Sino-Vatican Relations Status and Holy See’s Press for Authentic Religious Freedom in the PRC

Deborah A. Brown

Seton Hall University

Abstract

This essay explores the status of Sino-Vatican relations and the capacity of negotiations toward the normalization of them to be a force toward democratic transition in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Holy See, by means of Pope Benedict XVI’s letter of May 2007 to China’s Catholics, is pressing China’s central government for authentic religious freedom—which makes possible freedom of conscience—at a time when speculation runs high about the potential both for a breakthrough in Sino-Vatican relations and for China’s future democratic transition. This analysis provides an important window on how the world’s oldest Western institution, which has had a role in China since the sixteenth century, is attempting to shape the outlook and behavior of China’s some twelve to eighteen million Catholics in ways that challenge state dictates that deny them the right to freely practice their religion in full communion with the Apostolic See and universal Church.

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Speculation runs high about the possibility for normalized Sino-Vatican relations in the near future. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) also is the focus of much interest about its potential to transition from authoritarian rule to democracy. A related intriguing question arises: Could negotiations toward normalization of Sino-Vatican relations help to pave the way toward democracy in the PRC by means of the Holy See’s1 demand for the emergence of authentic religious freedom?

By the “Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China,” auspiciously dated May 27, 2007, Pentecost Sunday, Benedict expresses both his love and compassion for China’s Catholics who have born many burdens, and his determination to promote the unification of the divided Church in China as well as its full communion with the established Catholic hierarchy under the leadership of the Successor of Peter. Noting the extensive suffering of Catholics under communist rule and the resulting particular characteristics that mark Catholic practice in China, he stresses the need for all China’s Catholics to be faithful to the ecclesiological principles of the Catholic tradition hence forth.

Deborah A. Brown is Associate Professor of Asian Studies at Seton Hall University and President of the Trustees of the Episcopal Fund and Diocesan Properties, Episcopal Diocese of Newark, New Jersey.

1 Holy See and Apostolic See are used interchangeably in this essay. Holy See comes from the Latin Sancta Sedes, Holy Chair, and refers to the rank, office, and authority of the Bishop of Rome (the pope), the central ecclesiastical government, and the actual abode of same. Sedes was used first to designate the churches founded by the Apostles, and later to identify the five great patriarchal regions of Christian antiquity: Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople. As “see” refers to the authority, jurisdiction, and functions associated with any bishop, it also designates episcopal jurisdictions in China.

In response to increasing numbers of queries to the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and Secretary of State from China’s bishops and priests concerning how they should conduct themselves in the face of their extensive ecclesial problems, position themselves regarding the government and state agencies and their requirements that control Church life, cope with laws and regulations governing Catholic practice, view illicitly consecrated bishops,2 and more, the Pope has provided long-awaited theological and pastoral guidelines. In doing so, he pursues the call of Pope John Paul II for the unity of the Church in China, with the intention of reducing the tensions between China’s Catholics and Chinese authorities and between China’s unregistered and registered Catholic communities themselves. The letter was preceded by the deliberations of a special commission of China experts and knowledgeable members of the Roman Curia, who presented a working document to a meeting of ecclesiastics held on January 19 and 20, 2007, in the Vatican, to establish an approach toward the future of both the Church in China and of the Holy See’s relationship with China’s central government. During this meeting, Pope Benedict made a commitment to address a letter to China’s Catholics to establish guidelines for the way forward. In the letter—published on June 30, 2007, after a courtesy copy had been provided to Chinese authorities—Benedict sets forth fundamental and unrenounceable principles of Catholic ecclesiology in order to identify what is acceptable and what is unacceptable policy and practice in China. In addition to the letter’s being one of encouragement to forgive past offenses and to achieve reconciliation among opponents, the Pope tackles thorny issues between the Church and the state, among them, the future of the persecuted underground Catholic community, state appointment of bishops without pontifical mandate, the ecclesial requirement that bishops in communion with the pope are the episcopal leaders of dioceses, and the present dearth of canonically normative structures. An overarching theme of the letter is the Pope’s call for the government to respect and grant authentic religious freedom—a petition which he approaches from many fronts.

In sum, the papal letter attempts to change policies and practices that contravene Catholic traditions, and to effect unification of China’s Church in order to eliminate harmful discord among the faithful and to strengthen them to be a major force for evangelization of the Gospel and advancement of justice in the PRC. Although the pontiff is not permitted by the state to have a role in China’s internal affairs, and China’s total Catholic community is small, the potential political potency of the letter looms large.

An overlooked but vastly important factor in the democratic transition of East Asian countries during the third wave of democratization3 was the role of religious organizations in opposing authoritarianism and siding with the prodemocracy opposition. The Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of Jaime Cardinal Sin in the Philippines, Protestant churches in South Korea, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, unorthodox Buddhist monk, army general, and present member of parliament, Chamlong Srimuang, and his Buddhist Palang Dharma party in Thailand, and the world’s two largest Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah in Indonesia, all played a major role in the democratic transition of their respective countries.4 Although the influence of the Catholic Church in the collapse of

2 “Explanatory Note, Letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to Chinese Catholics, 27 May 2007” (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, May 27, 2007), http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/ letters/2007/ documents/ hf_ben-xvi_let_20070527_china-...(accessed August 14, 2007). 3 As termed by Huntington. See Samuel P Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture Series (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).4 Tun-jen Cheng and Deborah A. Brown, eds., Religious Organizations and Democratization: Case Studies from Contemporary Asia (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006).

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communism in the Eastern bloc and the role of religious organizations in democratic transitions in African and Latin American nations—particularly of the Anglican Church under the leadership of Desmond Tutu in South Africa and of the Catholic Church in its criticism of Pinochet on moral grounds in Chile—gained wide attention, virtually no international scholarly or media scrutiny has been given to how religious organizations have been key players in the democratic transitions of East Asian societies, despite many having exercised decisive roles.5

Looking at the role of religious organizations in the politics of democratic transition outside China, we have contended elsewhere that doctrine does not predetermine involvement, albeit doctrine can influence or constrain it. Rather, religions are multivoiced,6 some believers championing democracy and others leaning away from it. In the Philippines, for example, the Catholic Church hierarchy was the friend of authority and did not promote democratic transition until there was a ground swell for political change in which laity and clergy close to the grass roots and influenced by liberation theology were deeply involved.7 The assassination of Benigno Aquino in August 1983 was the pivotal event that openly drew Cardinal Sin decisively onto the side of prodemocracy forces. In the Philippines in the 1980s, the Catholic Church was multivoiced; still today, as the Philippines struggles for democratic consolidation, important differences of opinion exist within the nation’s Catholic community as to the appropriate role of its episcopal leadership, clergy, and laity in the country’s troubled democratic politics.8 The Philippines hardly has been alone in witnessing voices of dissention within the Catholic Church. During the 1960s through the 1980s, the multiplicity of voices within Catholic communities increased in Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Poland, Chile, and elsewhere, some supporting the traditionalist status quo and resisting political liberalization, others seeking human rights and democracy, and still others identifying with the aspirations of the grass roots, sometimes intent on ending existing dictatorships in preference for Marxist-leaning politics.9 Similarly, there are sharply conflicting views within Catholic circles inside and outside China about the stance that the Catholic Church—also both inside and outside China—should assume in its relations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s authoritarian central government.

Two initial considerations about Catholics in China bear notice. The first is that the exclusion and persecution of the unregistered, illegal, conservative, underground Catholic church by successive communist regimes has elevated the prospect that its members would welcome the demise of the current political structure, even though they might not be outright supporters of democratization. The persecuted underground community aside, even within the registered, state-sanctioned, “open” Catholic church in the PRC, there is division between the majority, who

5 Tun-jen Cheng and Deborah A. Brown, “Introduction: The Roles of Religious Organizations in Asian Democratization,” in Religious Organizations and Democratization: Case Studies from Contemporary Asia ,” ed. Tun-jen Cheng and Deborah A. Brown (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006). 6 Ibid., 6-14.7 Coeli M. Barry, “The Limits of Conservative Church Reformism in the Democratic Philippines,” in Religious Organizations and Democratization: Case Studies from Contemporary Asia,” ed. Tun-jen Cheng and Deborah A. Brown (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006), 157-158.8 Gaudencio B. Cardinal Rosales, Bishop of Manila; Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, Vice President Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines; the Rev. Tony Moreno, President, Ateneo de Zamboanga University, Zamboanga City; the Rev. John Carroll, Institute on Church and Social Issues, Ateneo de Manila University; and Mahar Mangahas, President, Social Weather Stations, interviews by author, Manila area and southern Philippines, January 7-9, 2007. 9 Huntington, The Third Wave, 77-85.

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are claimed to be loyal to the Holy See,10 and the state-approved authorities over Catholics and their supporters who assert that the Church in China must be unequivocally and comprehensively independent from the Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican. Among the members of the underground church and the majority within the “open” church who embrace the Holy See, it is unknown what the motivation or capacity might be for them to “go political” if they believe—after reading Benedict’s May letter—that there is a genuine prospect of their own normalized relationship with the universal Church. Even absent any overt political action on the part of these Chinese Catholic factions, their sentiments could influence significant numbers of family members and persons in their social and work-group circles.11 Assuming it is true that not only members of the underground church but also the majority of lay members and clergy of the official church are loyal to the Holy See, one can surmise that they would prefer political conditions that safeguard their religious inclinations.

A second consideration is that a crucial variable in democratic transition elsewhere in East Asia has been an important coalescence between religious organizations and the political opposition, the united effort usually having been initiated by the latter.12 There does not appear to be an organized, viable, political opposition in China presently, however, despite protests and riots that flare across China’s countryside (where 60 percent of the population lives) as a result of land grabs by authorities, widespread corruption among officials, and poor incomes. The limited political opposition that appeared in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989 all but disappeared through fear, persecution, dissipation abroad, and government-encouraged redirection of interests toward economic development following the People’s Liberation Army’s brutal crackdown. Further, the student leaders of the 1989 movement were roundly criticized for having no sense of building a mass movement or seeking to mobilize ordinary citizens,13 raising the question whether a reemerged democracy movement in China would be inclined to seek the active collaboration of any or various religious organizations, which themselves often are plagued by internal conflicts. The lack of an organized political opposition is, of course, central to the legitimacy formula of the CCP and China’s successive communist governments, which have controlled and co-opted China’s five state-sanctioned religions and suppressed religious groups that will not submit to the state’s control. Leaders in these sanctioned organizations who have acquiesced to government co-option are legitimizers of the regime and “political partners” with it, thus, unlikely proponents of genuine religious freedom or democratic transition, since their positions and privileges of authority are owed to existing echelons of power. Indeed, the 10 See, for example, Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, dated May 27, 2007, published June 30, 2007, Part Two, Guidelines for Pastoral Life, sec. 12, Catholic Communities (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2007) http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/letters/ 2007/documents/ hf_ben-xvi_let_20070527_china_... (accessed July 1, 2007); Daniel L. Overmyer, “Religion in China Today: Introduction,” in Religion in China Today, China Quarterly Special Issues New Series, no. 3, ed. Daniel L. Overmyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 7; Richard Madsen, “Catholic Revival during the Reform Era,” in Religion in China Today, China Quarterly Special Issues New Series, no. 3, ed. Daniel L. Overmyer (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 179; “No China Ties unless Vatican Appoints Bishops,” Catholic News, May 22, 2007, http://www.cathnews.com/ news/705/125.html (accessed August 12, 2007); and Donald E. MacInnis, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 264. Also, Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, interview by author, Hong Kong, January 15, 2007. 11 See Cheng and Brown, “Introduction: The Roles of Religious Organizations in Asian Democratization,” 3-40, for discussion of this phenomenon elsewhere in East Asia.12 Ibid., 5.13 See, for example, Jane Macartney, “The Students: Heroes, Pawns, or Power-Brokers,” in The Broken Mirror: China after Tiananmen, ed. George Hicks (Harlow, Essex, UK: Longman Current Affairs, 1990), 3-23.

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authorities over Catholic affairs likely fear that normalization of Sino-Vatican relations would strip them of their influence; consequently, they insist on preservation of the status quo in which the state imposes its control over religious organizations and communities.14

Unable to co-opt all religionists, however, the government has vigorously, and often violently, suppressed those it views as enemies of the state, especially Catholics in the underground church because they refuse to register and accept the state-impose conditions of being a Catholic in China. As seen elsewhere in East Asia, under the oppression of an authoritarian regime, some religious organizations that did not owe their financial and other aspects of existence to the government not only harbored dissenters but also became incubators of the demand for political reform.

Still, if an organized political opposition were to arise and court disaffected Catholics in China to join a democratic movement, these Catholics would have to determine whether they would respond positively to the call. They might do so if they determined that it was in the self-interest of their long-suffering Catholic communities. Conversely, they might ignore the call, or at least be more circumspect, if the Pope were to ask them to accommodate local authorities and those in Beijing, with the aim to secure space for building a unified Catholic Church in the PRC. In his letter to Catholics in China, Benedict seeks to resolve the dangerous undermining of Church doctrine and established hierarchical order by Chinese officials, and he indicates that the Holy See will not yield on maintenance of its centralized authority or concede on issues of its concern; but he calls for “respectful and constructive dialogue” and notes the importance of improved Sino-Vatican relations to the future of the Catholic Church in China, a nation of burgeoning religious practice.

Whether Catholics in the underground and in the faction that is loyal to Rome within the state-sanctioned church would harbor dissidents and promote democratization would depend not only on local leadership but also on leadership in the Vatican—and these two centers of leadership might not always agree—as was the case in Poland in the 1980s. Organizational interests of Chinese Catholics—especially those who have been severely suppressed or those who have not been as oppressed but who seek an uninhibited relationship with the Holy See—might vary widely from those of the hierarchy in the Vatican, whose members have not been persecuted by the regime and who hope for a cooperative relationship with the state to gain latitude to spread Catholicism.

Mindful that, among nations, China has the largest population, Benedict recalls in his May letter John Paul II’s emphasis on new evangelization and his expectation that, “just as during the first Christian millennium the Cross was planted in Europe and during the second in the American continent and in Africa, so during the third millennium a great harvest of faith will be reaped in the vast and vibrant Asian continent.15 The Economist has pointed to the “resurgence of religion or quasi-religious activity across China that—not withstanding occasional crackdowns—is transforming the social and political landscape of many parts of the countryside”; even in the heretofore secular cities there is a revival of religious practice which, for many, is a means to exert individualism in a society that demands conformity to state policies. With the CCP’s heavy emphasis on economic growth and modernization, aimed principally at retention of the party’s control of power, religious matters, like much else in China, 14 Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, interview by author, Hong Kong, January 15, 2007.15 Pope John Paul II, “Address to Members of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences,” Manila, January 15, 1995, 11, L’Osservatore Romano, English ed., January 25, 1995, 6, cited in Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 3, Globalization, Modernity and Atheism.

