The Sheshan “Miracle” and Its Interpretations

Abstract

After China’s Cultural Revolution, long repressed groups such as the Shanghai Catholic community resurfaced. This was evidenced in the March 1980 Sheshan “miracle” where believers gathered at the most important Catholic pilgrimage site in the region in expectation of an apparition of the Virgin Mary. This chapter will investigate this “miracle” through three keys: the event (how the past has been historically reconstructed), the experience (how the past has been experienced through observers), and the myth (how the past has been reinterpreted to meet the needs of new audiences). It argues that the government wanted to produce a demythologized counter-narrative to the Sheshan “miracle” as it could not abide by the narrative that religion had sprung back to life so rapidly in the reform era.