Life

Buglio was born at Mineo, Sicily, 26 January 1606. He entered the Society of Jesus, 29 January 1622, and, after a career as a professor of the humanities and rhetoric in the Roman College, asked to be sent to the Chinese mission. Buglio preached the Gospel in the provinces of Sichuan, Fujian, and Jiangxi. He and fellow Jesuit Gabriel de Magalhães were pressed to serve the rebel leader Zhang Xianzhong who had conquered Sichuan in 1644. After Zhang was killed by Hooge, he was taken to Beijing in 1648. Here, after a short captivity, he was left free to exercise his ministry. He suffered in the persecution which was carried on during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor.

Buglio collaborated with Fathers Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Ferdinand Verbiest and Gabriel de Magalhães in reforming the Chinese calendar, and shared with them the confidence of the emperor. He died at Beijing, 7 October 1682, and was given a state funeral. He was buried in the Jesuits' Zhalan Cemetery in Beijing.

Works

Buglio both spoke and wrote Chinese. A list of his works in Chinese, more than eighty volumes, written for the most part to explain and defend the Christian religion, is given in Carlos Sommervogel. Besides Parts I and III of the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, he translated into Chinese the Roman Missal (Peking, 1670) the Breviary and the Ritual (ibid, 1674 and 1675). These translations were part of the Jesuit project to introduce a liturgy in Chinese tongue. This plan was approved by Pope Paul V, who, 26 March 1615, granted to regularly ordained Chinese priests the faculty of using their own language in the liturgy and administrations of the sacraments; this faculty was never used. Father Philippe Couplet in 1681 tried to obtain a renewal of it from Rome, but was not successful.

生平

利類思16歲加入耶穌會，早年在故鄉教書，1635年4月13日啟程赴中國傳教，先赴澳門學習漢語，後前往成都傳教，在當地建立了第一個天主教教堂。

1643年，為躲避張獻忠帶來的戰亂，與安文思避居綿陽，後在吳繼善的推薦下為張獻忠服務。張獻忠敗亡後，兩人向清朝軍隊統帥肅親王豪格投降，被帶往北京，獲釋後建立了北京東堂。

在北京期間，利類思加入了與楊光先的論戰，寫出了《不得已辨》等文章，對楊光先進行駁斥。其後與湯若望、南懷仁和安文思四人被允許留在北京，供奉朝廷，直至逝世。

在華期間，利類思翻譯並撰寫了大量宗教著作，包括《尼西亞信經》、《天學傳概》、《彌撒經典》、《聖事禮典》、《司鐸課典》等等。