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have taken on dynamics of their own.16 A recent poll by professors Tong Shijun and Liu Zhongyu at East China Normal University in Shanghai revealed that about a third of the 4,500 participants in the survey, conducted from 2005 until recently among persons sixteen and above, described themselves as religious. This suggests that as many as 400 million people in China could be religionists, four times the official government figure of 100 million, which China Daily, the government-run newspaper in which the results of the survey were reported, admitted was a figure that remained largely unchanged for years.17 Problematic for the Hu Jintao regime is that both state-sanctioned and illegal religions are enjoying a significant revival in China, owed to people’s desire to fill the spiritual vacuum that developed with the waning hold of communist ideology on the masses during the violent Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), and with the rise of China’s economic prosperity since the 1980s, which has led to a search for something beyond material gain.18

The growth of religious practice, especially Christianity but many other religions as well, is thought to also reflect a spiritual yearning among Chinese, including youth, as turbulent social change, involving shifts away from traditional values, raises interest in religion.19 Edmond Tang of the University of Birmingham says that Christian fellowships, a new type of “house church” run by professors and students, are active in most Chinese universities, and that “more than 30 academic faculties and research centres are devoted to the study of a once maligned religion... .”20 Of concern to the government is that the fastest growing churches are those of the underground, usually evangelical, absent denomination and independent of the government.21

The Center for the Study of Global Christianity, publisher of the World Christian Database, maintains that there are 111 million Christians in China presently, of whom 90 percent are Protestant, predominantly Pentecostal.22 (The United States Department of State estimates as many as 100 million Christians in China; China’s official tally is below 50 million,23 similar to the CIA World Factbook which estimates between 39 million to 52 million Christians, or 3 percent to 4 percent of China’s population.) If the center’s assessment is valid, China currently has the third largest Christian population in the world, smaller than only the Christian communities of the United States and Brazil. The center projects that China will have 218 million Christians by 2050 (16 percent of the population) to become the world’s second largest Christian community.24 David Aikman, who updated his Jesus in Beijing in 2006, estimated China’s Protestants to be 70 million. Richard Madsen, author of China’s Catholics, provides a

16 Donglu and Hongliutan, “When Opium Can Be Benign,” Economist, February 3-9, 2007, 25.17 Jim Yardley, “China: Survey Suggests Greater Religious Belief,” World Briefing: Asia, New York Times, February 8, 2007, A8, and Howard W. French, “Religious Surge in Once-Atheist China Surprises Leaders,” New York Times, March 4, 2007, A3. 18 Julia Ching, “The Falun Gong: Religious and Political Implications,” in Religious Organizations and Democratization: Case Studies from Contemporary Asia,” ed. Tun-jen Cheng and Deborah A. Brown (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006), 47-49.19 Nicholas D. Kristof, “Keeping Faith in China,” New York Times, June 25, 2006, http://select.nytimes.com/ search/restricted/articles?res+F70C16F83D540C768EDDAF0894DE404... (accessed May 18, 2007). 20 “‘Christian Explosion’ among Chinese Intellectuals, Expert Finds,” Catholic News, March 22, 2007, http:// www.cathnews.com/news/703/133.php (accessed August 12, 2007).21 Kristof, “Keeping Faith in China.”22 John L. Allen Jr., “The Uphill Journey of Catholicism in China,” National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe, August 2, 2007, http://ncrcafe.org/node/1252 (accessed August 8, 2007), 1. 23 Michael Vatikiotis, “Heavens, Asia’s Going Christian,” Asia Times, August 8, 2007, http://www.atimes.com/ atimes (accessed August 8, 2007).24 Allen, “The Uphill Journey of Catholicism in China.”

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substantially lower figure of 40 million Protestants.25 That even the most modest figures indicate Protestants have realized some 4,300 percent growth under communist rule26 undoubtedly is unsettling to Catholic officials in Rome. The battle that the Catholic Church is waging to preserve its dominant position in Latin America in the face of growing Pentecostalism, is not unlike the competition that it faces in China, where Pentecostalism and Protestant evangelism have grown explosively in thousands of underground “house churches.”

John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter observes, “Curiously, this booming ‘soul market’ seems largely to have bypassed the Catholic church [in China]. In 1949, there were 3.3 million Catholics. The most common estimate today is 12 million. Over time, China’s population has increased by a factor of four, which means that Catholicism has done little more than keep pace.”27 Thus, at this time of revitalized, competitive, religious practice in the PRC when Catholics lag behind Protestants in rate of growth, the Holy See presumably considers closing the gap a pressing matter and the need for normalized relations with China’s government an essential prerequisite to an assertive program of evangelism. Hence, the welling tide of religious practice may be viewed as a vital opportunity to promote a breakthrough in Sino-Vatican relations, perhaps with the belief that a critical crossroad in China’s economic growth, social development, and internationalization has been passed by the government that prevents it from effectively inhibiting the reintroduction of the influence of the universal Catholic Church in China without its international prestige suffering a serious setback.

Regardless of the Holy See’s inclination toward fostering religious freedom in China, it must be observed that the potential role of any religious organization—especially one in disfavor with the government—to help move China toward democracy is harshly constrained. The near complete destruction of Falun Gong by mainland authorities is a vivid demonstration of the party’s inability to tolerate a mass movement,28 particularly if it is perceived as a threatening political opposition. The Falun Gong, an eclectic movement that claims not to be religious because it is outside government-sanctioned religious practice—but nevertheless blends Buddhist ideas with quasi-Taoist practices—has been ruthlessly persecuted in China since 1999. This is because the government viewed the sudden emergence of ten to fifteen thousand of its members around the government compound, Zhongnanhai, in April 1999, as a threat to the CCP’s control of power. Forced to exist in legal limbo, and thus subject to harassment and arbitrary arrest by officials (a parallel situation to that of underground Catholics), Falun Gong members amassed to peacefully demand legal status that would afford them protection. Their petition for legal protection and greater tolerance by officials, however, cast them in the eyes of authorities in the mold of China’s democracy movement, which last had erupted a decade earlier at Tiananmen Square, and in the long shadow of dangerous religious societies of past centuries, such as the Taoist Yellow Turbans, Buddhist White Lotus organizations, northwest and southwest restive Muslims, Christian-inspired Taipings, and millenarian Boxers, all of whom wrecked havoc in China and threatened to topple then existing regimes.29 The strategy of officials in Beijing has been to crush the capacity of Falun Gong to influence society, which it had begun to do even within government circles and the People’s Liberation Army itself, raising grave concern among authorities. The government sent a warning to all religious groups when it countered the movement with immediate arrests, banning Falun Gong by July 1999, and by 25 Ibid.26 Ibid.27 Ibid.28 Ching, “The Falun Gong: Religious and Political Implications,” 49. 29 Ibid., 45-46.

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October, passing special legislation in the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress against the group, which by then had been officially declared an “evil cult.” In the light of the zero-tolerance circumstances in China regarding dissent, the Pope’s letter to Chinese Catholics makes it evident that, if there is to be hope for headway in Sino-Vatican relations, the authorities in the Vatican and China’s Catholics must be flexible on matters not deemed to be “unrenounceable principles” by the Holy See. Therefore, some readers of Benedict’s letter undoubtedly will argue that it unwisely provides to rulers in Beijing the opportunity to co-opt more Catholics and the excuse to further suppress those who resist unification with the official, state-dominated, “open” church.

As China and the Holy See contemplate normalization of their relations, central to the outcome is whether the Holy See envisions a role for itself in moving China away from atheistic authoritarianism in the religious sphere and toward genuine freedom of religion, and ultimately toward democracy. Certain historical facts about the Catholic Church are unavoidable in this regard. One is that, in its claim to universality, for most of its history, the Catholic Church has denied the legitimacy of plurality of religious beliefs.30 Another is, as Huntington noted, prior to the 1970s, “Catholicism was associated with the absence of democracy or with limited or late democratic development.”31 Lipset wrote that Catholicism “appeared antithetical to democracy in pre World War II Europe and in Latin America.”32 Rooted in the seventeenth century Puritan revolution, democracy in the first wave in the nineteenth century was planted in Western Protestant countries, not Catholic ones.33 The Protestant inclination toward democracy and Catholic antipathy for it was explained as the outgrowth of principally doctrinal and organizational differences. Protestants stressed that human allegiance belonged to God, that one’s relationship with God was the individual’s responsibility, and that believers could glean on their own the living word of God in the Bible and come to understand independently God’s relation to their lives. Protestants insisted on the fallibility of doctrines and institutions, and avoided elevating scriptures or the church above criticism, believing that the people and their church must be open to self-criticism and to “reformation.” Thus, Protestants warned against “absolutizing” dogma, the church, or individual church leaders. Further, they encouraged the laity to have a significant role in church affairs. Consequently, Protestant church structure and outlook was more democratic than that of the Catholic Church. Also, as Weber maintained, Protestantism encouraged economic development and the rise of the middle class, paving the way toward democratic development.34 The preference of the Catholic Church for nondemocratic practices was understood as its adversity toward a significant role for the laity in collective corporate leadership in preference for a strong, authoritarian, ecclesial hierarchy that dictated—first from the Vatican, and in hierarchical turn, from the episcopal authority in the particular Catholic churches internationally—religious doctrine and practices for all Catholics. In sum, the Catholic Church was not adverse to authoritarian governance, as it was an authoritarian institution itself. As such, it was a willing companion to the landed aristocracy and the nondemocratic status quo, giving legitimacy to authoritarian regimes in many countries.35

30 In the summer of 2007, Pope Benedict repeated his belief that Catholicism is the only true belief. See Ian Fisher, “Muted Expectations as Benedict Heads to Austria,” New York Times, September 7, 2007, A4.31 Huntington, The Third Wave, 75.32 Seymour Martin Lipset, Kyoung-Ryung Seong, and John Charles Torres, “A Comparative Analysis of the Social Requisites of Democracy,” unpublished paper, Stanford University, 1990, 29, quoted in ibid., 75. 33 Huntington, The Third Wave, 75.34 Ibid., 75-76.35 Ibid., 77.

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However, there was an about-face for the Catholic Church regarding democracy following the mid-1960s. As Huntington observed, in the third wave of democratization, “roughly three-quarters of the countries that transited to democracy between 1974 and 1989 were Catholic countries.”36 Those that democratized in South America, Central America, the first to do so in East Asia (the Philippines), Spain and Portugal in Europe, and the first two countries to democratize in East Europe (Poland and Hungary) were Catholic countries. Further, the most Catholic of these regions, South America, was the region that democratized most fully during this period.37 Huntington has offered three apparent causes for the democratic transitions of Catholic countries: (1) by the 1970s, most Protestant countries already had become democracies, leaving only non-Protestant countries yet to democratize; (2) Catholic countries had begun to experience better economic conditions than previously; and (3), in the 1960s,

The changes within the Church [fostered principally by the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965, convened by Pope John XXIII, and the first such major reformation of the universal Catholic Church since the Council of Trent of 1545- 1563] brought a powerful social institution into opposition to dictatorial regimes, deprived those regimes of whatever legitimacy they might claim from religion, and provided protection, support, resources, and leadership to prodemocratic opposition movements.38

Huntington illuminated the effect of the Second Vatican Council on the Church’s important role in the third wave of democratization:

Vatican II stressed the legitimacy and need for social change, the importance of collegial action by bishops, priests, and laity, dedication to helping the poor, the contingent character of social and political structures, and the rights of individuals. Church leaders, Vatican II asserted, have responsibility to “pass moral judgments, even on matters of the political order whenever basic personal rights...make such judgment necessary.” 39

Thus, it would be a mistake to underestimate the potential power of the Catholic Church to be a catalyst for democratization in China, despite China’s small number of Catholics. In 1988, Richard Nixon observed that, in deriding the ability of the Church to affect world events, Stalin dryly had asked how many divisions the Pope commanded. Nixon’s assessment was that Stalin did not understand that powerful ideas rather than arms determine history, and pointed to John Paul II, in his view the most influential religious leader of the twentieth century, as a potent example. He summarized:

People listen to the Pope because they want to hear what he has to say—not just about religion but about the mysteries of life and the intricacies of statecraft. He lifts people out of the drudgery, drabness, and boredom that plague life for both rich and poor. He gives them a vision of what man can be if he will listen to what

36 Ibid., 76.37 Ibid.38 Ibid., 77.39 Ibid., 78; for the quotation within the quotation, Brian H. Smith, The Church and Politics in Spain: Challenges to Modern Catholicism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 284, quoted in ibid., 78.

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Lincoln called the better angels of his nature. Against such a faith as this, communism, the antifaith, cannot prevail.40

In assessing how to move forward with their relations with the Holy See, Chinese authorities cannot be certain what dynamic would be unleashed in serious negotiations toward normalization of relations—or if normalized relations were to occur. Although some religious organizations elsewhere in East Asia were critical to the process of democratic transition, others were dormant, while still others formed alliances with conservative politicians and business interests to hinder democratic development.41 The Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican has admonished Catholic clergy and episcopal leadership not to become entangled in politics; however, John Paul II in regard to Chile observed about his own actions that his charge was to spread the Gospel, and if democratic tenets were integral to the Gospel, so be it.42

In his letter to China’s Catholics, Benedict attempts to promote political confidence among Chinese authorities:

Let China rest assured that the Catholic Church sincerely proposes to offer, once again, humble and disinterested service in the areas of her competence... .

As far as relations between the political community and the Church in China are concerned, it is worth calling to mind the enlightening teaching of the Second Vatican Council, which states: “The Church, by reason of her role and competence, is not identified with any political community nor is she tied to any political system. ...

...the Catholic Church which is in China does not have a mission to change the structure or administration of the State; rather, her mission is to proclaim Christ to men and women, as the Saviour of the world, basing herself—in carrying out her proper apostolate—on the power of God.43

Yet, reiterating his Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Benedict continues,

“The Church cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will

40 Richard Nixon, 1999: Victory without War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 316-317.41 Cheng and Brown, “Introduction: The Roles of Religious Organizations in Asian Democratization,” 3.42 See, for example, Jack Wintz, O.F.M., “The Pope in Chile: Giving a Boost to Human Rights,” AmericanCatholic.org, April 1987, http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/JohnPaulII/5-Chile-1987.asp (accessed August 1, 2007).43 Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 4, Willingness to Engage in Respectful and Constructive Dialogue.

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to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.”44

Thus, there are qualifications to the Holy See’s willingness to accommodate China’s

existing political order. Will the Catholic Church, or will it not, step into the politics of democratization in China? Will the Holy See seize the moment when religionists are a growing force in China to encourage action for religious freedom, social justice, reform, and other dimensions of democracy, the political system most preferred—at least in practice—by mass citizenry in all regions of the globe,45 or will it submit, by means of rationalized concessions, to the status quo of state-dominated religion in China with an eye to limited acceptance by CCP authorities that would accompany normalized relations primarily on China’s terms? Particularly since the Cultural Revolution, the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, and the collapse of communism in the former Eastern bloc and Soviet Union, there has been discrediting and disintegration of communism in China, which could be regarded as a preparatory step toward political liberalization. Still, democracy remains remote, as Chinese citizens are not permitted to participate regularly, on the basis of equality in voting, in the election of political leaders, openly and fairly compete for office, freely learn about and debate alternative policies, and more. Indeed, authoritarian structures and procedures often are not responsive to the well-being, much less the preferences, of the mass citizenry.46 Do these conditions constitute the lack of justice, closeness of mind and will, and disregard for the common good about which the Pope says the Catholic Church has deep concern?

