Special
Report: China
Chinese Catholics seek identity, role in turbulent times
By THOMAS C. FOX
In Chinese church after Chinese
church I searched in vain for an Asian Jesus. What I found were Western icons,
Caucasian faces. This was symbolic, I soon realized, of bigger paradoxes.
Nothing in China was quite as it appeared to Western eyes.
On a warm November Sunday in Beijing, our group stepped into its
first such incongruity: Immaculate Conception Cathedral, locally called South
Church. Beyond a tree-studded courtyard we found not the Chinese architecture
we might have expected but a neo-Gothic stone structure. It was, appropriately,
the feast of All Saints, a further reminder of how bound together Catholics of
all times and places are.
At 10 minutes before the hour, the church was already packed. This
is one of only five Catholic churches in Beijing; 14 serve the dioceses
40,000 Catholics. I estimated about 800 in the pews and aisles. From the rear,
it looked like a sea of bobbing black and gray heads. The congregation was
chanting in a monosyllabic, high-pitched tone. Most were kneeling, many with
rosaries in their hands.
The paradox surrounded us on all sides. My eyes drifted up to
portraits of European saints on the walls. Western icons are preferred by these
Eastern Catholics, especially the older ones. The Western version of their
faith is what they grew up with, clung to in the harshest of times when their
priests were imprisoned or sent to labor camps, when their churches were
closed, when they had nothing to cling to except, perhaps, an old holy picture
or medal when they prayed late at night in their homes.
Our study tour was sponsored by the U.S. Catholic China Bureau,
whose mission is to raise awareness among American Catholics about the church
in China. Our group had 15 members, including my wife, Hoa, and myself. We had
a lot to learn. Theresa Yeung, who had joined us in Hong Kong, added another
wrinkle to the paradox. Were Eastern icons introduced into Chinas
churches today, she explained, most older Catholics would reject them,
presuming the move was made under government duress.
Beijing has allowed more room for religious expression in recent
years but still wants Chinese Catholics to be cut off from the universal
church, especially from the pope. Chinese bishops are not supposed to have
contact with Rome. The price of breaking the law in this regard could be
severe, not only for the bishop but for his people.
Thus, for these South Church Catholics, the Jesus and saints of
Europe are, deep down, not only familiar but protectors of sorts -- even, one
might imagine, subtle faces of resistance.
In yet another cultural twist, I was told that Eastern icons
almost certainly will be introduced in the years ahead because young Chinese
artists are now studying in the United States and will presumably return eager
to create authentic Chinese art.
That Eastern students should go West to inculturate Asia might
sound ironic, but it was only a ripple in that sea of contradictions that is
China. Another ripple is that China, so long isolationist and xenophobic, is
now looking outward for help. And yet another is that the Chinese really do
respect Western development ideas. After only hours in Beijing, I was
discarding some old preconceptions.
For more than two weeks, as we crossed China from Beijing in the
north through Xian in the center to Guilin in the south, and back to
Nanjing and Shanghai along the coast, I tried to keep an open mind. I also
continued my search for an Eastern Jesus.
Never did I find one until the day before we departed. In the
residence of Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian of Shanghai I spotted a tapestry into
which was woven an Eastern Madonna and Child. But most Catholics
dont like it, an aide to Jin told us. By then we
understood.
Familiar liturgy
We had arrived at South Church during the final minutes of a
benediction service. Several priests were at the altar. One held a monstrance
as he formed the sign of the cross, a gesture many of us grew up with but have
seldom experienced in the post-Vatican II church. Incense filled the cathedral.
At the back were several old priests who seemed to be in their 80s. One had
been hearing confessions, sitting behind a wooden board.
There was a striking division between young and old worshipers,
under 30 or over 60.
The chief celebrant was Bishop Michael Fu Tieshan of Beijing. The
liturgy followed Vatican II norms. Yet I was surprised to see women lectors who
approached the altar wearing white surplices over red cassocks. Despite the
many rosaries, some worshipers followed along. The choir sang enthusiastically,
led by an animated young priest in his late 20s, dressed in black suit and
Roman collar. Later, this priest handed me his card: Fr. Francis Xavier
Zhang, bishops secretary for overseas friendship. His face at times
looked almost sublime as he led his choir.
Before Communion, a mitered Bishop Fu conferred the minor orders
of lector and acolyte on no fewer than 21 young seminarians, all in their early
20s.
Though the liturgy was familiar, the words were foreign -- until
Holy Communion when the choir embarked on Amazing Grace. After
several verses in Chinese, Zhang sang a solo verse in English, his way of
welcoming us. Several in our group later described how moved they were. Through
liturgy, some Eastern and Western souls had touched. It would not be the last
time.
