Chinese ancestral ceremonies were the subject of controversy in the Church for 300 years.  The controversy finally came to an end in 1939, when His Holiness Pope Pius XII gave formal permission for Chinese Catholics to participate in ceremonies honoring their ancestors.

As Catholic people, we do not "worship" our ancestors; worship is reserved for God alone.  Through ancestral ceremonies we simply express in traditional Chinese ways our love and respect for those who helped to make us who we are today.  If we forget them, we forget ourselves.

We can also see how beautifully love and respect for our ancestors fits in with our Catholic faith.  Since God is the origin of all life, reverence for our ancestors is really reverence for our Creator.  We could say too that the veneration of ancestors is just an extension of God's commandment that we honor our fathers and mothers.  In addition, as Catholics we believe that when people die they become part of the communion of saints; while they share God's life in heaven, they remain involved in the lives of those still struggling on earth.

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