Valid Mass in China

[mvinca]

I have to travel to China for a month for my business. As I understand it, the “Catholic” churches you can see from the street aren’t really Catholic at all, but more of a National Church. I understand there are many underground real Catholic churches that if the Chinese get caught at, they get fined, or eventually get put into jail.

While I am there, what would be the best action? I could not attend a mass at all, but that doesn’t seem right. The thing that seems the most right is to find an underground church to go to. There is risk in that, but that really isn’t my main concern. The biggest problem would be finding one because I don’t speak the language and certainly wouldn’t know who to ask.

Anyone have any unique ideas on what to do?

 

[Philip]

You should NOT seek out an underground church for several reasons. First, you will draw attention to the people who attend such churches, and it’s not fair for you to do that. Second, it’s all fine and good that you have an “I don’t care whether they find out” approach, but you don’t seem to understand the danger for yourself or others. My friend’s father spent 10 years doing hard labor in a Chinese prison camp, just because one of his neigbors suspected him of something anti-government.

If your “I don’t care about getting caught” comment was meant to be “I don’t care if I end up a marytr or however many innocent Chinese Catholics I take with me,” then I can’t stop you. But I really wouldn’t mess with this situation while you’re there. It’s not the USA, you won’t have a trial, and you don’t understand the danger you could be placing others in.

Philip

 

[Philip]

And trust me, the penalties are alot worse than “they get fined, or eventually get put into jail”. More like, “they get thrown in jail for long periods at first suspicion of involvement, then tortured or beaten.” Trust me … real-life Communists are not as nice as some people think they are, no matter how liberal their economy is getting.

Philip

 

[mvinca]

Philip:

And trust me, the penalties are alot worse than “they get fined, or eventually get put into jail”. More like, “they get thrown in jail for long periods at first suspicion of involvement, then tortured or beaten.” Trust me … real-life Communists are not as nice as some people think they are, no matter how liberal their economy is getting.

Philip

I understand what you are saying. I was just saying that it seemed that if I had the choice to find a church, I would think that I should. But what I also tried to imply (unsuccessfully), is that I don’t have that choice, not being able to do so without causing a scene since I’m not that familiar with the language, which as you say, would bring attention to those I shouldn’t bring attention to. So while the risk to myself isn’t a main concern, not knowing my way around would cause risk to others, like you say, which, of course, is a concern.

But back to my question, what should I do when I am out there? Should I just not attend any mass at all?

 

[Brendan]

mvinca:

I understand what you are saying. I was just saying that it seemed that if I had the choice to find a church, I would think that I should. But what I also tried to imply (unsuccessfully), is that I don’t have that choice, not being able to do so without causing a scene since I’m not that familiar with the language, which as you say, would bring attention to those I shouldn’t bring attention to. So while the risk to myself isn’t a main concern, not knowing my way around would cause risk to others, like you say, which, of course, is a concern.

But back to my question, what should I do when I am out there? Should I just not attend any mass at all?

Yes DO NOT SEEK OUT AN UNDERGROUND CHURCH. Even if you spoke Chinese perfectly. You will bring great suffering down on those Catholics.

Your pastor can give you a dispensation, which would free you from the obligation to attend Mass.

From what I’ve read the National Catholic Church in China does have a valid Eucharist (and a good number of it’s priest are in ‘closet’ communion with Rome). Use the oppurtunity to pray for the Church in China.

I would elect not to offer financial support in the offetory though.

 

[mvinca]

Brendan:

From what I’ve read the National Catholic Church in China does have a valid Eucharist (and a good number of it’s priest are in ‘closet’ communion with Rome).

I also have read items that support you comment in parenthesis, but I have read opposite items regarding a valid Eucharist. If it was a valid Eucharist, it seems I could go to mass there. But I was under the impression that it was not valid. Do you have any sources that could help me out?

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

mvinca:

I also have read items that support you comment in parenthesis, but I have read opposite items regarding a valid Eucharist. If it was a valid Eucharist, it seems I could go to mass there. But I was under the impression that it was not valid. Do you have any sources that could help me out?

You are wrong here. Many Churches have a valid Eucharist but you only fulfill your obligation by attending a Roman Catholic Church.

The only difference here is the fact that a Byzantine Catholic can fulfill his/her obligation at an Orthodox Divine Liturgy.

 

[Marauder]

I have a little knowledge on this topic because one of my parish priests was the first Chinese citizen ever to become a Catholic priest by going to a US seminary.