Relationships a priority
After Mass, we were invited to meet Bishop Fu at the first of many
receptions with bishops, priests and lay leaders. All followed a similar
format. We sat on chairs arranged in a rectangle and facing inward. Small
tables formed another, inner square. The head of our delegation,
usually Maryknoll Sr. Janet Carroll, the China Bureaus executive director
and organizer of the trip, would sit up front next to our host. Aides would
then appear and fill small cups or glasses with tea. They placed dishes of
fruits, usually bananas or tangerines, on the tables and invited us to drink
and eat.
The host would speak, then answer questions. Such sessions were
always cordial and not very informative. Not that the Chinese are evasive, but
rituals are obligatory and build relationships, a Chinese priority.
We met privately with various Catholic leaders but soon understood
these were public events. Our hosts allowed plenty of so-called
aides to sit in. Among these, we learned, were some who could
report suspicious activities to government officials. What better way to avoid
suspicion than to open meetings to informants?
Church and government in China have ritualized their own ties. The
forced marriage pleases neither, but neither can opt out. How these forces get
along depends a lot on local circumstance, and this in turn on local
personalities. Catholics in the South and some of the northeast provinces
experience more freedom than others closer to Beijing.
Rules can be broken or bent if you know the right people. Some
call it corruption; others call it the Asian way. As one source explained it:
If both parties agree, then laws can be overlooked. Theres a kind
of I know you know I know attitude, but lets agree not to talk about
it, said Carroll.
Terror no more
This Chinese approach has led some priests with a pastoral focus
to decide they get more of what they want if they compromise and try to get
along. Meanwhile, it has been precisely the willingness to compromise and work
within the system that has offended other Catholics who strenuously hold that
to compromise on matters of religion is to sell your soul.
In China, the gulf between Catholic pragmatists and Catholic
idealists is virtually unbridgeable.
Many Chinese, including Catholics, agreed they have greater
freedom of expression than they did a decade or more ago. As one young man
sarcastically put it, China has moved from being a totalitarian nation to being
an authoritarian one. Yet he agreed this is a substantial step forward. On the
surface, Catholics worship freely. But appearances are deceptive. Churches
operate with many restrictions. No foreign missionaries are allowed. Catholics
must register and are ineligible for Communist Party membership (meaning social
advancement). Churches are built only with government approval. No private
Catholic schools are allowed. No official contact with the Vatican is
allowed.
Life may not be easy, but it lacks the stark terror Catholics
experienced in the 1960s and 70s when bishops, nuns, priests and lay
leaders were imprisoned or ridiculed or both. Today, Catholic leaders can still
be arrested for breaking the rules, but detainment, not long-term imprisonment,
is more often the punishment.
Bishop Fu, a typically tall Northern Chinese, has been the focus
of much controversy. Consecrated bishop of Beijing in 1979, he is also chairman
of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which links the government and
church. Fu is viewed as a politician, which hurts his image in the eyes of some
Catholics. During the Cultural Revolution, Fu came under heavy attack as did
other priests. And, like other priests at the time, it is said he compromised
by getting married. Years later, this cloud still hangs over his head. Chinese
Catholics never warmed to the marriages, forced or not, of their priests. The
marriages, it turns out, were a cunning communist ploy that divided Catholics
and left them dispirited.
Rebirth in 1979
Fu was friendly to us and searched for ways to reach out. He
recalled visiting Maryknolls New York headquarters many years ago. We
wanted to connect as well. Sister of St. Joseph Catherine McNamee recalled
visiting China in 1981 as a member of the first U.S. Catholic college
presidents delegation to China. Back then, only a few people gathered in
the church on a Sunday morning, the Mass then was still in Latin, the priest
kept his back to the people and worshipers were all elderly.
The bishop offered statistics pointing to the fact that the
Chinese church is alive and growing. There are now 115 dioceses. In the past 20
years, the church has welcomed 1,056 new priests and 3,000 new nuns.
Catholicism in China has kept pace with population growth, a remarkable thing
in a church that has been oppressed for the past half century. Several sources
placed the total number of Catholics in China at somewhere between 10 and 12
million, or about three times more than when the communists gained control in
1949. Protestant figures were usually slightly higher, meaning that
approximately 1 percent of China is Christian today.
But Catholic growth brings many new challenges. At the top of
their list of priorities, Fu and others put better formation of priests and
nuns.
For more than 30 years the church saw no new ordinations. Only in
1979 was Catholicism allowed to revive itself. So, with virtually no priests or
nuns between ages 30 and 70, healthy religious formation in seminaries and
convents has become the highest priority.
Throughout our 17-day visit, we sought out young seminarians and
candidates for religious life. We found them eager to serve the church. They
studied in buildings that can at best be described as rudimentary. They have
access to few books, get by on little food, live in crowded dormitories with
little or no hot water. But they are always enthusiastic.