The following section of this essay provides a condensed history of Sino-Vatican relations and restricted religious freedom in China as historical groundwork to better understand the difficulties of normalizing Sino-Vatican relations. It briefly summarizes the tensions between Chinese regimes and the Holy See, as well as the approaches of the first, second, third, and fourth generations of communist leadership to restricting religious freedom in the mainland. The essay turns next to present Catholic statistics in China, before moving to a description of the divide over concepts of religious freedom between the government-sanctioned “open” Catholic church that is controlled by agencies of the state and the illegal underground Catholic church that has remained steadfastly loyal to the pope despite severe persecution. The following two sections review the hope for reconciliation and address the benefits of improved Sino-Vatican relations for both sides. Focus turns next to Benedict’s important May 2007 letter to China’s Catholics, which reveals the myriad problems to be overcome and how the Holy See is applying pressure on China’s government for authentic religious freedom, in no small part so that a unified Catholic Church might prosper in China. The section before the conclusion considers the important role of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong as a force for democratization, and incorporates views of Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, who is in the forefront of the local democracy movement and called by many people the “conscience” of this Special Administrative Region of China.

Short History of Sino-Vatican Relations and Party-State Control of Religion

44 Ibid.45 Gallup-International, “Voice of the People 2005,” http://extranet.gallup-international.com/uploads/internet/ VOP2005_Democracy%20FINAL.pdf(2005).46 See Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy: A Citizen’s Guide (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), for one discussion of the elements of democracy.

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Before considering the possibilities for Pope Benedict’s May letter and changes in Sino-Vatican relations to be prompts for authentic religious freedom in China, it is helpful to take stock of Sino-Vatican relations of the past and of the attitudes of the communist party-state toward the Catholic Church, in particular, and religious organizations, in general, to comprehend how the state has impinged on religious freedom.

The Catholic Church that exists in the PRC traces its roots to the Catholic Jesuit missionaries of the 1500s. St. Francis Xavier’s death in 1552 on the island of Shangchuan Dao, before reaching the mainland, marked the beginning of the Catholic China Mission, as other members of the Society of Jesus adopted his practice of accommodation of indigenous beliefs in the planting of Catholicism in China.47 Matteo Ricci, renowned pioneer of the Catholic missionary effort in China, arrived on the mainland in 1583, soon winning the favor of the imperial court owed to his scientific understanding and conviction that Catholic teachings should not oppose Confucian rites and ancestor worship. Upon his death in 1610, there were only some 2,500 converts.48 Catholic missionary work ambled on during the seventeenth century, but soon after the turn of the eighteenth century, the struggle to spread Catholicism in China fell on disastrous times with the eruption of a test of wills between Pope Clement XI and Emperor Kangxi over honoring Confucian practices, which evolved into what the emperor viewed as a challenge by the Pope, a foreign power, to his authority over Chinese rites. Kangxi’s edict banning Christianity in 1724 cast Catholicism as a heterodox practice, and began a long siege for Catholic missionaries, most of whom were deported to Macau by the successor Yongzheng Emperor, and for Christians in general, especially after the Qianlong Emperor, Yongzheng’s successor, decreed the death penalty for preaching or embracing Christianity. The declining fortunes of Catholics were further exacerbated by the suppression of the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement XVI in 1773 in response to political pressure from the courts of Spain, Portugal, Naples, and France, and the eruption of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.

Western Catholic missionaries came to the fore again in China only following the Opium War of 1839-1842, as they accompanied Western traders into the mainland with the opening of China’s door through successive treaties imposed by Western powers on the weakened Qing government. Between 1800 and 1840, the number of Catholics in China was between 200,000 and 250,000,49 a small percentage of the population. Nevertheless, the renewed surge of Catholic and Protestant missionary efforts began decades of escalating resentment against Western Christians for what many Chinese held as the infiltration of foreign practices that threatened political and cultural encroachment. Chinese resentment notwithstanding, under the protection of the treaties, China’s Catholics prospered, openly practicing their faith and freely expressing their allegiance to the pope essentially until the communists gained control of power in 1949. Although indigenization of the Catholic Church in China had commenced in the first half of the twentieth century (the first Chinese Synod had been called in 1924 and six Chinese bishops had been ordained in 1926) and a Chinese Catholic hierarchy had been established in 1946, foreign bishops still prevailed in Catholic dioceses, more than half of the church personnel were foreigners, and missions were supported principally by foreign mission societies. By the close of the 1940s, Catholic educational institutions, including three Catholic universities, as well as

47 Beatrice Leung, Sino-Vatican Relations: Problems in Conflicting Authority 1976-1986, LSE Monographs in International Studies (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 18.48 Ibid., 24.49 “China,” The New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967 ed., in ibid., 30.

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social outreach and medical services were well established on the mainland, and Chinese Catholics now numbered 3,274,740.50

Another severe downturn for Catholics occurred in the early 1950s, however, when Mao Zedong’s first generation of communist leadership demanded that all religionists cut their ties to foreign religious institutions and organizations. China’s Catholics were forced to sever their links to the Holy See on September 6, 1951—an assault on central Catholic doctrine—when the papal internuncio to the Nationalist government, Archbishop Antonio Riberi, was ordered to leave China. From that date forward, there has been no formal diplomatic relationship between China and the Holy See. At issue, once again, was the legitimate source of authority over religious organizations under an authoritarian government. The communist regime ideologically pursued ultimate eradication of religion from China, but in the meantime, thorough control over it. Catholic and other religious organizations were required, from 1956 forward, to be self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating,51effectively eliminating foreign support and the growth of religious organizations. Among religious groups, Catholics, especially, have been regarded by communist leaderships with suspicion for their allegiance to the Apostolic See, viewed by the CCP as anticommunist and imperialistic, and under the leadership (1978-2005) of John Paul II, particularly threatening, as this Pope instilled in people worldwide a vision of what they could be if given the opportunity for personal fulfillment.

Imposed governmental control over religion in China led many Catholics (and other religionists) to go underground, and, consequently, to a contentious ideological division between Catholics who remained loyal to the Holy See and those willing to join the Church in China dominated by the party-state. Chinese authorities portrayed the Holy See as determined to subjugate Catholics in China and to interfere in the internal affairs of the PRC. The antiforeign tenor of the harsh political campaigns of the early 1950s resulted in the persecution of many Catholics and other religionists, accused of subversive sympathies and acts. When in the early 1960s Pope John XXIII stopped referring to the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, or CCPA—an organization formed in 1957 to gain state control over Catholics and to end the Holy See’s jurisdiction in the PRC—as schismatic, this good-will gesture52 did not prevent further deterioration of Sino-Vatican relations. During the violent years of the Cultural Revolution that soon followed, the Roman Catholic and other churches all but vanished from public life—even the CCPA ceased to function—as the followers of Mao tried to eliminate religion from contemporary Chinese culture altogether. “Virtually all public practice of religion ceased from 1966 until 1980.”53 Churches throughout China were closed, put to other uses, demolished, or desecrated, as in the case of the main altar of Sacred Heart Cathedral in Guangzhou, behind which the slogans, “Working class must exercise leadership of everything,” and “Long live

50 “China,” The New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967 ed., and Annuaire de L’Eglise Catholique en Chine 1949, xiii, in ibid., 39.51 In April 1951, Protestant leaders met with Premier Zhou Enlai to develop a plan to make Protestantism in China “truly Chinese.” Preparatory work led to a conference in 1954 to establish a National Three-Self Committee to abolish Protestant denominations and create post-denominational Protestantism—an effective way to prohibit foreign influence and financing in China’s churches and to establish government control of Protestantism in China. By 1956, Christian churches were adhering to the three-self concept, and by 1958, structures to ensure its implementation were in place. For the origins of the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement, whose policies of self-support, self-administration, and self-self-propagation were applied to all religions in China, see Raymond L. Whitehead, “Introduction: The Life and Work of a Chinese Christian,” in No Longer Strangers: Selected Writings of K.H. Ting, ed. Raymond L. Whitehead (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 9-10.52 Leung, Sino-Vatican Relations: Problems in Conflicting Authority 1976-1986, 10.53 Whitehead, “Introduction: The Life and Work of a Chinese Christian,” 12.

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Chairman Mao”54 were scrawled. Indeed, many religious leaders were astounded to find that religious groups were able to survive underground during Mao’s rule, particularly during the Cultural Revolution.55

As well documented elsewhere, many members of the Catholic clergy were imprisoned, some for much of their lives. Ignatius Cardinal Kung’s (Gong Pinmei’s) story represents the underground side of the divide among China’s Catholics which has made profound sacrifices for bearing witness to the doctrines of the faith. His story is important as Kung was the key symbol of defiance of the state’s demand for an autonomous Catholic Church in China completely separated from the Holy See. Kung, Bishop of Shanghai and Apostolic Administrator of Nanking and Soochow, while still in prison, was secretly (in pectore) elevated to cardinal in 1979 by John Paul II. The Bishop had supported the Legion of Mary, a lay association dedicated to works of mercy and charity, established in Ireland in 1921 and in China in 1948 by the papal internuncio to the Nationalist government. The Legion opposed the communists’ attempts to establish an independent state-dominated Catholic Church in China with no ties to Rome, and maintained that Catholics associated with the government-controlled church should be barred from communion. The government retaliated by banning the Legion and requiring its members to register with the police, which most refused to do.56 Kung, labeled a dangerous reactionary by Chinese authorities, was arrested in Shanghai in 1955, along with many other members of the Legion, for his alleged counterrevolutionary activity under the cloak of religion, and sentenced to life imprisonment when he finally was tried in 1960. He spent thirty years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement, and was never permitted family visits. In 1985, in failing health, Kung was paroled under house arrest for ten years because of his continued refusal to renounce the pope and cooperate with the CCPA, a sentence later reduced to two and a half years. Kung stated, “I am a Roman Catholic Bishop. If I denounce the Holy Father, not only would I not be a Bishop, I would not even be a Catholic. You can cut off my head, but you can never take away my duties.”57 Chinese authorities permitted him at an advanced age to leave China for the United States in 1987. Kung died at the age of ninety-eight, in March 2000, in his nephew’s home in Stamford, Connecticut, exiled from his homeland. In his homily when the title of cardinal was conferred on him in 1991 at the Consistory in the Vatican, he said: “Jesus Christ has founded the Church on the rock of Peter. ...This rock is none other than our strong faith and warm love towards Jesus, a love which does not hesitate to shed blood and give up one’s life for Him.” 58 It is such sacrifice among Chinese Catholics who have remained loyal to the Holy See that

54 “Unique Chinese Church Gets Face Lift,” Sunday Examiner (Hong Kong) February 25, 2007, 3.55 For example, Bishop K.H. Ting, ordained as an Anglican, who later became the leader of the Protestant Three- Self Patriotic Movement, wrote, “During the Cultural Revolution all of our church organizations were disbanded. Like many of my colleagues I was quite isolated and did not know what was going on among the Christians. My assumption in those days was that the number of Christians would have dwindled greatly... . It was only later that I came to know that Christians had been meeting in homes all over China in growing numbers... ”; K.H. Ting, “The Church Endures,” excerpt from speech given in Denmark, 1987, in “Solidarity with Socialism,” in No Longer Strangers: Selected Writings of K.H. Ting, ed. Raymond L. Whitehead (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 135. See also Beatrice Leung and William T. Lau, The Chinese Catholic Church in Conflict: 1949-2001 (Boca Raton, FL: Universal, 2004), 27. 56 “Cardinal Ignatius Gong Pinmei: Chinese Churchman Imprisoned for 30 Years for Ties with Rome,” New York Times, March 15, 2000, A31. For the refusal of underground church members to submit to the CCPA in the face of imprisonment and hard labor, see Leung and Lau, The Chinese Catholic Church in Conflict: 1949-2001, 91. 57 Cardinal Kung Foundation, pamphlet, “Upon the Map of China Rests the Shrine with Our Lady of She-Shan” (Stamford, CT: Cardinal Kung Foundation, n.d.). 58 “Cardinal Ignatius Gong Pinmei: Chinese Churchman Imprisoned for 30 Years for Ties with Rome.”

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Benedict repeatedly acknowledges in his May letter, noting that their faithfulness to Christ and the Church has been “sometimes at the price of grave sufferings.”59

In 1957, Pope Pius XII, an ardent anticommunist, excommunicated the bishops who had cooperated in establishing the CCPA.60 Thus, the practice of the state’s control of the self-selection and consecration of bishops without pontifical mandate began, communist authorities insisting that these consecrations reflected the will of China’s Catholics as exercised through the CCPA and the “open,” or state-dominated, church. (In May 2006, the government’s news agency, Xinhua, stated that over the past decades, Chinese Catholic churches, meaning “open” churches, had selected and ordained more than 170 bishops.61 ) Further offense to the Apostolic See was official prohibitions that prevented China’s Catholics from adopting some Catholic teachings62 and voicing objection to laws and policies that contravened Catholic moral values. Yet another loss to China’s Catholics was that, whether in the underground or “open” church, they were isolated from the historic reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which led the Church to be a force for democratic transition in many countries. Most of China’s Catholics, segregated from counterparts internationally, lived in rural communities, were conservative in their beliefs and practices, and forcibly disconnected from popular movements and clerical activity at the grass roots of other particular churches internationally.

Persecution of Catholics and other religionists continued under the second generation of communist leadership. The opening of China to the outside world under the policy of the Four Modernizations following the Third Plenum of the Eleventh CCP Central Committee in 1978, presented a dilemma to the party leadership, however. On the one hand, it was essential to continue the party’s firm grip on religions to prevent challenges to the CCP’s claimed legitimacy. On the other hand, the leadership lacked respect from the international community, owed to Mao’s rule, which left China in control of its destiny—but in shambles, and to continual reports by international human rights groups that decried the communists’ relentless persecution of religious believers.63

Hence, after economic reform had been launched in the Deng period, the government issued its official policy on religion, Document 19, in March 1982, ushering in what many observers maintained was a more tolerant state attitude toward China’s five approved religions: Catholicism, Protestantism (in China, Catholics are separated from the Protestants, who alone customarily are referenced as Christians), Buddhism, Daoism, and Islam. Recognizing that religion could not be eradicated from socialist society for a long time to come, the aim of the state was to harness the service of religionists in the support of socialist nation building. Nevertheless, the determination of communist authorities to control religion was not diminished, and their paranoia about foreign interference in religious affairs in China was marked. Document

59 Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 2, Purpose of the Letter.60 Cooperation with, and active support of, communism have been punishable by excommunication since 1938.61 “China Defends Ordination of Catholic Bishops,” Xinhua, May 6, 2006, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-05/06/content_4515744.htm (accessed March 12, 2007).62 For example, the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Pope Pius Xii (1950), canonizations from 1949 onward, declarations of devotional piety, and later, the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.63 Such ongoing reports include many volumes over many years of Deng Zhaoming, ed., Bridge: Church Life in China Today (Hong Kong), Human Rights Watch/Asia, Continuing Religious Repression in China (1993), Human Rights Watch World Report (1994), Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State Control of Religion (1997) and updates, China Rights Forum (Winter 1997-1998), US State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Right and Labor, China Country Report on Human Rights Practices, 2000, February 23, 2001, and the annual reports of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China through the latest of 2006.

