page_title: Paris Foreign Missions Society
section_title: Founding principles
hierarchical_section_title: Paris Foreign Missions Society / Establishment / Founding principles
caption_attribution_description: English: Chapel of the MEP
context_page_description: The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons dedicated to missionary work in foreign lands.
  The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris was established 1658–63. In 1659, the instructions for the establishment of the Paris Foreign Missions Society were given by Rome's Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, and marked the creation of a missionary institution that did not depend on the control of the traditional missionary and colonial powers of Spain or Portugal. In the 350 years since its foundation, the institution has sent more than 4,200 missionary priests to Asia and North America, with the mission of adapting to local customs, establishing a native clergy, and keeping close contacts with Rome.
  In the 19th century, the local persecutions of missionary priests of the Paris Foreign Missions Society was often a pretext for French military intervention in Asia. In Vietnam, the persecutions were used by the French government to justify the armed interventions of Jean-Baptiste Cécille and Rigault de Genouilly.
context_section_description: The mission had the objective of adapting to local customs, establishing a native clergy, and keeping close contacts with Rome. In 1659, instructions were given by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (known as the "Propaganda"):
  "Here is the principal reason which determined the Sacred Congregation to send you as Bishops in these regions. It is that you endeavour, by all possible means and methods, to educate young people so as to make them capable of receiving priesthood."
  — Extract from the 1659 Instructions, given to Pallu and Lambert de la Motte by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.
  Instructions were also given to the effect that respecting the habits of the countries to be evangelized was paramount, a guiding principle of the Missions ever since:
  "Do not act with zeal, do not put forward any arguments to convince these peoples to change their rites, their customs or their usages, except if they are evidently contrary to the religion and morality. What would be more absurd than to bring France, Spain, Italy or any other European country to the Chinese? Do not bring to them our countries, but instead bring to them the faith, a faith that does not reject or hurt the rites, nor the usages of any people, provided that these are not distasteful, but that instead keeps and protects them."
  — Extract from the 1659 Instructions, given to Pallu and Lambert de la Motte by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.
caption: Chapel of the Paris Foreign Missions Society.
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