We never found out why they were choosing to be priests and
religious. But we sensed a burning desire to belong to community and to
something larger. We heard much talk in post-Marxist China about the search for
meaning among the young.
In each seminary our group was welcomed warmly. We saw in these
young Catholics a longing to be tied to the universal church. Making
connections became critically important to us, too.
Generation gap
Because our group spoke little Chinese and they spoke little
English, we connected at times by singing hymns in Latin. The Salve
Regina and Pater Noster served this purpose well.
We witnessed their meager libraries containing many of the
Catholic books from the 1950s and 1960s, throwaways back home but sacred
treasures in China. Chinese Catholicism, I concluded at one point, will enter
the future more by the power of faith than theology. But will this be
enough?
There is no shortage of candidates for the priesthood in China.
Local, regional and national seminaries are full. One of our group, Fr. Michael
Farano, director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Albany,
exclaimed as he walked into a packed seminary hall in Xian: I
havent seen this many seminarians in one place since I was 17 years
old.
But the problem is inadequate religious formation. The vice rector
in charge of the Shanghai seminary is a 28-year-old priest.
Officially, there are some 1,600 seminarians and 1,500 women in
various stages of formation in China today. But this does not take account of
those seeking religious paths outside official, government-sponsored
institutions. We heard that the underground church is training
another 800 seminarians and 1,000 young women for religious communities.
The National Seminary in Beijing houses 44 students. We were met
at the front gate by Bishop Joseph Liu Yuanren, an unassuming man dressed in an
old gray suit and open collar. He was recently elected president of the Chinese
Bishops Conference, a leader who may not have been the bishops own
choice but was acceptable to the Beijing government. He gave us a tour and told
us 1,070 new priests have been ordained for the open, or official, church since
1982. This included, he noted proudly, more than 80 from the National
Seminary.
The age of Chinese church leaders is a concern. Generally over 80
and a declining minority, elderly bishops still set policy. Their passing will
cause radical changes, lowering the leadership age by some 30 to 40 years.
Generation gaps are difficult enough, but a two-generation jump will have
monumental consequences. When a younger generation of church leaders comes to
power sometime soon, Catholicism will spring forward with a vengeance into some
unprecedented future.
The national seminary is a single cement building. Unlike other
seminaries, it is located inside the city. It looked like a run-down boarding
school. Liu eagerly unveiled for us a miniature model of the new national
seminary to be built in the next five years with government and foreign funds.
Catholic seminaries, like other schools, receive modest government stipends for
each student. Given the modest means of most Chinese Catholics, any substantial
building in the near future will require foreign assistance.
To upgrade the education standards, Chinas bishops have been
sending seminarians abroad: some to Australia, Hong Kong and the Philippines,
others to Europe and 50 to the United States since 1992. About half of those
who studied abroad have already returned to China.
However, transitions have not been easy. We heard stories of some
who returned with fresh ideas only to be shut out by their bishops -- and
sometimes even by their peers. Try again in 10 more years, one
bishop told a returning student. By that time I will be dead.
Good potential leaders appear caught in limbo. We heard stories of
stellar leadership candidates, who, after studying abroad and being rejected
back home, simply jumped ship. More care needs to be given to the difficulties
of crossing cultures. Going overseas for training -- which many Chinese church
observers support -- has slowed to a trickle. The passport application process
has tightened up. The United States, meanwhile, has cracked down on admitting
Chinese, fearing they will not go home.
Formation challenge
There is an enormous shortage of books on contemporary theology
and liturgy. Nevertheless, channels are slowly opening. Many Chinese educators
told us that they can now receive such books from overseas and are eager to do
so. Meanwhile, without copying machines, seminary chalk boards take on great
importance.
It was getting dark when we finished our visit to the National
Seminary. Liu walked us down a narrow street to a nearby restaurant where we
dined and he answered questions. Many seminarians are coming from rural areas,
he said, and lack proper study habits. To combat this, he planned to borrow
disciplinary ideas from the Chinese army.
We came away with positive impressions of the students, who were
prayerful and attentive. A Chinese Catholic woman who has studied in the United
States said that seminarians are generally sensitive young men but once they
become priests they become demanding and autocratic. Hierarchy and status are
alive in China.
The Chinese government forbids Catholic schools. It does, however,
encourage medical and social work. Growing numbers of young Catholic nuns are
responding, providing one of the more hopeful initiatives in government and
church cooperation. Catholic evangelization, meanwhile, is usually forbidden
outside parishes. Foreign proselytizing is strictly outlawed. Religious
training takes place only inside the church. All this has limited the roles
many women religious play. Some have complained that simply doing housework for
the clergy is not enough.
In Shanghai, perhaps the most progressive diocese, women religious
are diocesan administrators. In other locations, they do pastoral and medical
work.