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19 asserted that the Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican, as well as Protestant foreign-mission societies, were determined “to return to the China mainland,” and consequently, that it was necessary to “firmly resist infiltration by [these] hostile foreign religious forces.”64 Thus, a major thrust of official religious policy was to prevent the restoration of the Holy See’s influence and power in the Catholic Church in China. Despite John Paul II’s conciliatory speech from Manila to China in February 1981 and an overture to Chinese authorities for negotiations made by Cardinal Casaroli, Secretary of State of the Vatican, in the same year,65 a speech delivered in 1983 at a National Catholic Representatives Meeting by Qiao Liansheng, then director of the Religious Affairs Bureau, expressed the long-held grievances of the CCP against foreign Catholics and Protestants alike:

Reflecting on the history of our nation since 1840, it is difficult for one to forget over 100 years of Catholic and Protestant propagation in China, coinciding with the aggressive incursions and oppression of imperialism against China, no different from a nation under semicolonialism and semifeudalism.66

Qiao claimed that the state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Church, independent from the Holy See, had “equal status with Catholic churches in other countries,” and emphasize the importance of casting off influences emanating from the Vatican:

The Vatican is a nation with particular, monarchical, authoritarian characteristics, called by the name “Vatican State.”...The reality of the so-called pope is the monarchical power of this [sovereign] state. This state mixes politics with all religious matters, masquerading under a religious guise. All religious manifestations of the Vatican, all instructions and so on have a political color; all are in political service to its colonialism. Against this, the Catholics of our nation and other citizens must be sufficiently alert and informed...so as never to allow a monarchical political party with the status of a nation to become the partner of faith, because of one’s allegiance to Catholicism, or to blindly follow and serve, and thus to be hoodwinked by politics, even to betray our nation.

The Vatican is an enemy of the Chinese people, which came only to serve the expansion of colonialism in the twentieth century. ... When Japanese militarism invaded China, dividing our nation’s soil by force of arms, when the puppet government of Manchukuo was established in our northeast provinces, the Vatican was the first to give diplomatic recognition. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Vatican maintained a hostile attitude to new

64 Document 19, XI. The International Relations of China’s Religions, in Donald E. MacInnis, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 23. 65 Beatrice Leung, “The Sino-Vatican Negotiations: Old Problems in a New Context,” China Quarterly, no.153 (March 1998): 128.66 “Concerning Questions about Control of Religious Organizations and Affairs by Outside Forces,” speech by Qiao Liansheng, Director, Religious Affairs Bureau, to delegates of the National Catholic Representatives Meeting, April 1983, Zhongguo Tianzhujiao [The Catholic Church in China], no.7 (1983), trans. Donald E. MacInnis, Document 9 in Donald E. MacInnis, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 42.

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China, and from the beginning carried on a series of wrecking [sabotage] activities toward our nation... .67

With the view that religion could be eradicated with the broad education of the nation’s population, it was critical not only to ensure that Catholics and Protestants who had built many educational institutions in China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries remained banned from the communist educational enterprise, but also to promote atheism as central to the creation of a modern socialist material and spiritual civilization. Although Document 19 was an acknowledgement by the Central Committee of the CCP that new times called for new measures to control and co-opt religionists, and that a more flexible policy on religion was both practical to maintaining social stability to undergird rapid economic advancement and to elicit Western favor, the party-state had no intention to grant authentic freedom of religion. One could believe what one wanted behind closed doors; freedom of religious practice was another matter. Party members were placed in religious organizations to control them and noncompliant religious communities were repressed.68 The advancement of socialist spiritual civilization, absent religion, was upheld as scientific and progressive, whereas the practice of religion which doggedly lingered was viewed by officials as a manifestation of widespread ignorance among the masses yet to be expunged. The goals of controlling religion and encouraging its demise had not changed from the first to the second generation of leadership, notwithstanding the rhetoric of the national constitution of 1982 (article 36) and Document 19 that the people of China enjoyed freedom of religious belief—or unbelief. Indeed, after 1982, the government repeatedly issued government regulations that restricted religious practice. Yet, despite the grave limitations, the greater accommodation of sanctioned religions in Document 19 over against the years of Mao, led to the reopening of many churches, seminaries, and religious houses and toward an upward trend of religious practice, fostered in part by renewed communications with the outside world that permitted foreign influences to seep into the PRC. It was in this atmosphere of a modest revival of religious practice and limited state toleration of it that the hope for improved Sino-Vatican relations emerged. Zhao Ziyang, then Secretary General of the CCP, and Jamie Cardinal Sin of the Philippines met in Beijing in November 1987 to initiate a way forward toward formal Sino-Vatican diplomatic relations.

Unfortunately, the end of the 1980s led to a harsh political retrenchment. The democracy movement of the late 1970s and 1980s, which culminated in the Tiananmen massacre of 1989, coupled with the collapse of the Soviet Union and satellite communist dictatorships, unnerved CCP leadership. It noted with grave apprehension the roles of religious organizations in the collapse of communist governments that occurred in Eastern Europe, most especially that of the Catholic Church in the 1980s in support of the Polish independent trade union, Solidarity, a labor force that gained sufficient strength through nationwide strikes to force the government to engage in dialogue with it. Ominously, Solidarity achieved an impressive election victory on June 4, 1989—the date of the Tiananmen massacre—which caused Poland’s communist regime to be the first among its counterparts that all would fall in the Eastern bloc. Worse from the viewpoint of CCP leadership, by February 7, 1990, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had relinquished its monopoly of power. This grave turn of fortunes for communist governments was the backdrop of the Chinese State Council’s National Work

67 Ibid., 43.68 For more on Communist Party organizational control over religious organizations in China, see, for example, Leung and Lau, The Chinese Catholic Church in Conflict: 1949-2001, chap. 1.

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Conference on Religion, December 5-9, 1990, which considered the number of religious believers in China and the government’s need for limited tolerance.69 The promulgation of the CCP Central Committee and State Council’s Document No. 6 in 1991, aimed at co-option of believers through a united-front strategy and the strengthening of registration requirements, reflected both the fear of CCP authorities that religious organizations could, as in past centuries of Chinese history, be the source of a potent challenge to the self-selected persons in control of power, and the realization that co-option was essential to the CCP’s retention of authority. Document No. 6, like article 36 of China’s constitution, maintained that there was protection of freedom of religious belief in China. Yet, it prohibited religionists from engaging in “disruptive activities,” “stir[ring] up trouble, endanger[ing] public safety, ... weaken[ing] the unification of the country and national unity,” or “collud[ing] with hostile forces outside the country to endanger China’s security.”70 The state’s view was, “‘Religious faith as a free choice for the citizens is a private matter, but religious activities as social activities and religious organizations as social organizations must accept the supervision of the administrative organs of the government.’”71 On this basis, while the second generation of leadership was in charge, believers were restricted in critical dimensions of religious freedom, such as affiliating with foreign counterpart organizations, raising funds domestically or abroad, recruiting youth, evangelizing, preserving property rights and interests, running seminaries and other schools, hospitals, and welfare institutions, and additionally for Catholics, being in communion with the Apostolic See and universal Catholic Church. Freedom to determine the qualifications for the priesthood and episcopal office also was curtailed by the government.

In the 1990s during the rule of the third generation of leadership under Jiang Zemin, religious revival accompanied the further opening of China to the outside world and the growth of its national economic power. Many more churches, seminaries, and convents reclaimed, reopened, and revitalized their former establishments. Still, the state faced the conundrum of, on the one hand, having to further relax its control over the personal lives of citizens to retain their allegiance in the face of bad fortunes for communist leaders internationally, and, on the other hand, having to maintain control over religious activity so that it would not be the incubator of antigovernment actions. In his report to the Fifteenth Party Congress in 1997, Jiang Zemin called for “governing the country according to law.” In response, the Religious Affairs Bureau (today, the State Administration for Religious Affairs, or SARA) commenced research in 1999 and spent the next six years drafting new nationwide regulations on religious activities, which through Decree No. 426 of the State Council came into effect on March 1, 2005, under fourth generation leadership. These regulations are meant to fulfill the requirement of an amendment to section 1, article 5 of China’s constitution which was passed by the National People’s Congress in March 1999: “The State upholds the uniformity and dignity of the socialist legal system.”72 The regulations are in continuity with Regulations on the Supervision of the Religious Activities of Foreigners in China (Decree 144) and Regulations Regarding the Management of Places of

69 Pitman B. Potter, “Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China,” in Religion in China Today, China Quarterly Special Issues New Series, no. 3, ed. Daniel L. Overmyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 14. 70 See Document No. 6, in Bridge: Church Life in China Today, no.49, ed. Deng Zhaoming (September-October 1991), and Potter, “Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China,” 15. 71 Basic Knowledge of Religious Work, comp. Religious Affairs Bureau, 1991, 289, in Deng Zhaoming, ed., “From the Editor’s Desk,” Bridge: Church Life in China Today, no. 50 (November-December 1991), 2.72 Ying Fuk-tsang, “New Wine and Old Wineskins: An Analytical View of China’s Religious Laws and Regulations,” trans. Michael Sloboda, MM, Tripod 25, no. 139 (Winter 2005): 10-11.

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Religious Activity (Decree 145), national regulations promulgated in 1994. Although there were numerous advocates, including the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, of a national law on religion to provide a legal foundation for it and to prevent deficiency in governance in accordance with law, the party and central government opted for the Regulations on Religious Affairs (RRA).73 The turn to strengthening control over religious affairs by means of law, seemingly a progressive step, nevertheless permitted the imposition of criminal and administrative sanctions for religious activities that the state opposed.74 Limited tolerance for approved religious activity among state-sanctioned religions was stressed, as well as punishment for violations of regulations and claimed heterodoxy that was deemed threatening to the CCP’s control of power. Jiang Zemin set forth three guiding principles for party policy concerning control of religion: enforcement of party policy on religion, stronger management of religion in accordance with law, and guidance of religions in their adaptation to socialist society.75 At the December 2001 National Work Conference on Religious Affairs, Jiang had called for adherence to the state’s policy on religious freedom, abandonment of the use of administrative force to eliminate religion, and acceptance that religion would be part of Chinese society for the long term.76 This more tolerant approach to religion seemingly acknowledged that the state’s capacity for blatant repression had been diminished owed to advanced communications and China’s internationalization, but it did not eliminate grave restrictions of religious freedom. In practice, policy regarding religion had changed little from Document 19 of 1982, which acknowledged that religion could not be easily eliminated, and therefore, that believers should be co-opted into helping to modernize China, while remaining under the careful watch of authorities. Nevertheless, an outgrowth of the greater accommodation embedded in government policy was more attraction of Catholics to the sanctioned “open” church, made possible through their ability to express spiritual allegiance to the pope,77 albeit the pontiff was not permitted to hold authority over or interfere in the affairs of China’s Catholics.

Under the fourth generation of CCP leadership led by Hu Jintao, the 2002 successor to Jiang Zemin, there has been a surge in the practice of religions in China, which experts claim is the result of China’s widespread social crises, including endemic corruption and the entrenched and widening gap between rich and poor.78 Liu Zhongyu, professor of philosophy at East China Normal University, when commenting in 2007 on his research on the growth of religious practice in China in the light of domestic crises remarked, “People feel troubled as they ponder these issues and wonder how they’ll be resolved.” Liu summarized, “People think, I don’t care what others do or what their results are, but I want something to rely upon,” suggesting a desire for assurance from religion at a time when there is a threat of deepening social disorder. 79

The Regulations on Religious Affairs enacted in March 2005 show, however, that, despite the greater toleration of religion by authorities, religious practice is not encouraged by the government and severe restrictions remain in place. For example, legal provisions continue to allow authorities to restrict the establishment of “social organizations,” preventing religions other

73 Ibid., 11-12.74 Potter, “Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China,”16.75 Ibid., 16-17.76 Ibid., 17.77 Richard Madsen, “Catholic Revival during the Reform Era,” in Religion in China Today, China Quarterly Special Issues New Series, no. 3, ed. Daniel L. Overmyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 166.78 Howard W. French, “Religious Surge in Once-Atheist China Surprises Leaders,” New York Times, March 4, 2007, A3.79 Ibid.

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than the five sanctioned by the state from being established and obtaining legal status,80 in turn, helping to ensure that the “religious market” in the PRC remains tightly controlled. Like China’s constitution, the RRA continue to treat religion as dangerous to national security and social order and reveal the state’s deep bias against it. Article 3 stipulates:

Religious organizations, religious venues and religious believers ought to obey the Constitution, laws, rules and regulations, and support the unity of the country, ethnic unity and the stability of society. No organization or individual should use religion to engage in activities which destroy social order, harm the bodily health of citizens, interfere in the State educational system, or harm the national interest, the public welfare of society or the lawful rights of citizens.81

Neither has the state’s decades-long paranoia about foreign control of religion abated, as article 4 of the RRA stipulates:

Each religion must adhere to the principle of the independent running of their religion. Religious organizations, religious venues and religious affairs are not subject to foreign domination.82

Civil administrative offices supervise the registration of religious organizations, and the SARA oversees their business affairs.83 Continuing to cast religions as social entities with potential effect on the common good of society, in the mold of the second generation of leadership, Ye Xiaowen, director of the SARA, provided the following rationale in 1997 for the government’s ongoing management of religions through its local religious affairs departments:

... religion is not merely a question of individual faith; it is a social reality with definite social structures (religious organizations), social buildings (temples and churches), and social activities (masses of believers participating in ceremonies and other religious activities). This social reality within society as a whole must generate some religious or social affairs. Thus there must be social norms or covenants. These in turn generate the religious laws and regulations of contemporary significance.84

Ye insisted that, because religious relationships, actions, and activities entail the common good, they

... must be subject to regulation by law (i.e., forceful national measures to guarantee the regulations of activities). ... the government must promote administrative management according to law over [them; Ye went on to assert that such governmental] management of religious affairs is not interference in normal religious activity, or in the internal affairs of religious organizations.

80 Ying, “New Wine and Old Wineskins: An Analytical View of China’s Religious Laws and Regulations,” 14. 81 Ibid., 16.82 Ibid.83 Ibid., 17.84 Ibid., 11.

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Neither is this any “non-separation of church and state,” nor “management of religion by government officials.”85

By viewing religious organizations as social entities that affect the general well-being of society, the state perpetuates its rationale for many restrictions on freedom of religion, including limitations of freedom of association and maintenance of a registry system to ensure vigilance over religious professionals. Although the RRA are an attempt to establish a new standard in China’s emerging legal system regarding governance of religion according to law, China’s regulations and laws are subservient to the party’s policies and prejudices, which remain biased against religion, most especially against one whose central authority is foreign and non-Chinese.

