Some background explanation, I come from a country in SouthEast Asia and am Roman Catholic (a minority faith here so tiny even Muslims another minority outnumber my faith by a significant amount). In my nation's Catholic subculture, a lot of old customs such as lighting objects on fire that bring certain scents like flowers to honor the dead so that their souls can still smell it have been replaced by similar Catholic rituals such as lighting frankincense and myrrh incense sticks. Burning sticks to give light for the dead seeking their way to the underworld? Phased out by novena prayers utilizing candles for those we'd hope to be in purgatory if they aren't in heaven who are being cleansed of their sins. Annual family feasts for the dead where patriarchs and matriarchs of each specific family units of the larger extended house talks to the god Kinoingan? Replaced by annual memorial mass for the deceased with a big expensive lunch and later fancy even grander more expensive dinner.

And so much more. Basically the missionaries who converted the locals who are the ancestors of the Catholics of the region I live in centuries ago, worked with various pagans in my area centuries ago to Catholicize indigenous traditions or worked to find a suitable replacement. So we still practise the old rituals of heathens from centuries ago but now with specifically Catholic devotions such as reciting the rosary with beads while bowing in front of Mary statues who look like people from our clans and tribes that echoes some old ritual counting bundles of straws while bowing in front of a forgotten mother goddess whom now only historians and scholars from my country remember her name.

So I can't help but wonder as I watch Youtube videos introducing the barebones of Sinology........ Why didn't the Catholic Church simply convert the cultural practises during the Chinese Rites Controversy? I mean 6 minute video I saw of interviews with people in Southern China and asking them about Confucian ancestor worships, they were lighting incense and sprinkling water around from a container........ You can do the same with frankincense and myrrh in tandem with holy water! Someone at a temple counting beads and chanting on the day her father died? The Rosary anyone? At a local church?

Just some of so many ideas I have about converting Chinese customs. So I couldn't understand the rigidity of Pope Benedict XIV in approaching the issue and why Pope Clement XI even banned the basic concept of the Chinese ancestry rites decades earlier in the first place. Even for practises that cannot be converted in a straightforward manner because they are either just too incompatible with Catholicism such as alchemy or too foreign that no direct counterpart exist in Catholic devotions such as meditation while seated in a lotus position, the Church could have easily found alternative practises from Europe and the Middle East that fill in the same purposes and prevent an aching hole among converts.

So why didn't the Catholic Church approach Chinese culture with sensitivity and try to fill in the gaps of much sacred traditions of China with syncretism such as replacing direct worship of long dead individuals with intercessory prayers and mass for the dead? Why go rigidly black and white yes or no all out or none with approaching the Chinese Rites during the debates about how to convert China?

Like instead of banning Feng Shui completely, why didn't the 18th century Papal authorities just realize to replace old Chinese talismans and whatnot with common Christian symbols and religious arts and teach the converted and the prospect converts that good benefits will come using the same organization, decoration patterns, and household cleaning Feng Shui commands because God favors the diligent (esp those with the virtua of temperance) and thus God will bless the household because doing the now-Christianized Feng Shui is keeping with commands from the Bible for organization and house cleanliness? And that all those Christian art that replaced the old Chinese amulets at certain angles and locations across the house isn't because of good Chi or bad Chi but because the Christian symbol will remind those who convert about God and thus the same positive energy will result that plenty of traditional Chinese talisman and statues supposedly should bring fro being placed in those same areas?

But instead the Church's approach to missionary work in China was completely inflexible with the exception of some of the Jesuits who were were actually working directly inside China with the locals. Considering the Catholic community of the SouthEast Asian country I live in and who I'm a member of practically still are doing the same basic practises of our ancestors from centuries ago but made to align with proper Catholic theology and laws, I'm really in disbelief that the Vatican didn't approach Chinese culture in the same way during centuries of attempting to convert China esp during the Chinese Ancestry Rites Controversy of the 1700s! That it took 200 years for the clergy of Rome to finally open their mind to merely modernize ancestor reverence of the Sinitic peoples under Catholic doctrines rather than forbidding it outright starting 1939 simply flabbergasts me! Why did it the pattern of events in history go these way for the Sino-Tibetan regions unlike other places in Asia like the SEA country I'm from?

Inspired by a post I saw. And as a SouthEast Asia (though not Filipino) who comes from in a country where Catholics are a minority and lives with Muslim neighbors who practise Silat as well as expat Pinoys of various backgrounds including Eskrimadors and other FMA practitioners, I've been provoked to ask after reading the below link.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wma/comments/hgf33i/does_anyone_think/

Many fighters in the Philippines (and not just local styles but even boxers) frequently ask for intercession of Archangel Michael daily and some practitioners take it another level with novenas, etc.

Despite the fact that Eskrima and other FMA styles barely even say anything about Catholicism. While most surviving HEMA texts often mention Saints and traditions like rosary, etc. Even by the 19th century after the French Revolution brought a steady decline of the Church's power in Europe, manuals still mention prayers every now and than.

Despite that, it seems people who practise reconstruction of extinct European system not only completely ignores all these stuff but even are openly against the very Catholic sacraments that Medieval knights would have done!

Why despite the oldest texts of FMA in particular Eskrima lacking Catholic devotions and most organizations completely avoiding demanding the traditional Catholic sacraments, plenty of FMA practitioners make it a norm having Catholic practises in their schools esp having statues of Saint Michael? How come HEMA and other European reconstruction systems seems to be anti-religious in comparison despite the frequent mention of saints and Mary in texts even "magical Catholicism"?

I find it extremely ironic that a country so far away from Europe (being the only truly colonized territory of a European superpower in Asia for a long time) actually does the old traditions that the forefathers who wrote HEMA manuals would have done! And not just that but even across Latin America despite lacking a wide culture of organized fighting systems in the vein of Eastern martial arts, they also do keep the mysticism and spirituality that the European Knights who made these systems would have practised when they were alive! That modern people who say they practise HEMA absolutely avoids spirituality while colonized peoples in South America and the Philippines practically for the most part ironically keep a lot of HEMA's tradition more authentically!

And as a SEA Catholic this is what I observed with nearby neighbors from the PH in my country.

Why is this?