Women interested in religious life begin with a lengthy period of
candidacy during which their religious and education backgrounds are assessed.
Their first temporary vows follow a two-year novitiate. These vows are renewed
annually for five consecutive years before final vows.
Asia was not new to me. I lived there in the 1960s, married there
in the 1970s, went back to visit in the 1980s -- but had never visited mainland
China. For my Vietnamese wife, Hoa, the trip had an added significance. Every
young Vietnamese learns that Chinese soldiers occupied Vietnam for a thousand
years, that two courageous women, the Trung sisters, led an insurrection to
drive them out. Each time the Chinese returned, other Vietnamese would again
drive them out. This pattern of occupation and resistance molded the Vietnamese
psyche and formed its nationalism. Had U.S. policymakers paid attention to
culture, the Vietnam War could have been avoided.
I decided to pay special attention to both history and culture.
For Hoa, meanwhile, the experience would mean facing her old enemy
up close. It turned out that the exposure not only helped her to shed old
stereotypes but also allowed her to see the neighbors of the nation of her
birth anew, through the lens of faith, as another part of the family of God. We
were all to benefit.
China tells a 5,000-year-old story. In every city we saw monuments
and artifacts hundreds or often thousands of years old. The Great Wall was
built 220 years before Christ. We walked through the Heavenly Temple and the
Forbidden City in Beijing where emperors offered prayers to the God of Heaven
for centuries. We went to the tombs of 17th-century Catholic missionaries, saw
Christian crosses etched on Nestorian tablets 1,300 years old. Each day our awe
grew.
Meanwhile, we began to come alive as a temporary small faith
community, adjusting to and enjoying each other. Even in such a small group
differences surfaced, especially with regard to feminist and clerical issues.
Occasionally at days end we crowded into a hotel room to share thoughts
and the Eucharist. Such Masses had a catacomb feel to them. The theme
standing on holy ground emerged as group members sensed the
awesomeness of history and the persistence, even unto death, of Christian
commitment. This was no longer casual tourism; it had become a faith
journey.
Unparalleled upheavals
China has endured unparalleled upheavals throughout the 20th
century: the end of imperial rule, the founding of a republic, civil war,
occupation, colonial resistance, communism, Cultural Revolution and, most
recently, a state-directed capitalist economy. Older Chinese have lived through
almost continual change. They have regularly experienced famine and terror. To
a younger Chinese, it means that nothing is permanent.
I tried to read and learn as much as I could. I began to
understand the significance of traditional Confucian thought and its
hierarchical world-view. Emperors ruled with absolute authority for thousands
of years. China has little or no experience of political or social pluralism.
The emperors will was always law.
Soon I wondered what, if anything, had changed. Today the Beijing
government controls newspapers, television, the economy, even family life with
the governments one-child-per-couple rule. As wide as the United States,
China has one time zone, Beijing time. On the surface, people have the right to
do as they please. As long as they dont buck authority.
It is government policy to welcome foreigners. Everywhere we went,
people were cordial. Foreigners are seldom the victims of petty or violent
crimes.
I found my anger toward Chinese government officials growing
simultaneously with my respect for them. On the one hand, they insisted on
controlling every aspect of Chinese life; on the other, they showed great pride
in providing for their people, especially economic opportunities and social
stability. At times, I viewed Beijings leaders as heavy-handed thugs
without care for human rights. At other times I had to acknowledge their
post-colonial pride, built upon a rejection of 19th-century human rights abuses
committed by Westerners.
The Chinese are still emerging from colonialism. Hong Kong was
returned a little more than a year ago; Macao will come under Chinese control
this year.
Suffering people
Each day brought its share of stories, often of unimaginable
suffering. Chinese Catholics seldom freely volunteered to speak about their
pain, and we always felt ambivalent about invading this privacy. We never heard
bitterness about the past, only talk of the day. Maybe thats what it
takes to maintain hope.
Places as well as people spoke to us. Beijings South Church
is a fascinating example. It traces its origins to a chapel built in 1605 by
Matteo Ricci, the esteemed Italian Jesuit missioner. In 1610 the chapel was
replaced by a church and became known as the Hall of the Lord of Heaven. Smart
missionaries had sought favor with the court. The church compound housed a
conservatory and library, temptations to be placed before the royal family.
In 1775, two earthquakes and a fire destroyed the church, but an
emperor donated 20,000 pieces of silver to have it rebuilt. In 1900, the church
was burned to the ground during the Boxer Rebellion, a peasant-led revolt
against foreigners. In 1904, it was rebuilt again, only to be closed in
purifications during the Cultural Revolution, when it became a shoe
factory. Reopened as a church for foreigners and local diplomats in 1971, it
became a place of worship for local Chinese in 1979.