Current Catholic Statistics in China

Elsewhere in East Asia, small communities of religionists have been the incubators of democratic transition.86 Pope Benedict refers to China’s Catholic community as a “small flock,” but reassuringly quotes the words of Jesus to them: “‘Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom’ (Lk 12:32)!”87

In April 2007, the editor of the Shijiazhuang-based Faith 10-Day Catholic paper estimated that, during the current Easter season, at least ten thousand baptisms had taken place in the PRC. As an indication of the growing Catholic numbers at least in some regions, by April 2007 in the Linyi diocese, there had been six hundred baptisms, three times the two hundred baptisms in all of 2006. The numbers may be conservative, as the ability to reach all parishes is limited and some baptisms are performed at other seasons of the Church calendar. Of the 2007 baptisms, approximately 80 percent were in major cities among tertiary-educated people, indicating a new trend in the type of person entering the Catholic Church in China. During the 1990s, the pattern of new membership was chiefly young children, women, and the elderly, but in 2007, about half the baptisms were among high school and college students who, on their own, had requested this sacrament. The 2007 data also show that more Chinese men and middle-aged persons are converting to Catholicism.88

Although the number of lay Catholics is growing, the availability of trained clergy remains a critical problem. First, at least a dozen bishops and many priests are imprisoned or under house arrest or rigid surveillance.89 Second, the government oversees the sanctioned church and its leaders must meet government approval; vacancies are not filled without state agencies’ satisfaction. Third, China’s economic boom has redirected the interests of potential candidates for the priesthood to other occupations, not unlike trends elsewhere; also, most seminarians have come from rural Catholic villages, now in decline90 as a result of China’s mass migration to cities. The Church in China is hampered by its rural history, as 70-75 percent of 85 Ibid., 16.86 For example, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, Protestant churches in South Korea, and Chamlong Srimuang’s small Buddhist community in Thailand.87 Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 5, Communion between Particular Churches in the Universal Church.88 Hong Kong Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN), “New Type of Person Coming into the China Church,” Sunday Examiner, April 22, 2007, 2.89 Allen, “The Uphill Journey of Catholicism in China,” 2.90 Ibid. For the rural background of the underground church, see, for example, Leung and Liu, The Chinese Catholic Church in Conflict: 1949-2001, 94-95.

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Catholics still are concentrated in rural Catholic villages, especially in Hebei and Shanxi provinces.91 Fourth, as Benedict observes in his letter, the legitimacy of many clergy is in doubt among the faithful, as the bestowal of papal legitimation has not been communicated to them. To compete effectively with Protestants, Catholics must recruit and properly train more clergy to bolster their evangelization in new areas, most especially in urban centers where China’s middle class of some 200 million are largely centered.

When issued in March 1982, Document 19 claimed there were about 3,400 Catholic professionals in the PRC;92 in 1985, Religion Yesterday and Today, published by the Shanghai People’s Publishing Company, stated that there were over 3 million Catholics.93 In 1989, Donald MacInnis, an authority on religion in China, wrote that “the figure usually given for all Catholics nationwide is 3.3 million, the same as in 1949.”94 The same year, the head of the CCPA stated that there were more than 1,000 functioning Catholic churches and 2,300 chapels, 112 dioceses, 57 bishops (four of whom were Vatican-appointed and most of whom were in their 70s and many in their 80s), and 1,100 priests.95 As of November 2006, the Roman Catholic Holy Spirit Study Center in Hong Kong maintained that there were 12 million Catholics in China (.923 percent of the population), 6,000 Catholic churches, 138 Catholic dioceses (of which more than two dozen did not have their own bishops96), 67 bishops and 1,870 priests in the official government-dominated “open” Catholic church, and 44 bishops and 1,100 priests in the underground Catholic church, which is in full communion with the Holy See.97 Table 1 below shows the percentage of increase in various categories between 1989 and 2006. Presently, all bishops in China are Chinese. The average age of these bishops is seventy-four.

91 Richard Madsen, quoted in Allen, “The Uphill Journey of Catholicism in China,” 3, and in David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2006), 213.92 Document 19, The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question during Our Country’s Socialist Period, sec. V, The Party’s Work with Religious Professionals, in Donald E. MacInnis, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 15. 93 Document 22, Excerpts from Zhang Sui, Religion Yesterday and Today, Friends of Youth Series, trans. Tam Waiyi and Donald MacInnis (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing, 1985), i-iii, 219-235, in Donald E. MacInnis, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 95. 94 MacInnis, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice, 264.95 Ibid.96 In 2006, the SARA claimed there were forty vacant sees. See “Card. Zen: Chinese Government is Mistaken; All in China Want to be Led by Pope,” AsiaNews, AsiaNews.it, May 9, 2006, http://www.asianews.it/view4print.php? 1=en& art+6121 (accessed August 19, 2007).97 Andrew Batson and Stacy Meichtry, “As China’s Bishops Die Off, Clash Looms with Vatican,” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2007, http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB117018697369892678.html (accessed February 7, 2007).

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Table 1. Catholic Data, People’s Republic of China (Mainland), 1989 versus 2006

Category 1989 2006 Percentage IncreaseNumber of Catholics 3.3 million 12 million* 263.6%Churches 1,000 6,000 500.0%Dioceses 112 138 23.2 %Bishops 57 67 17.5%Priests 1,100 1,870 70.0 %

Sources: Donald E. MacInnis, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 264, and Andrew Batson and Stacy Meichtry, “As China’s Bishops Die Off, Clash Looms with Vatican,” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2007, http://online.wsj.com/article_print/ SB117018697369892678.html (accessed February 7, 2007).

* Accurate statistics are very difficult to determine. For example, Catholic News has stated “about 12 million Catholics are estimated to belong to unofficial congregations loyal to the Vatican [emphasis added],” meaning that, when Catholics in the “open” church are added, there are more than twelve million Catholics in China. See “No Rest for Zen, Pope Decides,” Catholic News, March 22, 2007, http://www.cathnews.com/news/703/123.php (accessed August 12, 2007). David Aikman reports that Chinese officials maintain that there are about four million Catholics in “open” churches and eight million in unregistered churches. See David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2006), 213. Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, former Holy See foreign minister and present governor of Vatican City, estimates that there are eight to eighteen million Catholics in China. See “No China Ties unless Vatican Appoints Bishops,” Catholic News, May 22, 2007, http://www.cathnews.com/news/705/125.html (accessed August 12, 2008). The Cardinal Kung Foundation states that the underground Catholic community presently has ten to twelve million faithful, and the official “open” community has four million. See Joseph Kung, President, Cardinal Kung Foundation, “China’s Underground Catholics Face a Hostile Regime,” Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2007.

Note: In comparing the 1989 and 2006 statistics, the author has assumed that the official statistics of 1989 did not include data for the illegal underground community, and that the 6,000 churches listed for 2006 by the Holy Spirit Study Center do not include chapels.

The Divide on “Freedom of Religion”

Among themselves, the “small flock” of China’s Catholics do not agree on what constitutes “religious freedom,” whose authenticity Pope Benedict seeks in the PRC. Within the “open” church, some members hope for future direction from the Holy See, but others profess that the pope is their spiritual leader, yet support their church’s complete independence from authorities in the Vatican and criticize the underground community as recalcitrant in its refusal to submit to the state’s directives. They denounce opponents of an autonomous Church as anti-China and imperialistic in their reference to Western standards in their criticism of the Chinese government’s control of religion. This faction seeks to keep the Church purged of foreign influences—harkening back to incursions by Christian missionaries in the 1800s as the prow of Western imperialism in China—and thus believes that governmental limitations on religious liberty remain warranted. Justifying self-selection and self-ordination of bishops as the exercise by Chinese Catholics of their legitimate right to choose their leaders, they insist that the Holy See has no valid claim to interfere in the internal affairs of Chinese Catholics and their promulgation of the autonomous church in China. Meanwhile, they condemn the Holy See for past clandestine appointments of cardinals and bishops and for its refusal to approve some state-approved episcopal elections and governmental appointments. In May 2006, they supported the

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CCPA’s refusal to recognize the consecration in Shaanxi Province of a former registered priest by a registered bishop, which had the approval of the Holy See but not of the CCPA.98 In sum, the faction objects to pressure for religious freedom in China in the form that it is known in the West as an affront to the CCPA, the government, and Chinese patriotic Catholics. To create a Catholic Church in China that is wholly autonomous from the Holy See is viewed as a legitimate exercise of religious freedom.

In contrast, Catholics in the underground church assert that there is a difference between right and wrong and it is a bogus argument that they and Westerners apply unsuitable Western standards to the “open” church in China, as there should not be a distinction between Western and Eastern understandings of human rights and religious freedom for such values are universal. They maintain that China’s economic and social development and religious freedom should be complementary, and therefore that Catholics and other religionists should be permitted to manage their own affairs. Unlike supporters of an independent church in China, members of the underground do not want the Holy See to make concessions to the government, making pointless their decades of suffering. Indeed, on December 26, 2006, the feast of the protomartyr, St. Stephen, Benedict offered the following to the amassed faithful in St. Peter’ Square:

With special spiritual closeness, I also think of those Catholics who maintain their fidelity to the See of Peter without ceding to compromise, sometimes at the price of grave sufferings. The whole Church admires their example and prays that they will have the strength to persevere, knowing that their tribulations are the fount of victory, even if at that moment they can seem a failure.99

The underground church has held that the Holy See should not try to curry the favor of, nor make compromises to, the government; instead, it should stand firm to bring about true normalized diplomatic relations and Western-style religious freedom—especially since it believes that the upper hand for the universal Church is imminent, as most Catholics in China give their allegiance to the Supreme Pastor of the Church. Troubled by shifts in China’s Catholic communities, they have awaited clear strategy and directives from the Apostolic See, which they have received; nevertheless, many remain skeptical about opportunities for genuine reconciliation and unification among Catholic communities as well as about improved relations between the Holy See and the state in light of the latter’s ongoing repressive politics.

Hope for Reconciliation

Many Chinese Catholics have lived in hope that, with China’s modernization, opening to the outside world, and economic advancement, rapprochement between the Holy See and China’s government might resolve contentious divisions and bring religious freedom and security to their communities. A harbinger of better Sino-Vatican relations ahead was that, beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s until 2006, there was progress in mutual accommodation between the authorities in Beijing and the Vatican. Many bishops in the official church accepted government-

98 Congressional-Executive Commission on China, 2006 Annual Report, V. Monitoring Compliance with Human Rights, sec. V(d) Freedom of Religion, Religious Freedom for China’s Catholics and China-Holy See Relations, http://www.cecc.gov/pages/annualRpt/annualRpt06/Religion.php (accessed August 24, 2007). 99 Benedict XVI, Angelus, December 26, 2006, in L’Osservatore Romano, English edition, January 3, 2007, 12, and Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun , “Pope Reaches Out to Persecuted Catholics in China,” Sunday Examiner, January 7, 2007, 1.

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imposed directives, yet sought pardon and recognition from the Holy See and a distant, albeit still illegal, relationship with it. Some 85 percent of bishops appointed by the CCPA later asked for pardon and recognition,100 often making their petitions through contacts in Hong Kong or Taiwan;101 most requests were fulfilled.

It is believed that the Holy See has not approved the consecration of new bishops in the underground community since 1999.102 In October 2005, a Vatican periodical recommended unification of the unregistered and registered Catholic communities through the continuation of the Holy See’s policy of approving consecrations of new bishops only in the registered community.103 Thus, as bishops in the underground community passed away, bishops in the registered community who had been approved or legitimated by the Holy See would become the sole authorities for both the registered and unregistered communities;104 increasingly, more unregistered Catholics would join the “open” church, opening the way for the restoration of the Holy See’s influence over a unified Catholic Church in China. That among the some seventy CCPA bishops, only nine have not declared their allegiance to the pope,105 bears some witness to the success of the Holy See’s strategy.

During the period of mutual accommodation, there were three stages in the direction toward normalized Sino-Vatican relations. First, older bishops in China petitioned the Holy See for approval and, in many cases, received it. Second, bishops were selected in China and then their names were presented to the Holy See for approval prior to their ordination. The third and most hopeful stage for normalized relations was that the Holy See appointed bishops on its own initiative in Shanghai, Xian, and Wanxian, then waited for a long period for indigenous “elections” by the state-sanctioned church in order to obtain final approval by the government. Chinese officials tolerated the process, with the understanding that this was necessary to secure improved Sino-Vatican relations.106

A further sign of hope for reconciliation was that interaction between the underground and official Catholic communities surfaced, as some underground bishops and priests emerged into the open and, in some cases, developed relationships with, or became members of, the official church. Many did so with the view that it was possible to be in communion with officials in the Vatican and simultaneously a patriot who cooperated with the government and loved China (as the government commands). As citizens began to experience less control over their

100 Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, former Holy See foreign minister and present governor of Vatican City, quoted in “No China Ties unless Vatican Appoints Bishops.” 101Andrew Baston and Stacy Meichtry, “As China’s Bishops Die Off, Clash Looms with Vatican,” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2007 (http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB117018697369892678.html (accessed February 7, 2007).102 CECC staff interview, cited in Congressional-Executive Commission on China, 2006 Annual Report, V. Monitoring Compliance with Human Rights, sec. V(d) Freedom of Religion, Religious Freedom for China’s Catholics and China-Holy See Relations.103 Hans Waldenfels, S.J., “La Cina sta apredo: Impressioni di un viaggio” [China is opening up: Impressions from a journey], La Civilta Cattolica, no. 3278 (October 15, 2005): 186-196, cited in Congressional-Executive Commission on China, 2006 Annual Report, V. Monitoring Compliance with Human Rights, sec. V(d) Freedom of Religion, Religious Freedom for China’s Catholics and China-Holy See Relations. 104 Congressional-Executive Commission on China, 2006 Annual Report, V. Monitoring Compliance with Human Rights, sec. V(d) Freedom of Religion, Religious Freedom for China’s Catholics and China-Holy See Relations. There are approximately thirty-one bishops remaining in the underground church, of whom twenty are more than eighty years old and six of whom are between seventy and eighty years of age. Joseph Kung, President, Cardinal Kung Foundation, communication to author, September 28, 2007.105 Ibid. 106 Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, interview by author, Hong Kong, January 15, 2007.

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personal lives during the Deng and Zhang regimes, some bishops and priests chose to practice their religion and preach in “open” churches, rather than continue to live in fear of persecution underground.

