical support, especially when its members encountered trouble with the local authorities. It was the maintenance o f this precarious balance that occupied the minds of the Mission leadership before 1939, all the while trying to keep the Mission and its work operating on an even keel in an increasingly difficult economic climate.
Rene Marie-Joseph Perros, Bishop of Zoara, Vicar-Apostolic of Siam
...every Catholic, even i f they differ in nationalities ...are all children o f their motherland and must love their coantiy with the highest love.
- Vicar-Apostolic Rene Perros, Parish Circular, Undated
Unlike his more famous predecessors, such as Vicar-Apostolic Pallegoix, there is actually very little material concerning the personal history o f the Vicar-Apostolic of Siam during this period, although what is available22 gives rise to some interesting speculation. The Vicar-Apostolic of the Mission o f Siam, Bishop Rene Marie- Joseph Perros would have been acutely aware of the problems o f conflicting
identities. According to the records o f the Missions Etrangeres de Paris, he was bom on 12 March 1870 at Guewenheim in Haute-Alsace (modem day Haut-Rhin in France). The region o f Alsace-Lorraine had always been a point o f dispute between France and Prussia/Germany, and scholars of European history are aware that the area was in contestation during the Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870-10 May 1871) that erupted shortly after the birth o f Rene Perros, and that much o f the territory was ultimately lost to Prussia following the defeat o f France in that conflict and would not return to French control until the enforcement of the diktat of the Treaty o f Versailles after the end of the First World War.
The people o f Alsace-Lorraine during this period were thus faced with a choice; whether to acknowledge the de facto situation of Prussian sovereignty over the area or to retreat into an equally distinctive French identity. The third choice was, of course, to try to live as best as possible with both sides. For the family o f Rene Perros, even though they lived outside the territories annexed to the German Reich in
22 The official biographical information for V icar-A postolic Perros, along w ith that o f most M.E.P. m issionaries, are now available online (in French) at the w ebsite o f the M.E.P. Archives. Searches can be made at: http://www.m epasie.org/?q=archives-des-m issions-etrangeres-de-paris [Last A ccess 29 January 2009],
the area near Belfort, it seems that they too had chosen the path o f compromise. Although the Belfort area was already overtly French before the war,23
distinguishing itself from the rest o f Alsace that spoke predominantly German (Alemannic) dialects, some o f the German-influenced population also spilled into the French areas, as evidenced by the marriage certificate of Rene Perros’s parents. There are indications that his paternal grandparents (Ludovico and Francisca Petizon) and father (Ludovico Perros) were French, while his maternal grandparents (Joseph and Francisca Walch) and mother (Josephia Rigenbach) were probably part of the Germanic population of Alsace.2"1
Between Prussia and France, Rene Perros appeared to have chosen France since he enrolled at the College Libre de Lachapelle in the vicinity of Belfort from
1882-87, at the end of which he had graduated with a Bachelor o f Letters from the University o f Besan9on. On 14 September 1887, he entered the seminary of the
Missions Etrangeres de Paris, and in 1889 was received into the minor orders. His clerical career was interrupted by military service at Belfort from November 1891 to September 1892, after which he resumed his studies at the seminary. On 15 October 1893, he was ordained priest and was assigned to Siam in the same year, leaving for Siam on Christmas Eve 1893, not to return to France until the outbreak o f the First World War. On arrival in Siam, he underwent training in the Siamese language and continued to do so, while assisting Fr. Guillou in Naklion Chaisi. During this period, he also began studying the Chinese language. In 1896, he was named professor o f the seminary at Bangchang, where he stayed for ten years, at the end of which he was assigned to the community o f Huaphai, However, after only three years in
It w as partly due to the overt and traditional French presence in the area as w ell as the determined resistance o f the town o f Belfort itse lf (the town only “fell” when it w as ordered to, 21 days after the signing o f the Franco-Prussian armistice) that dissuaded the Prussians from annexing the area. 24 B .A .A ., Extractus ex Libro M atrimoniali, 29 September 1866, 141/1/15.
Huaphai, he was recalled to the seminary to replace Fr. Matrat, the Superior who had to return to France due to ill-health. This development suggests that the Church leadership valued Fr. Perros’s administrative abilities as well as his intellectual capacity, although the length o f time he spent in the seminary indicates a contemplative rather than active form o f leadership.
In any case, it appeared that Fr. Perros’s form o f leadership was thought by the Superior General to be just what the Mission needed at that stage o f development. Thus, following the death o f Vicar-Apostolic Vey on 21 February 1909, Fr. Rene Peiros was appointed to the position o f Vicar-Apostolic o f Siam in September of the same year, taking the official title o f the titular Bishop o f Zoara. The consecration ceremony took place in the Holy Rosary Church on 30 January 1910. However, following the outbreak o f the First World War, the Vicar-Apostolic was recalled to France where he served as a military chaplain in Belfort until he was granted permission to return to his post in Siam in October 1915. As will be seen later, this period is vital to understanding the Bishop’s sense of identity and his relationship to France, his native country, and to Siam, his “country o f adoption”, and his role as a missionary o f the universal Church.