I have talked to him on several occasions about things we hear about in China.

Yes, some of the National churches in China have a valid Eucharist because some of the priests are secretly ordained by valid Bishops of the Catholic church. But you will never know which church is valid and which isn’t. It is better if you are going to China to just be dispensed of your Sunday obligation then attending the National Church.

You should also not seek out the underground churches. Not only due to the danger to the people in the church but believe it or not SOME of the underground churchs are being used as political tools instead of fostering religion. Some of the underground churches are being used as mechanisms to fight the government instead of just fostering religion. He said there are lots of problems in the underground church, including people “ordaining” people with very poor schooling, people that are way to young and other abuses.

He said the government tends to leave the underground churches that don’t profess going against the government alone, they tend to only go after the “trouble makers.”

 

[JNB]

mvinca:

I have to travel to China for a month for my business. As I understand it, the “Catholic” churches you can see from the street aren’t really Catholic at all, but more of a National Church. I understand there are many underground real Catholic churches that if the Chinese get caught at, they get fined, or eventually get put into jail.

While I am there, what would be the best action? I could not attend a mass at all, but that doesn’t seem right. The thing that seems the most right is to find an underground church to go to. There is risk in that, but that really isn’t my main concern. The biggest problem would be finding one because I don’t speak the language and certainly wouldn’t know who to ask.

Anyone have any unique ideas on what to do?

 The underground Catholic church in China has been very percecuted, and has been the case since 1949/50, when the govrenmnet of China managed to get valid Bishops to break away from Rome(Much like King Henry VIII did).  As other posters advised, do not seek out the Underground church, they can not afford to have attention drawn to them, and just a couple of months ago, the govrenmnet of China arrested a couple of Catholic Bishops.

Much like the SSPX, I believe the orders and conecrations of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church are valid, but in schism, the mass this schismatic group ises is the Tridentine mass(Though I believe ins in Chinese), as for going to it, here is an altarnative, just get a missal and read the missal on the day you are to go to mass.

 

[loyola_rambler]

My cousin and her husband spent 10 years in China (and he’s back there again, just without her this time). They both work for major corporations (Dow Chemical and GM) and when they were sent over there, both of their employers gave them very intense training on how to act while over there. Yes, it did include entire sections on religion. On top of very serious admonitions against proselytizing, they were very clear that religion is a very unwanted thing in China that’s only being tolerated because they need the western industrialization and trade.

While there, they did eventually seek out a couple of the underground churches…and they were never allowed to go. Anyone with Western features is under constant scrutiny. The locals do not want the attention that we’d bring by going into one of their underground churches.

Since you don’t speak the language, and since the priests at the “national” churches are in fact validly ordained and their masses are licit, don’t worry about the politicalization of them. You’re there for mass during the time that you’re there for work. I doubt that you’d be arrested just for attending a mass, but if you went to a “subversive meeting”, then you’d risk being expelled from the country, bringing disgrace to your employer and costing them great amounts of money, and you’d probably never be able to return again.

 

[Brendan]

mvinca:

I also have read items that support you comment in parenthesis, but I have read opposite items regarding a valid Eucharist. If it was a valid Eucharist, it seems I could go to mass there. But I was under the impression that it was not valid. Do you have any sources that could help me out?

I’ll check on sources.

But for a Eucharist to be Valid (a true Sacrament) it requires that the priest be ordained by a bishop with Apostolic Sucession to the Apostles, bread made of only wheat and water (leaven or unleaven) , wine made only grapes and the Intent by the priest to confect the Sacrament.

This is why the Orthodox have a Valid Eucharist, even though they are seperated from us.

Everything I read seems to indicate that the Chinese ‘Patriotic Catholic Church’ maintains priests ordained by bishops with an Apostolic Sucession, valid matter and intent.

That would make the Eucharist Valid, very much like the case of the Orthodox Churches.

 

[loyola_rambler]

You’ll find little (if anything) written by the RCC about the Church in China. They’re very adept politicians who know better than to comment on what scarce religious activity is allowed to exist. It’s just as repressive as Poland and other “Catholic” countries during the height of the Cold War. Only in this case, there aren’t gulags, there are death squads. If anything, the Pope is the most keenly aware world leader on this issue, having lived it himself for several decades. The difference here is that he’s safe in Rome and those in China are on the front lines of religious and political repression.

 

[otm]

ByzCath:

You are wrong here. Many Churches have a valid Eucharist but you only fulfill your obligation by attending a Roman Catholic Church.