Aloysius Jin Luxian (91), present government-approved bishop of Shanghai, who, like Cardinal Kung was arrested on September 8, 1955, 107 and spent three decades in prison, reeducation camps, and house arrest, is an example. In 1982, just released from prison (Kung still was incarcerated), he returned to St. Ignatius Cathedral in Shanghai where he had been ordained in 1945. Unlike Kung, he was convinced that ministry to Shanghai’s Catholics was best achieved not by confronting the CCP and religious authorities, but by working within the registered “open” community to promote a distinctively “Chinese church.” Consecrated a bishop without papal mandate, he nevertheless became tolerated by the Holy See as he helped to revitalize Catholicism in the post-Mao years in Shanghai and facilitate rapprochement with the underground church in the city. He characterizes himself as more progressive than his underground counterparts, pointing to his not doing the bidding of wealthy overseas supporters nor waiting for the collapse of the communist regime in the PRC. He asserts, “ ‘I get things done now.’” 108 Jin visited Kung three times when the latter still was under house arrest, but later criticized him: “Cardinal Kung pushes all of the Catholics against the Chinese Communist Party, then he moves to the United States... .Very nice for him.”109 Jin is praised by his supporters for his relations with the government that have secured important changes in the practice of Catholicism in Shanghai, including permission to pray for the pope in the city’s “open” churches, approval for a limited number of foreigners to teach at the Shanghai seminary, introduction of Mass in Chinese rather than Latin (which the state endorsed because few Chinese understood it) in September 1989,110 and promulgation of the use of the vernacular before the state gave its sanction at the national level in 1993. Thus, Jin claims achievements for Catholics in the registered community that he says would not have been possible if, like Kung’s supporters, he had stayed in the underground. He sees vindication of his efforts in the invitation he received from Pope Benedict to participate in the 2005 synod of bishops in the Vatican as a full member, a sign of his acceptance by the Holy See.111

The decades of progress and mutual accommodation, as reflected in the growing rapprochement between the underground and “open” communities in Shanghai, broke down in the spring of 2006, however, when the central government made the first of what would be three appointments of bishops that year, all of which were declared by the Holy See to be illegitimate, a flagrant disregard for mutual respect and future improvement of Sino-Vatican relations, and a serious violation of religious freedom. The ordinations were a demonstration of Chinese authorities’ determination to elect and ordain bishops autonomously. Thus, a new tension erupted in 2006 between the China’s central government and the Holy See over which would control China’s Catholics in the future, as the aging minority of bishops and priests, loyal to the Holy See, pass from the scene.112 As elderly bishops die, the CCPA has been slow to replace them, 107 In 1960, Kung was sentenced to life in prison for high treason; Jin was sentenced to eighteen years’ imprisonment for counterrevolutionary activities, but remained a political prisoner in northern China until 1982.108 Adam Minter, “Keeping Faith,” Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2007, Atlanticonline, http://www. theatlantic.com/doc/200707/chinese-bishop?ca=OcWiFvOXV5N4soJoD3yhVmfFc1...(accessed August 8, 2007).109 Ibid.110 Joseph Zen Ze-Kuin was the celebrant.111 Minter, “Keeping Faith.”112 For deaths of bishops, see Betty Ann Maheu, MM, “Some Key Events Related to the Catholic Church, 1980-2005,” Tripod 25, no. 139 (Winter 2005): 45-63. See also, UCAN Commentary, “Confrontation and Lack of Dialogue Causes New Conflict,” May 11, 2006, http://www.ucanews.com/search/show.php?q=china&page=

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leaving many sees vacant. Because no priests were ordained during the Cultural Revolution, it is necessary to select new bishops from a cohort of priests in their thirties and forties, meaning that they will govern dioceses well into the future. Consequently, both government officials and the Holy See have a vested interest in securing the loyalty of new bishops. Revealing the SARA’s bent to maintain its control over the Church in China, it disregarded protests of the Holy See and claimed that the 2006 consecrations were urgent matters as forty dioceses were vacant sees; moreover, it asserted that the unilateral consecrations were a “contribution to evangelization.”113

Benefits and Problems of Negotiating Normalized Sino-Vatican Relations

Pope Benedict’s letter of May 2007 is a carefully crafted document with the seal of an intellect who has keen convictions but also sharp awareness of the political complexities that confront them. In addition to issuing an urgent call for reconciliation among Catholic factions and unification of the Catholic Church in China, the letter is an appeal for earnest dialogue to effect a new period of cooperation between China’s Catholics and the state and between the Holy See and China’s central government. Two vital reasons for the letter are to provide theological and pastoral guidelines to all of China’s Catholics from the Holy See and to identify and discuss “aspects of the ecclesial life” of China that “give cause for concern.” The letter is an invitation both to healing and to action. Benedict attempts to assuage anger among opposing sides, however, he does not apologize for the unregistered Catholic community or for the firm stands that he takes. His letter is meant to start dialogue to bind wounds and prevent breaches from deepening. Yet, in his letter, Benedict shows resoluteness in his call for freedom of religion in China. Indeed, the letter in its entirety is, first, a prompt to China’s Catholics to unify, protect, and propagate their faith—and, second, a push against the government to allow this to occur openly and freely.

Benefits of a Breakthrough in Sino-Vatican RelationsThe Holy See believes that the Church can contribute to China’s search for defense of the human person and individual values, “solidarity, peace, social justice, the wise management of ...globalization,”114 and the successful handling of challenges that the Chinese people now face.115 Thus, it seeks concrete forms of communication and cooperation with PRC authorities that will lead to acceptance by party and state institutions of the Holy See’s ultimate authority over Catholic religious affairs in China and legitimate influence among the nation’s some twelve to eighteen million faithful. The reestablishment of the Holy See as the highest legitimate ecclesiastical authority in China’s Catholic sector, in turn, would reconnect China’s Catholics with the universal community of Catholics in which, as observed earlier, democracy has become the preferred political system. This reintegration of China’s Catholics into the universal Church

archives/english/2006/05/w2/thu/CH00293C... (accessed August 20, 2007). 113 “Card. Zen: Chinese Government is Mistaken; All in China Want to be Led by Pope.” 114 Pope John Paul XXIII, message to the participants of the International Convention, Matteo Ricci: For a Dialogue between China and the West, October 24, 2001, 4, L’Osservatore Romano, English edition 3 (January 2007): 12, cited in Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 3, Globalization, Modernity and Atheism.115 Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 3, Globalization, Modernity and Atheism.

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would require Chinese officials to amend their legitimacy formula, however, which includes their control over China’s Catholic episcopate, priests, and lay faithful.

Although the Pope is particularly mindful of the difficult circumstances, past and present, for many Chinese Catholics, he maintains that the time has come for open unification of the Church in China, a call he makes presumably with confidence that the majority in such a church would pledge their allegiance to the Successor of Peter. While Benedict’s letter is written to China’s Catholics, its embedded message to authorities in Beijing is that the Holy See is willing to work to overcome prior and current misunderstandings for the sake of the Chinese people and world peace.

The Holy See seemingly desires normalized relations with the government to secure an official structural change in advance of assertive evangelism in China. Although much has been written about the secularization of Europe and the waning influence of the Catholic Church there (signaled, for example, by no mention of religion or God in the proposed EU constitution to the great consternation of John Paul II), by contrast, Africa and Asia are regions of significant growth in the numbers of practicing Catholics. Vatican data show that Asia realized the second greatest increase of Catholics, up 2.7 percent in 2005 over 2004, second only to Africa, where there was an increase of 3.1 percent.116

From the Chinese government’s perspective, normalization of relations with the Vatican would include the latter’s switching its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, something the Pope implies in his letter is an accepted reality.117 The Vatican State’s withdrawal of formal recognition of the Republic of China (ROC) would further marginalize Taiwan in the international diplomatic arena, as the Vatican State is the ROC’s longest enduring ally (having maintained official relations with it since 1942), the only state in Western Europe to officially recognize the ROC government, and the most influential of the mere twenty-five states118 to have formal diplomatic ties with Taipei. When in 1972 the United Nations recognized the government in Beijing as the legitimate government of the People’s Republic of China and seated the PRC, the Holy See from then on no longer appointed a head to its diplomatic mission in Taipei; rather, it assigned a chargé d’affaires. Even though representation of the Holy See in Taiwan has not been at the highest level possible for decades, the Holy See’s withdrawn recognition of the Taipei government and removal of the apostolic nunciature from the island would strike a serious blow to Taipei diplomatically.

Normalization of relations with the Vatican, particularly if it occurred in advance of the 2008 Olympics, also could boost China’s sagging prestige at a critical time, as in the run-up to the games it has suffered extensive negative international publicity regarding its dangerous

116 “Vatican Statistics Confirm Growth of Church Especially in Asia and Africa,” Sunday Examiner, February 25, 2007, 11. The data were released by the Vatican in advance of the publication of the 2007 edition of its yearbook, Annuario Pontificio.117 Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 4, Willingness to Engage in Respectful and Constructive Dialogue.118 As of May 2007, the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia became the twenty-fifth country to have diplomatic relations with Taipei rather than with Beijing. The government in Taiwan has been diplomatically isolated by the government of the PRC, forcing it to have to struggle to maintain formal relations with small countries in Africa, Central America, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific. Keith Bradsher, “China: Tiny St. Lucia Roars for Taiwan,” New York Times, May 2, 2007, A6.

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exports to world markets, slave labor, uncontrolled environmental degradation,119 hacking into foreign governments’ databases, and domestic protests and riots.

Further, if the central government could maneuver the Holy See into yielding to its key demands as preconditions to negotiations, thus retaining the government’s final authority over China’s Catholic Church in exchange for formal diplomatic relations between the two entities, this would help the CCP to counter the growing potential challenge posed to it by the expanding number of religious communities that the party cannot easily control. Normalized Sino-Vatican relations on PRC terms could assist the government to further suppress both underground Catholics and evangelical Protestants, who potentially are among the party’s most ardent political antagonists. President Bush met in May 2006 with three underground Christians, one of whom, Yu Jie, later observed in relation to the growing potential for Christian churches to be the incubator of resistance against the authoritarian government, “It’s like in South Korea in the 1970’s and 1980’s, when the church was a leader in the democratic movement.”120 A new relationship in which lines of authority over China’s Catholics were strategically blurred to showcase cooperation but in fact left the state’s control over religions in tact, would risk making officials in the Vatican agents of Chinese authorities in countering explosive Protestant evangelism and doggedly resistant underground Catholicism.

Problems to Be OvercomeThe Holy See and PRC authorities both have their “unrenounceable principles” and objectives, and some of them on each side challenge, or are in diametric opposition to, some of those on the other.

Vatican as a Rival to the CCP for Political Authority

There has been an evolution of Holy See diplomacy in Asia that undoubtedly is troublesome to Chinese authorities. The influence of Pope John XXIII, who convened the Second Vatican Council which reformed universal Catholicism, continues to influence Holy See diplomacy. Before becoming pontiff, Pope John expressed his pastoral concern for the people of Bulgaria and Turkey where he served, and later for Catholics and other people in areas under Japanese domination in Asia during World War II. Thus, pastoral and humanitarian concerns sometimes have taken precedence over pure diplomatic protocol on the part of the Holy See.121 John Paul II, third successor to John XXIII and a vigorous opponent of East European communism, carried the message of Catholicism to 118 countries and gained international attention for his consistent emphasis on the obligation of nations, especially developed ones, to lift up the world’s people suffering from deprivation.122

During the Second Vatican Council, there was debate about the role of papal nuncios in some episcopal affairs of nations, still, the 1983 Code of Canon Law stressed the primacy of the Vatican nuncios’ ecclesial authority in the world’s particular churches.123 The Holy See remains assertive in track-two diplomacy, as it is deeply engaged in humanitarian and sociopolitical

119 See, for example, Elizabeth C. Economy, “The Great Leap Backward?: The Costs of China’s Environmental Crisis ,” Foreign Affairs (September/October 2007): 38-59.120 Kristof, “Keeping Faith in China.”121 Hector Welgampola, “The Role of the Holy See Diplomacy Continues to Evolve in Asia,” Sunday Examiner, April 22, 2007, 11.122 Ibid.123 Ibid.

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matters. Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, and Archbishop Paolo Romeo, apostolic nuncio in Italy, met with deposed King Zahir Shah in 2001 concerning a negotiated peace in Afghanistan, for instance, with the objective of advancing John Paul II’s interest in establishing a stable multi-ethnic state in Afghanistan, peace in the region, and assistance to Afghan refugees. Benedict and former president Mohammad Khatami of Iran met in May 2007 in part to repair damage caused in Islamic communities by the Pope’s Regensburg speech which critics said unleashed a “war of religions,” but also to explore the widening of reason within religious circles that could lead to fruitful dialogue between Western and non-Western cultures. Papal representatives, too, have become increasingly involved in humanitarian concerns. Bangkok-based nuncio Renato Cardinal Martino established scholarships to assist young Southeast Asians in the 1980s, and a successor, Archbishop Luigi Bressan, urged the indigenous Catholic churches of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei to assist in recovery from the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. Bressan also accomplished significant work to restore the influence of the Catholic Churches of Cambodia and Laos. Representatives of the Holy See additionally have called for attention to human rights and interreligious and communal harmony in the Philippines, Indonesia, and India,124 concerns of the Holy See that extend to China. Thus, as the number of China’s churchgoers expands and the Holy See more assiduously asserts itself as a moral voice for humanity, it mounts a greater challenge to preservation of the political status quo in the PRC.

When he was in Latin America in May 2007, Benedict criticized both Marxism and capitalism as remote from “the decisive reality which is God,” asserting that both systems are removed from individual morality, and called for “methodical evangelization” to effect growth through attraction to the Church, promotion of just social structures, and teaching that profit is not the “supreme value.” His Forty-first World Communications Sunday message for Catholics to effectively use contemporary communications vehicles to spread the Catholic faith led to a conference, hosted by the Asian Bishops’ Institute for Social Communication in Thailand in May and June 2007, to explore usage of the Internet and cyberspace for ministry. Thus, Catholic bishops elsewhere in Asia are becoming more assertive in the use of advanced technologies for the church and advancement of human rights at a time when Chinese officials are increasingly deliberate in policing their citizens125 and the penetration into China’s social fabric of communications unwanted by the CCP.

Atheistic State that Dominates ReligionThat China and improved Sino-Vatican relations are of great importance to the Holy See is unequivocal in the Pope’s May letter. However, Benedict approaches negotiations with Chinese officials from the perspective of the Second Vatican Council: the Catholic Church and the state are separate, distinct, autonomous entities, serving the same individuals but from different centers of authority. He emphasizes that cooperation between the two entities in China would better serve society.126 All the same, although the Chinese government professes that there is separation of church and state in China, this is asymmetrical in meaning: churches cannot

124 Ibid.125 See, for example, Keith Bradsher, “China Enacting High-Tech Plan to Track People,” New York Times, August 12, 2007, A1, A4.126 Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 4, Willingness to Engage in Respectful and Constructive Dialogue.

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interfere in state activities, including the educational system of China; conversely, the state can broadly interfere in the affairs of religious institutions and communities.

It is undue state interference in the “faith and discipline of the Church” to which Benedict objects. He notes that especially bishops, priests, and consecrated persons cannot express fully “aspects of their belonging to the Church and their hierarchical communion with the Pope, since free contact with the Holy See and with other Catholic communities in various countries is ordinarily impeded.”127 Thus, he asks for “authentic religious freedom,” which means freedom of belief and practice. In sum, he seeks the right of religious organizations to be autonomous entities in civil society, which implies that they could criticize the state if it inhibited the pursuit of a just society.