The work of his ministry will be covered in more detail further in the thesis, but for now it shoirld be sufficient to say that he continued to make slow headway in moving the Thai Church from being a purely missionary organisation to one that was run by the indigenous clergy, a process that would be accelerated by the traumatic events of the Second World War. To that effect, between 1910 and 1931 he ordained 34 Siamese priests, including one assigned to the Mission o f Laos, and established a new seminary at Sri Racha in January 1935, although it would be some time still before an indigenous cleric would be appointed to head a part o f the
Mission, and even longer for an indigenous hierarchy to be established. Furthermore, he assigned Ratchaburi and the southwest of the Mission o f Siam to the Italian Salesians under Vicar-Apostolic Pasotti and expanded missionary efforts to Chiang Mai in the north o f Siam, which hitherto had been the domain o f Protestant
missionaries, mainly from the United States.
However, the expansion o f the Mission came at a great financial cost and the Mission during his tenure was constantly accosted by financial deficits. This situation appeared to have caused great strain between the Vicar-Apostolic and his procurator, Fr. Louis-Auguste Chorin, prompting the latter to write a letter of complaint to the M.E.P. headquarters in Paris in 1924, alerting the superior to the Mission o f Siam’s dire financial situation and, by implication, the deficiencies o f the Vicar-Apostolic’s leadership.25 Nevertheless, the Vicar-Apostolic was able to ride out the storm and continued to hold his position for more than another two decades. Although Perros’s relationship with his procurator continued to be cold, Fr. Chorin never again wrote to the M.E.P. regarding Perros. There are indications that some sort o f political deal was worked out between Perros and Chorin, where Chorin would be named successor on the retirement o f Perros, as long as he did not rock the boat. Indeed, when Chorin was eventually appointed as Vicar-Apostolic after Pen'os’s retirement in July 1947, some o f the Mission’s priests were taken aback by the unexpected decision. Judging from Perros’s correspondence alone, the
relationship between the two was cold if not non-existent since the procurator was hardly mentioned. Costet in his historical account wrote that Chorin’s eventual
appointment came “as a veiy great surprise”,26 indicating the high probability that a deal had been made and had been kept very secret.
The anti-Catholic persecution was, o f course, the major problem that faced the Mission of Siam during Rene Perros’s tenure. It is also worth noting that prior to the general persecution, the Vicar-Apostolic was already confronted with problems that stemmed from new Siamese legislation (some of which he interpreted to be aimed at the French) as well as the problem o f the slow conversion o f the Mission into an indigenous hierarchy. It can be said therefore that by the time o f his retirement in 1947, the Vicar-Apostolic had led a challenging life during a tumultuous time. The numerous issues he faced during his ministry will form the main themes of this thesis.
Population and Ethnicity
Even i f you are a minority> o f one, the truth is the truth,
Mahatma Gandhi
Despite Vicar-Apostolic Perros’s lack o f spectacular achievements in comparison with some o f his predecessors, he did accomplish significant gains in effecting conversions. Under his rule, the Catholic population continually expanded, with the possible exception of the years 1909-18, when no accurate statistics were collected,27 and 1929-30, when there was a dramatic decrease. The decrease could be attributed to declining global economic conditions, but clearly the more important factor was the creation of the Mission o f Ratchaburi in the west o f Siam since during this process, the Mission of Siam had ceded control of all the parishes and their property to the Salesians, who were in charge o f the new Mission. The transfer also included the obligation to account for the number o f Catholics in their area, hence the ‘fall’ in numbers in the area under the jurisdiction of the Mission o f Siam.
Even so, by 1936, the population had surpassed the level o f 1929. The figures also mirror the activities o f the missionaries during this period. Increases in the 1930s were reflections o f the creation of, and investments made into, the new Mission stations in the north. Furthermore these activities appeared to have been little affected by the change to the constitutional regime and subsequent political movements.
What did affect the figures were the movements o f the Chinese to and from their homeland. Although the Chinese settled in Siam and had conducted business there for many decades, many o f them would return to China upon retirement. Some
27 From the M ission records, the population did not fluctuate at all between the years 1909-18. Clearly, this cannot be accurate and it can be assumed that the M ission did not expect huge fluctuations and so worked from the figure o f 24,400. Nevertheless, the trends suggest that even in these years with dubious statistics, the trend w as towards growth rather than decline.