The only difference here is the fact that a Byzantine Catholic can fulfill his/her obligation at an Orthodox Divine Liturgy.

Not correct. I can fulfil my obligation by attending Mass (or sacred Mysteries) in any church in union with Rome.

 

[loyola_rambler]

otm:

Not correct. I can fulfil my obligation by attending Mass (or sacred Mysteries) in any church in union with Rome.

According to both Cardinals Bernadin and George, you fulfill your obligation by attending mass in any church in communion with Rome. Because the mutual excommunications were lifted between the Church of Rome and the Orthodox sister churches, you fulfill your obligation when you attend their masses, too…even if they won’t give you Communion.

 

[David_B]

JNB:

Much like the SSPX, I believe the orders and conecrations of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church are valid, but in schism, the mass this schismatic group ises is the Tridentine mass(Though I believe ins in Chinese), as for going to it, here is an altarnative, just get a missal and read the missal on the day you are to go to mass.

Whoa, so you mean to say that the mass used by the Patriotic Association is just a vernacularized Tridentine? So do they follow the old calendar as well or do they follow the 1970 lectionary?

 

[Irish_Melkite]

OTM:

Not correct. I can fulfil my obligation by attending Mass (or sacred Mysteries) in any church in union with Rome.

OTM,

I believe David meant by RCC, those (including the Eastern and Oriental Catholic and Chaldean Catholic) Churches in communion with Rome.
loyola rambler:

According to both Cardinals Bernadin and George, you fulfill your obligation by attending mass in any church in communion with Rome. Because the mutual excommunications were lifted between the Church of Rome and the Orthodox sister churches, you fulfill your obligation when you attend their masses, too…even if they won’t give you Communion.

Loyola,

Despite the lifting of the mutual excommunications, the Orthodox are not in communion with Rome.

A Catholic who is unable to attend Mass or the Divine Liturgy is dispensed without recourse to clergy for a formal dispensation, as impossibility relieves one of the obligation.

Attendance by a Latin Catholic at the Divine Liturgy offered in a church of any of the Eastern or Oriental Orthodox Churches or the Assyrian (Ancient) Church of the East or at a Mass offered in a parish of the Polish National Catholic Church (the latter only in the US parishes of that body) is a laudable act in the presence of impossibility of attendance at a Catholic church, but does not fulfill any obligation for attendance, as that obligation is obviated by the impossibility to attend at a Catholic church, as already explained.

The reception of sacraments by a Latin Catholic in any of those Churches is a matter addressed by Canon Law.

Canon 844

§2 Whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, Christ’s faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a catholic minister, may lawfully receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid. .

As a practical matter, however, most clergy of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Assyrian Church will not afford the Holy Mysteries to a Catholic (a few will make an exception in extremis, i.e., a Catholic who is dying or in immediate danger of death). Priests of the PNCC will generally commune a Catholic or administer either of the other Sacraments.

As David suggested, there are separate circumstances applicable in the case of Eastern, Oriental, and Chaldean Catholics as regards attendance at the Divine Liturgy in the Churches which are the counterparts/Sisters to their own, although they will ordinarily be barred from the Holy Mysteries as well.

An exception to that bar lies in specific pastoral provisions enacted between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Churches (and between the Melkite Catholic and Antiochian Orthodox Churches only in the Middle East) to accomodate circumstances in which the faithful of either Church are without the services of their own clergy. The scope of those is beyond the purpose of this thread. If anyone needs or wants added info on those, click on my nick and then on “View all posts by Irish Melkite” - I posted at length regarding this matter on a thread within the past week and it should be easy to find.

Many years,

Neil

 

[JGC]

mvinca:

I have to travel to China for a month for my business. As I understand it, the “Catholic” churches you can see from the street aren’t really Catholic at all, but more of a National Church. I understand there are many underground real Catholic churches that if the Chinese get caught at, they get fined, or eventually get put into jail.

While I am there, what would be the best action? I could not attend a mass at all, but that doesn’t seem right. The thing that seems the most right is to find an underground church to go to. There is risk in that, but that really isn’t my main concern. The biggest problem would be finding one because I don’t speak the language and certainly wouldn’t know who to ask.

Anyone have any unique ideas on what to do?

Also you have posted a question here and included quite a lot of info on your personal profile. If the Chinese came across this message (and all governments monitor the internet) I think you would be monitored pretty closely, if they let you in at all, after reading this…