The ebb and flow of fear and fortune in Chinese history contain
their own lessons. The very stones of South Church speak of Chinas
precarious social order. Over the centuries the stability of Christian life,
like all else in China, has depended on the will of the emperor of
the moment. Today that emperor is Beijing.
The longer we were there, the more I became aware of the sad
internal divisions that plague Chinas Catholics.
Divided Catholicism
A 1997 white paper is the most recent official government
statement on religion. Many critics dismissed the paper as propaganda but
admitted it revealed insights into government thinking. Not surprisingly, the
paper reaffirmed religious freedom. It also dredged up old accusations that
Christian missionaries collaborated with imperialist forces throughout the 19th
and 20th centuries. While in many instances this charge is true, it is also a
simplification used by Chinese authorities to justify keeping Catholics cut off
from the universal church.
Thus the paper spoke glowingly of the independent autonomous
self-management of todays church, meaning the official church. By
self-management it referred to the fact that since April 13, 1958,
Chinese bishops have been appointed without Vatican approval.
To understand Chinese Catholicisms divisions, one needs to
recall the early 1950s when the Communist Party solidified its control by
aligning itself with majorities within groups while singling out isolated
enemies in their midst. After purging a principal enemy
it would find a new principal enemy. In the Catholic church
context, the communists at first attacked foreign bishops and missionaries,
then unpatriotic Chinese bishops and priests, and finally lay
leaders. With each move, it further divided Catholics and sowed greater
suspicion.
The approach worked brilliantly, soon forging two camps: those who
accommodated with the regime and those who refused. The former began to operate
as the official, government-sanctioned church; the latter went underground.
This policy of divide and conquer found as a vehicle the
three-self movement, which began in 1950 when a Chinese priest
published a declaration in which he proposed a total break with all
imperialistic powers and a church that would be self-administering,
self-supporting and self-propagating.
This, in turn, gave birth to the Three-self Patriotic
Movement and led to the formation, in 1957, of the Chinese Catholic
Patriotic Association. It would be the governing vehicle for the official
church in the decades that followed. The communists had succeeded in turning
Catholic against Catholic. In a brutal twist, even those Catholics who chose to
cooperate with the government in the 1950s eventually ended up in
prison and labor camps in the 1960s during a second wave of oppression in the
Cultural Revolution.
I concluded at one point that the decades-long feud among
Chinas Catholics is between those who spent 10 years in prison for their
faith and those who spent 20 years in prison for the same faith.
China was completely closed to outside contact during the 1950s
and 60s. The mid-1960s were especially crucial, when the worlds
bishops met in Rome for the Second Vatican Council. Anthony S.K. Lam, executive
secretary of the Holy Spirit Study Center in Hong Kong, points out that while
the bishops in Rome were developing the theology of the local church during the
council, Chinese Catholics were already implementing it, that is, learning to
live entirely on their local resources.
After a decade of horror and the death of Mao, Catholicism in
China began to rise from the ashes. To many it looked like the old church, but
it had been purified, Lam writes, emerging from the fires of persecution
and very conscious of its own identity.
During the 1980s and 90s, the severity of punishment for
unpatriotic behavior significantly diminished. But many Catholics
-- some say up to half -- continue to worship clandestinely in their homes
rather than cooperate with so-called government collaborators. Many
underground Catholics continue to be harassed by government authorities. Some
still go to jail for practicing their faith.
Beijing maintains it would be willing to improve relations with
the Vatican, reiterating two preconditions: that Rome sever ties with Taiwan
and not interfere in Chinas internal affairs. It holds that any Vatican
appointment of Catholic bishops constitutes meddling. Vatican defenders reply
that such appointments are a religious, not a political, matter. These critics
argue that Rome has diplomatic relations with more than 100 countries, and none
regards papal appointments as interference in a nations internal
affairs.
China regards the pope as the head of the Vatican state before
being a religious leader. So it has stressed the need to resolve Sino-Vatican
diplomatic relations before entering into further negotiations on the
Sino-Vatican church relationship. The Vatican, however, places religious
relations first.
We encountered hundreds of Catholics, a half dozen bishops,
various aides and other well-informed Chinese, and others. While our formal
contacts were limited to the open church, we also spoke to Catholics with ties
to the underground church.
Most foreigners, constrained by the circumstances in China today,
gain only secondhand knowledge of church conditions. Its tangled web was
brought home to me during the Asian synod in Rome last April. Greater
China was represented by six bishops, including Bishop John Tong of Hong
Kong; other prelates were from Taiwan and Macao; mainland Chinese bishops were
notably missing. So Pope John Paul issued an invitation to then 90-year-old
Bishop Duan Yinming of Wanxian diocese in China and his coadjutor Bishop Joseph
Xu Zhixuan. Within days Beijing denied the men permission to travel to Rome,
citing lack of diplomatic relations. The Duan invitation was viewed
as a smart diplomatic move because the ailing bishop had been appointed by Pope
Pius XII and has worked as part of the official church.
