Chinese Bishops asked to step aside

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If the proposed China-Vatican solution is a good idea, I’m sure that some may wish to apply it to the US—something like this:

–All United States Catholic parishes and dioceses must join and be a part of the “U.S. Catholic Patriotic Association.” Bishops may be appointed by the Pope but must be approved by the Federal Government agency for religious affairs, which will have oversight authority over all parishes and religious activities. Any parishes not belonging to the USCPA will be prohibited and shut down.
 
Had anyone read this book?

https://www.amazon.com/Aa-1025-Memoirs-Communists-infiltration-Church/dp/0895554496

I plan on buying it some time. It’s about an alleged communist infiltration of the Church that took place decades ago.

Also, a woman named Bella Dodd (Google her) claimed that she helped with the communist infiltration decades ago. Here’s a short article about her:

http://www.fatimaperspectives.com/cs/perspective235.asp

In light of recent events, this no longer seems like a conspiracy theory…

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The point is that it is no a good idea per se. It’s just that it is a better idea. An improvement. A small step forward amongst many steps.
 
JimG said:
If the proposed China-Vatican solution is a good idea, I’m sure that some may wish to apply it to the US—something like this:

–All United States Catholic parishes and dioceses must join and be a part of the “U.S. Catholic Patriotic Association.” Bishops may be appointed by the Pope but must be approved by the Federal Government agency for religious affairs, which will have oversight authority over all parishes and religious activities. Any parishes not belonging to the USCPA will be prohibited and shut down.
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I think I know what you are trying to say when you made that supposition in the U.S.

The issue actually - what is the solution to the China dilemma, where underground Catholic Church is being outlawed and where there is a parallel catholic church recognized by the government; and where most people do not know the difference? And there are more than one billion Chinese that need to be evangelized. What would the Catholic world do with this situation? Are we going into martyrdom - being outlawed, persecuted and killed? Are we not trying to be shrewd like a snake and be gentle like a dove in an adverse situation where we can turn it into our advantage?

There is no solution as it is now. And the 1.4 billion Chinese are deprived of the Catholic Church in their country.
 
Reuben_J said:
There is no solution as it is now. And the 1.4 billion Chinese are deprived of the Catholic Church in their country.
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Reminds me of the story of Jonah. Those Nineveh pagans (just like atheistic communists) don’t deserved to be saved according to Jonah and some here.

This could be a chance to spread the Gospel more effectively and save a billion souls. Imagine if we can “infiltrate” to the majority of people the Party would have to listen to the people then. It took 300 years to get Constantine, it’s only 60 years for China now. So I’m very patient with God. Even if it takes 500 years or longer, one day hopefully the head of state of China might even be Catholic. As I said before this is just one very small step forward amongst many.
 
One thing for sure is the great harvest in China. It is a land of great opportunity that needed to be saved.

China’a watchers would see that the system there can be quite fluid. I am not suggesting anything but it is noted that there were chnages in China when there were changes in the ladership. We can compare the fifties, the sixties and today in China. So the leadership is important as to who they are. That brings the possibility of change and hopefully acceptance.

Politic is complicated but liike most government, they prioritize stability considering the huge size of China, while the objective is progress and modenization. The latter invariably needs to include openess and freedom but which they need to balance for stability.

There is some truth in what you said. I cannot say what the right method would be but I think the Vatican see the importance of establishing trust in the diplomatic relationship with China to achieve favorable outcomes for both parties.
 
Reuben_J said:
I cannot say what the right method would be
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I don’t think anyone can say what the right method is. I think we should give it a try. We tried one method for the last 50 years so let’s try a second method. If the second method doesn’t work we could simply go back to the first.
That’s why I don’t get why people get so upset about this. What are we worried about? If those supposedly new pro china bishops do or say anything out of step with Catholic doctrine the church can still excommunicate them. I put my trust in God in these kind of things.
 
Excellent article. This illustrates my point very well. Do you think we can fight this kind of stuff more effectively with an illegal underground church or with an officially recognised church?
 
This does not affect the position of the undeground Catholic Church because they are not allowed to practice anyway.

The clergy of the patriotic church are in all intent and purpose civil servants. They are paid salary and the churches are built and maintained by the state. I stand corrected on that though but that seems to happen.

When they are registered to become preachers, they have to follow the term and condition. In a word, there activities are pretty much restricted.
 
I agree. Both ways it is a dilemma. The underground church is persecuted. The number of Catholics there are small but they are very strong in the faith.

Then there is the “official” church which is not recognised by the Vatican. They have all the support from the government. The real underground Catholics know they (official/patriotic church) are fake, but not the ordinary Catholics who know no better, as superficially they look the same.

Borh ways, if allowed to prolonged will create schism. In a hostile Communist government like China that does not tolerate dissent, there probably not much future for the underground Church. Many of their leaders and clergy were simply disappeared or died in unexplicable situation, their corpses buried by the government without the relatives knowledge. It is anybody guess as to what happened to them. Those who were jailed or restricted residence were at least still alive.

