Chinese government and the Catholic Church:
thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=12861
"1/21/2011
Observers of the Catholic Church in China fear a further rupture in the relationship between the Holy See and the leadership of the Peoples Republic of China if the
government-controlled Patriotic Catholic Church ordains a new bishop of the Jilin Diocese without Rome’s approval.
The situation is fraught with anxiety for both Catholic missionaries in China and for Chinese Catholics in both the recognized Church and the underground Church because it would harm the movement towards uniting the two Chinese institutions and the ultimate goal of full communion between all Chinese Catholics and the universal Church.
The northeast Chinese see has been vacant since the July 2009 death of Bishop Damas Zhang Hanmin, a member of the Patriotic Catholic Church whose ordination as a bishop was legitimized by the Vatican.
In his Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi,” message, “to the City and the World,”
Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholics in China to be resilient in the face of the restrictions on their religious freedom placed on them by the Chinese government. In the wake of the November decision by the Chinese to ordain a new bishop of Chengde without Vatican approval, the Pope’s exhortation was seen as a return volley.
The Chinese response came through an editorial in the “Global Times,” an official English-language newspaper in China for the international community. The editorial reminded Rome of its pique over the Vatican State’s status as the only European nation with full diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and not with the Peoples Republic of China.
But, the main thrust of the editorial was the idea that although there are many religious Chinese of many faith traditions, China would not be free if those citizens followed orders from foreign power centers. The editorial went on to say that the Vatican ideal of religious identity was unrealistic and harmful. “Religious belief is a personal freedom. However, every person also has an identity bound by law, their citizenship.”
“What the Vatican demands from China is power, it is not about the true core of Catholic belief,” the editorial said. “Sooner or later, Vatican will have to adjust its China policy.”
In his May 27, 2007 message to the Church in China, Pope Benedict XVI updated and clarified the relationship between the Holy See and the leadership in China with the intention of beginning a dialogue towards normalization.
One European scholar affiliated with Hong Kong University said in the interim between the 2007 letter and the unauthorized ordination, Rome and Beijing worked out a protocol by which the Patriotic Church would nominate candidates for ordination to bishop that the Vatican vets and then either approved or disapproved.
“This rapprochement between the Vatican and China has taken a big step backwards. It is a sad, sad event,” said the scholar, who has studied the Church in China for more than 30 years and who requested that his name not be used to protect his ability to move in and out of China for his research.
“What happened recently in Chengde was the Chinese government showing the Vatican that despite the cooperative, it will not be dictated to,” he said. At that ordination, many bishops and other clergy were transported to the ceremony by the government with a heavy sense of official pressure.
The European professor said despite the tensions, the Church remains resilient.
“The goal of the Communists in 1950 was to create a schism and to have a completely separate church. In the light of how things are, that plan is a complete failure,” he said.
Of 45 bishops in China ordained without Rome’s permission almost all have reached out to Rome for validation, he said. Despite all of the efforts of the Chinese, the Church in China still seeks its place in communion with the Universal Church.
The event in November came as the Chinese were complaining the Vatican is taking too long and with the country’s number of empty bishoprics, the process needs to be faster, he said.
The name of the bishop had been submitted to Rome, but the Chinese simply grew impatient, he said. “I am a Catholic myself, so you understand that I am reluctant to criticize the Church, but in this case I believe the Church may have taken too long.”
Given the delay, the Chinese took the opportunity to assert their own rights in the process, he said. In this way, the situation is similar to the tensions between the French kings and the popes, with the kings insisting on their right to control who became prelates in their realm.
“The difference is that in the case of France, the popes always approved the king’s choice, and in China the popes do not always approve,” he said.
This French practice continued into the 19th Century and can be seen working in the career of Boston’s first bishop Jean Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus. Cheverus upon his return to France was named the Archbishop of Bordeaux and later elevated to cardinal at the insistence French King Louis Philippe. In fact, it was the monarch himself who invested Cheverus with his scarlet robes and placed the cardinal’s hat upon his head at a Paris Mass observed by the papal nuncio.