In a Rome talk Tong explained how Chinas Catholics became so
divided. It is first necessary, he said, to understand the national patriotic
sentiment that brought the communists to power on Oct. 1, 1949. The
Chinese people have finally stood up! Tong quoted Mao Zedong saying that
day. Everything foreign was quickly purged -- and in 1949 foreign bishops were
still in charge of 120 of 140 existing dioceses or apostolic prefectures. Tong
praised the work of missionaries in China but said they had been
remiss in not turning more of the leadership over to local Chinese
before the communist takeover. It was a costly mistake for the church.
Illicit ordinations
He spoke of the formation of the government-approved Chinese
Catholic Patriotic Association in 1957, the first illicit ordinations of two
Chinese bishops without Romes approval in 1958, 52 such ordinations in
all by 1962. He called these good and intelligent men, said some
were forced to marry under political pressure but that their marriages were
never accepted by Chinese Catholics.
He spoke of the unfathomable hardships of the Cultural Revolution
between 1966 and 1976 and how virtually all Catholic leaders, members of the
open church included, ended up in prison camps. (It is estimated that some 30
million Chinese died as a result of the great leap forward.) Tong
spoke about the new beginnings in the late 1970s and the subsequent elevation
of 81 more priests to the rank of bishop without Romes approval. One of
these was Bishop Fu, consecrated bishop of Beijing in 1979. These new bishops,
Tong said, were motivated by pastoral concern. We must affirm, he
insisted, that their problems are not matters of faith, but rather of law.
Tong spoke of the underground church and how its bishops began
consecrating more bishops who recognized Rome. Bishop Fan Xueyan of Baoding
diocese, who died in 1992, consecrated three bishops as soon as he was released
from prison following the Cultural Revolution. Only afterward did he tell Rome.
The pope in turn legitimated Fan Xueyans appointments and granted them
special faculties to consecrate successors as well. They were also given
authority to ordain priests as bishops in neighboring dioceses when the need
arose.
Tong said these actions led to the indiscriminate ordination of
underground bishops. Today there are as many as 50 bishops who have been
consecrated secretly. Some dioceses have as many as three bishop ordinaries.
Tong called these men of strong faith, adding that many have
not received adequate training.
Underground bishops have established their own seminaries,
sometimes meeting in rural homes. In 1990, when a rumor circulated that the
Vatican was on the verge of establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing,
Tong said, some underground bishops, fearing that they would be overlooked,
called a secret meeting to set up their own episcopal conference. The open
church had set up its episcopal conference in 1980. So now there are two.
Although underground Catholics remain faithful and loyal, Tong
added, their isolation has fostered a closed mentality where rumors
flourish and misinformation leads to further divisions and separations.
The hardening of conflicting positions results in serious obstacles to
eventual unity within the whole church, he said.
Many Catholics in the underground church, Tong noted, play a
prophetic role by refusing to participate in a government-sanctioned
organization. They challenge government policy regarding human rights and
religious freedom from a Catholic standpoint. At the same time, many Catholics
in the official church play a more priestly role, working within the system to
minister to the spiritual and sacramental needs of Catholics.
Please dont take
sides
Tong was evenhanded and referred to the situation as
complex. In some locations, bishops in the open and underground
churches have reconciled and now cooperate. In others, bitterness and rivalry
are the norm. Most underground priests refuse to set foot in the open churches,
yet are often protected, fed and clothed by members of these churches. When
asked what outsiders might do to help, Tong recommended, Pray for
us. We heard the same response to the same question wherever we went in
China. The answer had as its implication Please dont take sides or
you will make matters worse.
I learned of priests and lay leaders in the underground church who
have continued to resist and have continued to be arrested, especially in rural
areas. Churches built without government approval remain potential targets. In
many areas, to avoid police detection, Catholics gather for Mass in private
homes. Every few months reports surface of harassment and arrest of such
Catholics.
In March 1998, for example, Amnesty International reported that
about 200 Catholics were detained in the eastern province of Jian Xi for up to
three months in late 1997. A frequent chronicler of church persecution is the
U.S.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation, which has contacts with the underground
church, especially in the Shanghai region.
While any religious harassment is outrageous, there is irony in
the Catholic situation. Some in the underground church, acting out of loyalty
to the pope, appear to let personal fervor blind them to repeated papal pleas
for reconciliation. This unwillingness to follow the popes lead
reportedly has been justified with statements such as the Holy Father
simply does not understand.
Meanwhile, adding to the irony, by far the greater majority of
bishops in the official church, those bishops who were appointed without
Romes permission, have quietly been reconciled with Rome. These
ordinations are now considered both valid and licit.