While the state insists that the “open” Catholic Church in China is equal to members of, but not itself of, the universal Church under the authority of the Catholic hierarchy in Rome, Benedict counters that the universal Church, indeed, is present in the Catholic Church that is in China: China’s Catholics are bound to other Catholics globally through Faith, Baptism, and the Eucharist, and all Catholics are tied to one another through the episcopate “of which ‘the Roman Pontiff, as the Successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible source and foundation... .’”128

Bishops, by Church doctrine the successors to the Apostles, are responsible for providing unity within particular churches and are “the custodians and authoritative witnesses of the deposit of truth consigned [by Christ] to the Church ... [and] the ministers of charity.”129 Also by Church doctrine, bishops must be in communion with the College of Bishops and the Roman Pontiff, its head. Thus, Benedict insists that any pope’s ministry is integral to every particular Catholic church and that all Catholic bishops are obligated to be in “visible and concrete communion with the Pope.”130 The message to Chinese officials is that apostolic succession, the foundation of the universal Catholic Church, is a truth in all ages, in all places, and an unrenounceable Catholic principle. Further, unless each bishop in China is permitted to be in open communion with all other bishops and with the pope, the Catholic Church in China cannot be regarded as “fully Church.” In his letter to China’s Catholics, Benedict calls for them to uphold the unity of the Church and to defend and safeguard Church doctrine and tradition. Stressing that the communion of all Catholics and the established Catholic hierarchy are essential to the unity of the universal Church and, thus, legitimate cause for the pope’s rightful authority over China’s Catholics, ipso facto, he makes clear that the existing state domination of the Church in China is unacceptable to the Holy See.

While his embedded message to the state about the Holy See’s authority is unambiguous, the Pope walks a delicate line between, on the one hand, urging urgent unification of Catholic factions for the good of the future of the Church in China, and, on the other hand, preventing underground Catholics from feeling that he has betrayed them by seeking reconciliation in the face of all they have suffered. He counsels that there must be improvement in the communion of love—the essence of the Church. Setting the hardships of the Catholic Church in the PRC—including its tensions with civil society and the divisions and recriminations among Chinese Catholics themselves—in the context of Catholic world history, he observes that the universal Catholic community from the start has had to overcome difficulties that have damaged the

127 Ibid., sec. 12, Catholic Communities.128 Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 23, cited in ibid.129 Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 7, Ecclesial Communities and State Agencies: Relationships to Be Lived in Truth and Charity.130 Ibid., sec. 5, Communion between Particular Churches in the Universal Church.

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“truths of faith.” Instructing that the hardships of the Catholic Church in the PRC are hardly the first, he advises that “the purification of memory, the pardoning of wrong-doers, the forgetting of injustices suffered and the loving restoration to serenity of troubled hearts...can require moving beyond personal positions or viewpoints, born of painful or difficult experiences.”131 One mission is to heal; the other is to build a unified Chinese Catholic Church in communion with the Apostolic See. Understanding that healing will be particularly difficult for the faithful in the underground as it is they who have suffered the most and must make the greatest effort to forgive, he nevertheless admonishes Chinese Catholics, when they consider their own pain along the path to reconciliation, to reflect upon others who were able to forgive yet gave their lives for the future of the Church in the PRC. At first blush, then, the directive of the Pope for Catholics in China to unify might be welcomed by Chinese authorities, as it instructs Catholics who have opposed state control of religious organizations to unify (albeit, based on the decisions of individual bishops who are best apprised of local dangers) with Catholics of the state-sanctioned “open” church. Such unification seems to support Hu Jintao’s emphasis on building a “harmonious society.” Deeper reflection, however, considers that the Pope’s call for unification presents major challenges to Chinese authorities. First, he has called for forgiveness among and unification of all China’s Catholics. Although the personal dangers in the process of unification are greatest for Catholics who come from the underground, an onus has been placed by the Pope on Catholics in the “open” church to be in full communion with their underground counterparts. By implication, Benedict expects “open” church members to stand by underground Catholics—an assault on the state’s strategy to divide Catholics to conquer them.

Second, the Pontiff has made it clear that unless the Catholic Church in China is openly and unequivocally under established ecclesial hierarchical authority and upholds Church doctrine—it will not be considered “fully Church.” For the state to persist in denying Chinese bishops, priests, and laity full communion with the Holy See and counterparts elsewhere and freedom to exercise control over their own agenda, would signal that PRC leadership falls short of the political confidence necessary to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with leaders of developed nations on these matters.

Third, the Pope has identified state-imposed entities that determine the affairs of China’s Catholics as contrary to “Jesus’ original plan” and the chief cause of the divisions and other troubles of China’s Church.132 He has called on the state to relinquish its control over Catholics and their religious communities, arguing Jesus’ plan is that the Church will remain apostolic in teaching and structure, and guided until Christ’s return only by its bishops who are in communion with the Successor of Peter. Thus, every particular church at the local level must be led by its legitimate diocesan bishop; at the national level, “only a legitimate Episcopal Conference can formulate pastoral guidelines, valid for the entire Catholic community of the country concerned.”133 On these accounts, the Holy See does not intend to accept control of the Catholic Church by bishops who are not in communion with the Catholic hierarchical structure or by the existing state-dominated College of Catholic Bishops of China. For the state to ignore the Pope on these matters risks making China’s “small flock” of Catholics a potent incubator of dissent, particularly as it is claimed that the vast majority of them, whether in the underground or “open” communities, are loyal to the pontiff in Rome.

131 Ibid., sec. 6, Tensions and Divisions within the Church: Pardon and Reconciliation.132 Ibid., sec. 7, Ecclesial Communities and State Agencies: Relationships to be Lived in Truth and Charity.133 Code of Canon Law, c. 447, cited in ibid.

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Fourth, in promoting atheism, the state contravenes the essence of the Church and her mission to spread the Gospel. Referencing John in the Book of Revelation in his letter, Benedict recalls that history was “indecipherable” and “incomprehensible” regarding God’s silence in the face of persecution of ancient Asian churches, an implied comparison to the sufferings of China’s Catholics under communist rule. He tells his readers that God has a higher purpose and to bear witness to the truth; not to try to impose this truth by force; and to brook no external interference from the government in its attempt to control the Church and separate it from the “one, holy, catholic, apostolic” Church over which the Successor of Peter holds ultimate authority. Further, he tells them to love their enemies to conquer the wickedness that has been shown them—a potentially potent nonviolent political strategy, not unlike that of Gandhi in India or Martin Luther King, Jr. in the American South. Benedict counsels China’s underground Catholics that, in the process of building unity and in order to function publicly, they can do what is demanded by political authorities (e.g., register with officials) without jeopardizing their communion with the universal Church, but only regarding matters deemed by the Holy See to be legitimately within the civil sphere; they cannot submit to imposed conditions, customarily demanded in most instances of bestowing official recognition, that force Catholics to contravene the “unrenounceable principles of faith and of ecclesiastical communion.”

As Chinese authorities, like Stalin, are not confronted by Vatican armies, the government might view the Holy See’s position as one of weakness. Citing the Second Vatican Council, the Pope has enjoined China’s Catholics, however, not to abandon truth and goodness in trying to understand and enter dialogue with those who do not share their social, political, or religious views. The underlying point is: by peacefully forming a unified, above-ground, visible Catholic Church in China that is in communion with the Catholic ecclesial hierarchy and committed to spreading the Gospel, China’s Catholics can help to move the PRC toward more prophetic politics—a challenge to the existing order, as the paradigm of the Catholic Church since Vatican II, in particular, has illuminated the ethical imperatives of politics.

That dangers abound for Catholics in achieving unification is directly acknowledged by the Pope. Not only are there personal dangers for underground Catholics’ coming into the open in the particular environments in which they are persecuted by officials, but also there is the hazard of discord within individual Catholic communities if some members disagree with the decision of the diocesan bishop (to be made in consultation with his presbyterate), regarding unification and relations with the state. Thus, there is no panoptic approach to unification, as each situation must be reviewed individually, nor is there a guarantee of future accord. Uncertainty prevails, and each diocese must struggle inwardly to see whether it has read the Pope’s guidelines correctly. Although the possibilities for schism remain, Benedict accepts these dangers with the view that the Catholic Church in China should not be confined to an institutional form that is dominated by the party-state.

CCPA as an Obstacle to Normalized Sino-Vatican RelationsThe Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association has long been the arm of the government that keeps a careful watch over Catholics, giving CCPA leadership important status. As observed previously, CCPA leaders have a vested interest in preserving their positions. For example, Anthony Liu Bainian, the CCPA’s vice chairman, maintains that the CCPA will not distribute the Pope’s letter to China’s Catholics—in which the Pontiff refuses to accept the CCPA’s control of the Church—making it difficult for the “open” church to publish the letter independently as religious

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publications require government authorization.134 The director of AsiaNews, the Reverend Bernardo Cervellera, maintains that many government leaders now view the CCPA as an obstacle to improved relations with the Holy See, as the CCPA is a body that promotes a “vision of the Church that does not correspond to Catholic doctrine and subverts the fundamental principles of its hierarchical structure.”135 Cervellera concludes “that what is being questioned [by the Holy See] is not, above all, the Chinese government’s role [in Catholic affairs], but that of the Patriotic Association... .”136 Indeed, on February 14, 2007, Liu asserted that China’s official church would continue to elect and ordain bishops as it has done for fifty years.137

Liu uses one of the obstacles to improved Sino-Vatican relations—the lack of official channels of communication between the two entities—to his political advantage. On some occasions he claims communications with the Holy See, for instance when the CCPA and officials in Beijing bitterly objected to the Holy See’s canonization of 120 martyrs in China in 2000, and ostensibly in advance of the illicit ordination in Kunming on April 30, 2006. In the latter matter, Liu professed to have tried four informal channels of communication to no avail to give prior notification of the pending ordination to the Holy See—he says the ordination proceeded with no response from Rome. In fact, Cardinal Zen had sent faxes to convey the opinion of the Holy See, but receipt of them was denied. This tactic is well-known to the Taiwan Straits Exchange Foundation when it tries to discuss matters that China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait seeks to avoid.138 Other times, Liu has insisted that the CCPA must proceed on its own as there are no means of communication with authorities in the Vatican, absent official relations between the government in Beijing and the Holy See.139

State Control of Catholic Episcopate The right of the Successor of Peter to have ultimate authority in the appointment of bishops is central to freedom of religion for Catholics. This right presumably is a precondition to sending an apostolic nuncio to China; however, the Chinese government has not been willing to relinquish its claimed unilateral prerogative to make these appointments.

Licit Ordinations

The Catholic hierarchy regards the structure of the universal Church as “sacramental,” a gift from Jesus. To achieve their ends, state agencies deliberately denigrated both Catholic doctrine and ministries by imposing their control through means of nonordained leaders who, in some cases, are “not even baptized.”140

134 “Subdued but Predictable Reactions in China to Pope’s Letter,” AsiaNews, July 2, 2007, http:// www. asianews. it/view4print.php?1=en&art=9709 (accessed August 12, 2007).135 Statement issued at the special January 2007 meeting called by Pope Benedict XVI to assess policy regarding Catholic affairs in China. See “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association Struggling to Retain Its Influence,” AsiaNews, in Sunday Examiner, February 27, 2007, 1.136 Ibid.137 “Bishop Zen Calls for Bilaterally Acceptable Means of Resolving Obstacles to Normalization,” Sunday Examiner, February 25, 2007, 1.138 Paul Lin, “PRC’s New Hard Line on Religion Is Emerging,” Taipei Times, May 6, 2006, http://www. taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2006/05/06/2003306487/print (accessed August 26, 2007).139 Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, interview by author, Hong Kong, January 15, 2007. 140 Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 8, The Chinese Episcopate.

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From the Holy See’s perspective, the present challenge of evangelization can be met only if there is a stable of bishops who are properly trained in sacramental, teaching, and governing responsibilities and who are committed to the preservation of apostolic succession. In his letter, Benedict calls on the bishops of China “to safeguard unity and ecclesial communion even at the cost of great sacrifices.”141 Referencing John Paul II’s appeal to pastors to “defend and promote” doctrinal unity in order to combat “the relativism and subjectivism which mar so much of contemporary culture,”142 he asks the bishops of China to take up the challenge of new evangelization—but cautions that this can be done only by bishops who themselves have been ordained by validly and legitimately ordained bishops. Catholic doctrine holds that God, through the sacrament of Holy Orders, bestows three offices on bishops at the time of valid ordination: the sacramental office (munus sanctificandi); the teaching office (munus docendi); and the governing office (munus regendi).143 Thus, a bishop provides sacraments to, teaches, and governs the people in the particular churches under his care. However, the teaching and governing offices can be carried out only by bishops who are in communion with the members of the College of Bishops (the legitimate bishops of the particular churches throughout the world) and that body’s head, the Successor of Peter. Although many of China’s bishops have been consecrated in keeping with Catholic tradition, repressive political conditions have led some to request clandestine consecration to avoid the state’s control. Stressing that clandestine consecrations are abnormal and owed to conditions of suffering, Benedict, through his letter, tries to embolden clergy to emerge from the underground to be a visible force in building a united Church in China, allied with the ecclesial hierarchy of the universal Church. He pressures governmental officials to recognize these pastors as legitimate both in the religious and civil spheres.144

Illicit Ordinations

During the some two decades of mutual accommodation to smooth relations, although the government insisted on indigenous elections and final appointments of bishops by the government, the Holy See approved many candidates for bishop in the government-controlled process, and recognized many of these ordained bishops without demanding that they remove themselves from affiliation with the “open” church. In his May letter, Benedict acknowledges that, although some bishops had received episcopal ordination without pontifical mandate, given the “sincerity of their sentiments and the complexity of the situation,” and in the light of opinions of “neighboring Bishops,” pontifical sanction had been granted to them for “full and legitimate exercise” of their episcopal jurisdictions. Thus, the Holy See was flexible in particular circumstances, cognizant of the political pressures, including extensive surveillance and coercion, brought to bear in individual situations, and with an eye to bringing these bishops into full communion with the Catholic hierarchy as soon as possible.145 But all has not been well with these arrangements. Benedict acknowledges in his letter that, in most cases, the priests and faithful of the dioceses have not been fully informed of the pontifical legitimation, creating problems of conscience for Catholics who are loyal to the pope. Some bishops have refused to

141 Ibid.142 Pope John Paul II, Homily for the Jubilee of Bishops, October 8, 2000, 5, AAS 93 (2001), 28, Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the Church, Christus Dominus, 6, cited in ibid.143 Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 8, The Chinese Episcopate. 144 Ibid.145 Ibid.

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openly signal their pontifical legitimation, presumably to assure their political acceptance by Chinese authorities, if not their personal political and perhaps monetary advantage. The implication is that these bishops asked for pontifical sanction to sooth their consciences or to gain the approval of some members of their communities, perhaps both, but that they lack courage and/or commitment to the Catholic hierarchical order, as they have not been willing to make outward signs that they intend to be in full communion with the Apostolic See. Benedict has made it clear that bishops who receive papal legitimation in the future will not be permitted to hide their status: there must be public declaration of it and “unequivocal and increasing signs of full communion with the Successor of Peter.”146 Thus, the Pope seeks to eliminate free riders. Absent backsliding by the Holy See, this effectively places a pontifical squeeze on aspiring bishops in the new environment in which the directive from Benedict that China’s Catholics must come under his shepherding is openly known. (China’s authorities blocked Internet access to Benedict’s letter the day following its release, but it is believed that China’s bishops and priests have obtained copies, although it is uncertain how widely read the letter is among the laity. Promulgation of the letter has been advanced by Catholics from Hong Kong who hand-carry pocket-sized copies into the mainland.147)

Another class of bishops is even more problematic. Of the five new bishops who were consecrated in the official church in 2006, only two were on the basis of consensus between Chinese officials and the Holy See.148 The other three received their appointments only by Chinese officials. Following each of these ordinations, the Vatican issued letters of objection, highlighting the provision of penalties in canon law, including excommunication, for both bishops who are ordained and those who participate in consecrations that the Holy See views as illicit. Yet, the messages sent to officials in Beijing were confusing, as the Holy See made stern statements in May and December 2006, but issued a conciliatory press release following the high-level meeting called by Benedict on January 19 and 20, 2007, to discuss Sino-Vatican relations.