The situation is difficult and complicated. The easier hope is for a diplomatic breakthrough but then again an ideal result probably is still elusive.

We need the power of God to help our Church in China.
 
How would that work with the Russian Orthodox Church since China is friendly to Russia?
 
At about the 3 minute mark is discussed the situation Redirecting...

I can not understand why you would ask an underground bishop to step down for an excommunicated bishop. They have been imprisoned, tortured and murdered. Caving in is a betrayal. China is not friendly with any religion. The priests that I have met that are members of the Patriotic Church are loyal to Rome. They are doing the best that they can with the government that they have. The Patriotic Church suffers as well. China does not want any religion period.
 
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I cannot imagine the feelings of betrayal the underground Catholics in China must be feeling at the moment. In their eyes, the Vatican is handing them over to the same government that imprisoned and imprisons countless loyal priests and bishops, that executed countless believers over the past decades, that bulldozes churches, that harvests organs from prisoners (including prisoners of conscience), that forces women to have abortions and be sterilized, that now prohibits minors from even entering churches… And this is the government who will have the power to approve bishop appointments? No wonder many Chinese Catholics are upset.

Edited to add: Yes, the situation is complicated, and I think either way it leads to the possibility of schism. But cooperating with a communist government that doesn’t want any religion is necessarily going to upset a lot of believers, and I’m not sure it actually reduces the risk of schism.
 
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George Weigel has said this week in The National Review:

“Reality checks in Rome are badly needed these days. Despite the media and blogosphere attention he attracts, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, a 75-year-old Argentine who is chancellor of various pontifical academies, is a small-bore bit player in the current drama of what friends and critics alike regard as an increasingly dysfunctional Vatican. Yet when someone of even his relative insignificance announces that “right now, those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese,” that dysfunction comes into sharp relief — and a correction of the record is imperative.”
 
Trying2overcome said:
Pope Francis in 2016: “Communists think like Christians.”
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It is going to depend on what you mean by communism. The communism of Stalin or Ceasescu was too harsh and unfair to those who were not members of the party. However, the present form of capitalism in the USA, for example, is also unfair since more and more people are homeless, while the top CEO’s can make up to 5 million or more per year. Mr. Trump says he is worth 10 Billion dollars while those living on the sidewalk have all their belongings in a plastic bag. Worth what? Maybe 20 dollars? That is a big difference. Also under communism, everyone is guaranteed a job of some sort and your medical is free. So I think that the Pope is looking at the tragedy of being poor and having to live on the street and sleep on the sidewalk. Is it possible to incorporate some of the benefits of a socialist society without including those features of communism that no one likes?
 
www.crisismagazine.com

Vatican II’s Unpublished Condemnations of Communism

In recent weeks there have been a number of articles regarding the 100th anniversary of the launch of the Bolshevik Revolution—that is, the birthday of a bloodbath. In fact, here at the centenary of…
www.crisismagazine.com www.crisismagazine.com

The Church’s scathing condemnation of communism preceded even The Communist Manifesto, the ridiculous piece of work Marx and Engels published in 1848 as the official programmatic statement of the communist movement. In 1846, Pope Pius IX released Qui pluribus, affirming that communism is “absolutely contrary to the natural law itself” and if adopted would “utterly destroy the rights, property, and possessions of all men, and even society itself.” In 1849, one year after the Manifesto was published, Pius IX issued the encyclical, Nostis Et Nobiscum, which referred to both socialism and communism as “wicked theories,” “perverted theories,” and “pernicious fictions.”

For the Church and its shepherds, this was just the start of a never-ending response to communism and its ugly step-sister, socialism. (In strict Marxist-Leninist theory, socialism is a transitionary step on the way to full communism. See, among others, Lenin’s awful screed, The State and Revolution.)

In 1878, Pope Leo XIII followed with Quod Apostolici muneris, defining communism as “the fatal plague which insinuates itself into the very marrow of human society only to bring about its ruin.” More such Church statements followed, in 1924, 1928, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, and on and on.

Among these, 1931 saw Pope Pius XI issue his seminal Quadragesimo Anno, which ought to be required reading in every parish religious education program. If you’re tired of hearing Sister Social Justice prattle on about the wonders of “democratic socialism,” hand her this document. Few passages in Quadragesimo Anno put it as bluntly as this one (section 120): “Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”

To repeat: you can’t be a socialist and a good Catholic.

And then came, in 1937, the strongest statement of them all, Divini Redemptoris. There, the Church made clear that the notion of a “Christian Marxist” was an oxymoron. In Marx’s dialectical materialism “there is no room for the idea of God.” Communism was a “truly diabolical” instrument of the “sons of darkness.”
 
I just hope everyone is using the same definition. The old Soviet communists would probably regard today China is capitalist. And the old capitalist would probably regard today USA as socialist.
 
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