For its part, Beijing has softened its stance in recent years. In
February 1989 it began permitting Chinese Catholics to acknowledge the pope as
their spiritual leader. So Chinese Catholics now pray for him at Mass. In
Shanghai, a prayer for the Holy Father after Mass lasted several minutes. Yet
Catholic bishops cannot have any official dealings with the Vatican.
In August 1997, Archbishop Claudio Celli, the papal delegate who
handles relations between the Holy See and the Chinese government, passed
through Beijing, according to Tong, holding brief discussions with the Chinese
Foreign Ministry about allowing local appointments of bishops -- provided the
pope had the final say. Apparently, the idea was not rejected outright.
Maos shadow
There is no commercial center in Beijing, at least none I could
find on my tourist map. The capital city seems to have spread over the years, a
bit like Greater Los Angeles. Beijing, on the other hand, has a very distinct
cultural center, the Forbidden City. It was built along a north-south axis.
Directly south of the Forbidden City is Tiananmen Square, said to be the
largest plaza in the world, capable of holding 500,000, albeit very tightly.
The familiar color portrait of Mao hangs over the plaza and is cut off from it
by the broad Avenue of Eternal Peace. I had seen images of Tiananmen Square in
news photographs and on television for years, but was nevertheless unprepared
for the enormity of it all. The Great Hall of the People, which sits at the
southern end of Tiananmen Square, has become the new power center of China. Its
proximity to the Forbidden City did not seem to me to be an accident.
The Temple of Heaven, south of the Forbidden City, sits in a huge
park and looks like a massive stone stage with a gigantic imperial altar. The
afternoon we visited, it had no feeling of the sacred. This was
Chuppie territory now, our guide explained. Chuppies are Chinese
yuppies, the guide went on, with cell phones, electronic notebooks and cars.
They speak colloquial American English. Chuppism appears to dwarf most
religious instincts, at least on the surface, among the young in China.
At the same time, old ways seem to linger within and shape much of
the Chinese psyche, which seeks harmony and stability. Four centuries back,
missionaries to China understood this and attempted to baptize the
nation by moving Catholic belief into the higher reaches of the Confucian
hierarchy, the royal court.
Former Maryknoller and sociologist Richard Madsen tells the story
in his book, Chinas Catholics (University of California Press). He
points out that while there had been two earlier waves of missionary activity
-- the first in the seventh century, when Nestorian Christians came to the
western frontier, and the second in the 13th century, when Franciscans entered
China -- the late 16th-century wave was by far the most important. It was then
that Italian Jesuits, led by Matteo Ricci, gained influence with the political
and intellectual elites of the Ming dynasty. They did this precisely by
accommodating Catholic teaching to the ideology of state Confucianism.
In effect, they said Catholicism was consistent with ritual
practices that linked family hierarchy to the hierarchical order centered upon
the emperor, the Son of Heaven. Thus, Catholic hierarchy could be seen as
intertwined with and reinforcing the imperial hierarchy. This turned out to be
a high road to conversion. In the Forbidden City we saw a clock Ricci had given
a Ming emperor. We also saw an astronomical observatory that early Jesuits
built in Beijing.
Ricci, we were told, once said, To win the Chinese, bring
mathematicians and astronomers -- and forget the theologians. I asked Sr.
Carroll and Teresa Yeung, a Chinese Catholic from Hong Kong, If math and
astronomy -- not theology -- were the keys to winning China then, what is the
key today? Both answered: Serving the people.
Catholicism in China today, Carroll continued, more by
circumstance than choice, is still a sanctuary church, meaning it
is preoccupied with the survival and pastoral care of the local parish.
It is not yet a prophetic church, she went on. For the most
part there is not much emphasis on the social gospel.
The early Jesuits were fabulously successful in making inroads
into the imperial court. But it was not to last.
The success of the Jesuits soon drew other religious orders to
China, including Dominicans in 1631 and Franciscans in 1633. The new
missionaries, fresh from Europe, looked with suspicion on the practices of the
Jesuits. They thought the Jesuits had been in China so long they had lost touch
with the one true faith. This eventually led to jealousy and the Chinese
rites controversy, which centered on three issues: the Chinese name for
God, ancestor worship and honor paid to Confucius.
For nearly 50 years the Jesuits defended their positions until, in
1709, Pope Clement XI officially condemned the Jesuits efforts. It was a
fatal mistake. Persecutions almost immediately broke out, and for the next 100
years Christianity was viewed as a hostile and alien force. It took centuries
for the church to admit its mistake. Only in 1939 did Pius XII finally rescind
the decision, but by then the window of opportunity had long been closed.
One noted China historian, G. Thompson Brown, has written that
if the Jesuits would have been left to themselves, the Christian mission
in China would have continued its remarkable growth with the possibility that
China would have become a Roman Catholic nation.
Two hours south of Xian by jet is the beautiful and restful
city of Guilin in southern China where we visited the tiny church of St.
Thérèse of Lisieux -- now really a temporary chapel since the
roof caved in two years ago. We arrived a day before local Catholics would
gather to dedicate a cornerstone for a new church. It was a proud moment. A
young layman insisted we examine blueprints. We also watched as several
laborers, digging with shovels, cleared rubble from where the new church would
be built.
Looking into the future
These were Catholics of modest means but immodest ambitions.
Although it is no longer unusual for Catholic churches to open or reopen in
China -- we were told 6,000 churches have been built or restored in the past 10
years with government permission -- we also heard of newly constructed churches
torn down because they had been built without permission. Securing permits can
consume a lot of time and energy in China.
Catholics told us authorities had actually requested a larger
church for downtown Guilin. They thought it would help the citys booming
tourist trade being built around boat cruises down the spectacular Li river.
Catholics rejected that plan, however, choosing to build near the site of their
former church. Funds are coming mostly from Germany.
Bishop Benedict Cai, 81, arrived by bus for the dedication
ceremony after an eight-hour trip. Cai, who could scarcely have weighed more
than 100 pounds, was all smiles as he greeted us. The church project is a
testimony to cooperation and sheer determination. It will be built one brick at
a time, on a foundation of sheer faith like churches of old.
But can the spirit hold out against consumerism, especially when
consumer instincts, so long repressed, are now exposed to so many
blandishments? Many of the young, we heard, are falling into the traps of
rampant materialism. Perhaps this is understandable: This is the first
generation to have spending money. Dazzling new economic
opportunities have been opened up by an average 10 percent growth rate. These
sudden changes have also forced many young people to ask questions about the
meaning of it all.
Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian of Shanghai has been outspoken on the
subject. He has called consumerism the greatest threat to the Chinese soul.
We feel very weak and powerless against the tide of modernization that
brings a lot of products, including corruption, idolatry of money and spiritual
vacuum.
His is not an isolated concern. We also heard that many young
Chinese are showing renewed interest in religion. The most common reason
offered is that it fills a void left by discredited Marxist theory.
Shanghai, the last stop of our trip, has one of Chinas best
organized and wealthiest dioceses with more than 80 churches and large real
estate holdings it has owned for a century. Shanghai is led by Bishop Jin, a
Jesuit, considered one of Chinas most educated bishops.
The Shanghai diocese runs a major and a minor seminary, a convent,
a publishing house and a press. The printing press, run by nuns, is limited by
law and tax regulation in what it can publish. Its focus is attempting to
inculturate Chinese thought into Catholic prayer and spirituality. The actual
printing press -- mainland Chinas largest Catholic printing press -- is
the result of fund-raising efforts, mostly in Europe, with the help of
Maryknoll Fr. Ron Saucci and others.
We visited a Shanghai convent where the novice mistress could
scarcely be past her 30th birthday.
We also saw Chinas first -- and only -- retreat house, the
Guangqi Spirituality Center, which opened last April. The three-story building,
managed by nuns of the Shanghai diocese, has 51 double-occupancy rooms, a
chapel dedicated to St. Ignatius, prayer rooms, conference rooms and a garden.
It is being used to provide much needed meeting space for Catholic
gatherings.
Jesuits in Europe donated one-third of the $1.2 million needed to
build the retreat compound. Other foreigners, mostly Europeans, covered the
rest. Two bronze plaques of donor names indicated a greater willingness among
Europeans, including key members of the hierarchy, to fund China church
projects. We were told that U.S. bishops have resisted assisting Chinas
Catholics because the official churchs bishops conference is not
recognized by Rome.
On the last day of our trip, a local Catholic woman who spoke
English handed me a note to better explain herself. It said: Chinese
Catholics are faithful to God, to the universal church and to the pope. ... We
are one church, although we are separated in two parts. We aim toward a goal,
which is to bring us to reconciliation and unity. ... We confess that we are
loyal to the pope; we are members of the whole universal church.
She was not the only person that day to stress the theme of unity.
It arose again at our final Mass in China, in Christ the King Church in
Shanghai. The priests in our group concelebrated with the local priest, Fr.
Joseph Lu, a graduate of St. Joseph Seminary in Dunwoodie, N.Y. Msgr. Fred
Berardi, director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in the New
York archdiocese and a member of the tour, remembered Lu from those Dunwoodie
days.
The closing hymn that Sunday morning moved us all deeply: the very
recognizable Ode to Joy, celebrating humanity, unity and boundless
spirit. Some in our group left with teary eyes. It was then I realized we had
spent nearly three weeks witnessing nothing less than the triumph of the human
spirit. None in our group could doubt that Catholicism had a future in China.
We were less certain what shape that future would take.
National Catholic Reporter, January 29,
1999
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