In the spring of 2006, Chinese officials began an offensive to increase control over registered Catholic bishops. In addition to effecting three consecrations not approved by the Holy See, they demanded that bishops of the “open” church uphold the government’s authority to select bishops.149 The first of the illicit consecrations was that of Joseph Ma Yinglin in Kunming on April 30, 2006. Bishop Bernardine Dong Guangqing (deceased May 2007) of Wuhan, who on April 13, 1958, had become one of China’s first two “self-elected, self-ordained” bishops without pontifical mandate150 (“initiating a long series of actions which deeply damaged ecclesial communion”151), but who was recognized in 1984 by John Paul II, presided at the ordination. The second was that of Lui Xinhong, concecrated as the bishop of the Diocese of Anhui in May, less than a week following the Kunming ordination, and the third was that of Wang Renlei as coadjutor bishop of Xuzhou in Jiangsu Province in November.

146 Ibid.147 “Pope Gives Starting Point for Real Dialogue in China Says Bishop,” Sunday Examiner, August 5, 2007, 1.148 In 2004-2005, several bishops were ordained with the approval of both the Holy See and the CCPA.149 Congressional-Executive Commission on China, 2006 Annual Report, V. Monitoring Compliance with Human Rights, sec. V(d) Freedom of Religion, Religious Freedom for China’s Catholics and China-Holy See Relations..150Bernardine Dong Guangqing and Yuan Wenhua of Wuchang, who died in 1973, were the first two of fifty-one bishops who were ordained between 1958 and 1963 under the “self-elect and self-ordain” policy. As of May 2007, only two of the fifty-one were still living: Bishop Thomas Qian Yurong and Bishop Anthony Tu Shi-hua. See UCAN, “Wuhan Bishop Farewell,” Sunday Examiner, May 27, 2007, 3.151 “Explanatory Note, Letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to Chinese Catholics, 27 May 2007.”

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In his letter, Benedict reviews the Church’s position on priests ordained without pontifical mandate who either have not asked for or have not obtained papal legitimation: If a priest received ordination from a validly ordained bishop and the Catholic rite of episcopal ordination was respected, the ordination is deemed valid, permitting the new bishop to administer the sacraments (but, in principle, not to teach or govern), even though he does so illegitimately and without being in communion with the pope. To an outsider, this appears to be evidence of the Holy See’s reluctance to excommunicate those who contravene the established procedures for entering the episcopate. But it adheres to Catholic canon and several factors also might justify this stance: (1) in the run-up to negotiations with the state, the Holy See cannot be criticized for summarily dismissing bishops who have obtained their positions through governmental procedures; (2) the door remains open to the possibility that these illegitimate bishops will come into full communion with the pope and the international Catholic episcopate under his leadership; (3) with undoubtedly long negotiations ahead, in the meantime, these pastors have been identified in the letter as “a very small number,” singling them out within their own communities as outside the mainstream of Chinese Catholics who are loyal to the Successor of Peter; and (4) without their ultimate submission to the authority of the Apostolic See, their episcopal ministries will remain illegitimate, leaving them and the state-dominated religious sector that supports them marginalized in the international Catholic order.

Acknowledging that the Catholic Church in China has an important social side—as Ye Xiaowen of the SARA has underscored to justify the government’s control of religions and the generation of religious laws and regulations—Benedict counters in his letter that, nevertheless, the exercise of the papal mandate in episcopal ordinations is the exercise of the pope’s “supreme spiritual authority,” and remains strictly within the religious sphere. Thus, papal appointment of bishops is not an exercise of political authority, interference in the internal affairs of state, or an infringement of state sovereignty. Rather, Benedict asserts that papal episcopal appointments, which guarantee the unity and hierarchical communion of the universal Church, are “a constitutive element of the full exercise of the right to religious freedom,” honored in international documents.152 Thus, he takes the offensive against government policies and practices that contravene international human rights norms, and states that the Holy See seeks to be “completely free to appoint Bishops.”153

Acceptance of Illegitimate yet Valid Pastors; Press for Stronger Vocations and Religious Formation

Yet, to reach common ground and to foster the practice of the faith in a society marked by burgeoning non-Catholic religious practices, in the sphere of civil matters, Benedict is willing to

152 Note 43 of Benedict’s May 2007 letter cites provisions of several documents: at the universal level, article 18, paragraph 1 of the December 16, 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the interpretation of it, binding on all member states of the United Nations, including China, prepared by the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations in General Comment 22 (paragraph 4) of July 30, 1993; at the regional level, the commitments of the Vienna Meeting of the Representatives of States participating in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Concluding Document of 1989, Principle No. 16, sec. Questions Relating to Security in Europe), and Second Ecumenical Council, Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae, 4.153 Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 9, Appointment of Bishops.

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reach agreement with the government concerning the choice of candidates, the publication of appointments, and the recognition of new bishops by civil authorities.154 As a second step toward unification of Chinese Catholics and improved relations with the government, he instructs that concelebration by bishops and priests with counterparts who are recognized by civil authorities and affiliated with state-dominated entities (imposed on the normative structure of the Church) is approved by the Apostolic See—provided that the relationships with these entities do not result in denial of the unrenounceable principles of Catholicism or ecclesiastical communion. By extension, the laity can receive all sacraments from such bishops and priests.

What will be troubling to underground Catholics is that, even though he stands firm that the sacraments of the Church can be legitimately administered only by pastors who profess the universal Catholic faith and are in communion with the established Catholic hierarchy, Benedict stipulates that China’s Catholics can turn to illegitimately but validly ordained clergy for the administration of them, if legitimate pastors are not readily available.155 Also unsettling to the unregistered church will be his revocation of all faculties and pastoral directives that previously were issued to facilitate pastoral necessities in times of great persecution,156 noting improved conditions in the state of the Church in China, present-day ease of communications, opportunities for evangelism, and the requests of various bishops and priests. The revocation is a blatant push of unregistered Catholics toward their unification with the official “open” church, which will undermine the sense of cohesion within the underground church and its hope that one day the Apostolic See would recognize it as the legitimate Catholic Church of China as a reward for its commitment to the pope and hold to high moral ground, and as compensation for its sufferings.

Acknowledging that current ecclesial and socio-political conditions and difficult situations under communist rule have led some priests to adopt “positions that cannot always be condoned from an ecclesial point of view,” Benedict asks bishops who are loyal to the Successor of Peter to review these cases one-by-one, turning to the Apostolic See for advice when necessary. However, as with the bishops who have avoided open commitment to the Apostolic See, he asks for visible signs of these priests’ committal to full communion with the universal Church, “for the edification of the Holy People of God entrusted to [their] pastoral care... .”157

Unsatisfactory Church Governance and Infrastructure

Beyond attention to episcopal and clerical leadership, in his May letter, Benedict attempts to provide structure to an emerging, unified, Chinese Catholic Church. As a result of the separation of the Church in China from universal canonical norms, discipline in the pastoral life of China’s Catholics is wanting and lines of responsibility have become blurred. Thus, Benedict spells out the canonical structural elements of a diocese. He also seeks to ensure preservation of assets, telling China’s Catholics that the temporal goods of the Church must be registered with civil authorities only in the name of the diocese or parish—never in the name of an individual or group. Noting that CCP administrations had eliminated, reconfigured, or otherwise modified ecclesiastical territories (to eliminate the diocesan boundaries that had been established in 1946 by the Holy See, and, thus, to gain control over the Catholic Church and undermine papal episcopal appointments), the Pope committed the Holy See to dialogue with the Episcopate in 154 Ibid. 155 Ibid., sec. 10, Sacraments, Governance of Dioceses, Parishes.156 Ibid., sec. 18, Revocation of Faculties and of Pastoral Directives.157 Ibid., sec. 13, Priests.

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China, and with governmental authorities when appropriate,158 with an eye toward concerns over diocesan administration and the resolution of competing episcopal appointments for one territory.

In his desire to revise structure, Benedict has put the state on notice that the College of Catholic Bishops of China (the China Catholic Bishops’ College, or CCBC) which it established, will not be recognized as a legitimate Episcopal Conference by the Apostolic See, as it (1) excludes underground bishops who are in communion with the pope but not recognized by the government; (2) includes illegitimate bishops who lack pontifical mandate; and (3) “is governed by statutes that contain elements incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”159 Meeting only when the government convenes it and chaired by government officials, the bishops’ conference is designed to remove effective control from legitimate Church leaders, interferes in ecclesial life, and establishes obstacles against international financial support for the Church in China. Legitimate bishops, the valid apostolic voice of China’s particular Church, have little clout, as not only is the CCBC state-controlled but also the CCPA intervenes between bishops and the government.160

Benedict reminds China’s Catholics that, in any nation, only bishops with a pontifical mandate can form an Episcopal Conference. Although each conference is governed by its own statutes, these statutes must be approved by the Apostolic See. Further, a conference is not intended to interfere with the “ordinary and immediate” charge of individual bishops in the exercise of their ministries within their own dioceses. Rather, a conference is a forum through which the communion of all bishops of a nation can be expressed and doctrinal and pastoral matters which affect a nation’s entire Catholic community can be considered by legitimate pastors.161

Suppressed Laity, Family Values, and EvangelizationBesides tackling the government on papal prerogatives in ecclesial matters and normative Catholic structure, Benedict addresses the government’s interference in the lives of the Catholic faithful. Following the publication of Document 19 in 1982, some local Chinese officials determined that, indeed, Catholics and Protestants could help to modernize communities and even could be model citizens as, guided by their faith, they were not prone to create trouble. Benedict emphasizes this spirit of contribution to society and calls upon lay Catholics to be “honest citizens.”

However, in the section of his letter addressed specifically to the lay faithful, Benedict observes that, in China, “there is no lack of forces that influence the family negatively in various ways.” Without specifically mentioning the monitoring of women’s reproductive cycles, the government’s one child policy, or government-imposed birth control and abortion—abridgements of international norms of human rights and the moral values of the Catholic Church—the Pope says that he considers it “indispensable and urgent” that lay Catholics should “promote family values and safeguard the needs of the family,” as it is the “bearer of the heritage of humanity.” Noting that Catholics have had to be courageous witnesses to their faith, he nevertheless asks them to be more proactive Catholics “in all areas of Church life” for the sake of the future of the Church.162 To this end, and in an environment in which Catholics lag behind

158 Ibid., sec. 11, Ecclesiastical Provinces.159 Ibid., sec. 8, The Chinese Episcopate.160 “Pope Gives Starting Point for Real Dialogue in China Says Bishop.”161 Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 8, The Chinese Episcopate.162 Ibid., sec. 15, The Lay Faithful and the Family.

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Protestants in new evangelization, he admonishes pastors that the initiation of adults “into the complete truth of Christian life” is wanting, as many elements of catechumenate have been neglected; he specifically notes that many Catholics are completely unaware of the transitions in the life of the Church resulting from the Second Vatican Council.163

Quoting John Paul II’s address on the Mount of the Beatitudes in 2000 to encourage evangelization among young Catholics in the third millennium, Benedict emphasizes the importance of the Gospel to each individual and the urgency of Catholic evangelization in China to spread the message of the Ten Commandments and Beatitudes, which “speak of truth and goodness, of grace and freedom... .”164

Immediate Responses to Benedict’s Letter

It is said that, among Catholics in the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Benedict’s letter has been well received,165 albeit with reservations among members of the mainland underground who are fearful of the great uncertainties ahead, and among members of the official “open” church who are not certain how the government wants them to react. Rejoicing is tempered by caution. Liu, vice chairman of the CCPA and the leading proponent of the CCPA’s continuing authority over China’s Catholics, told the Italian daily, La Repubblica, the Pope’s letter was a positive development and that one day he hoped to see him celebrate Mass in Beijing. Hinting that Benedict has struck a nerve, however, Liu claimed that the CCPA never had veered from the course set by the Apostolic See and that it would “always recognise the authority of the pope in matters of religion... .” Still, he went on to insist that “we must demand our political and economic independence, without which we would be a colonial church.” He later recouched his hope for Benedict’s presence in Beijing, saying the visit could occur only after the Holy See had yielded to China’s two longstanding preconditions to negotiations.166 These demands were reiterated by Qin Gang of China’s foreign ministry, who said that improvement of Sino-Vatican relations is contingent on the Holy See’s not only ending its relations with Taiwan and recognizing the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate government representing all of China (of which it claims Taiwan is part), but also promising that it will never interfere in China’s internal affairs, including in the name of religion.167

The Holy See claims that Benedict’s letter is not a political document, nor does it indict government authorities; rather, it deals with “eminently religious questions.” By addressing these religious questions, however, the letter reveals the disingenuousness of the claim of government authorities that they concern themselves only with the social, political, and economic aspects of religious communities and do not interfere in religious matters.168 The need to heal the division in

163 Ibid., sec. 16, Christian Initiation of Adults.164 Ibid., sec. 17, The Missionary Vocation.165 See, for example, “Subdued but Predictable Reactions in China to Pope’s Letter, AsiaNews, July 2, 2007, http://www.asianews.it/view4print.php?1=en&art=9709 (accessed August 12, 2007); “Pope Gives Starting Point for Real Dialogue in China Says Bishop”; “China’s Official Catholic Church Welcomes Pope’s Letter,” Anatolian Times, July 2, 2007, http://www.anatoliantimes.com/ hbr2.asp?id=&s=int&a= 070702060048.u77gbivw (accessed August 12, 2007).166 “Top Chinese Official Backtracks on Remarks about Papal Letter,” CWNews.com, Sunday Examiner, August 5, 2007, 3.167 “Benedict’s Letter ‘Different’: Chinese Church Leader,” Catholic News, University of Notre Dame, Australia, July 3, 2007, http://www.cathnews.com/news/707/11.php (accessed August 12, 2007).168 The absurdity of this claim is highlighted by the new fourteen-article state Management Measures for the Reincarnation of “Living Buddhas” in Tibetan Buddhism that came into effect on September 1, 2007. The aim of the

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the Church in China as well as other concerns that Benedict raises are directly attributable to the government’s interference in Catholic affairs and to the lack of religious freedom in the PRC.

In October 2000, when John Paul II canonized 120 Catholic martyrs of China, the government launched a vitriolic attack against the Holy See. In contrast, thus far, the government’s public response to Benedict’s letter has been muted. Perhaps it finds itself in an uncomfortable position, if, in fact, the letter has been well received in both the underground and “open” Catholic communities. Now, Chinese authorities must calculate how to address the Pope’s demands that the Successor of Peter must make all episcopal appointments, that Chinese Catholics must be openly committed to full communion with the Catholic hierarchy and universal Church before their Church in China can be considered “fully Church,” and that Chinese authorities must make authentic religious freedom a reality in the PRC. The subdued reaction also could be the result of division among officials, some believing that China’s changing international status demands a new approach, and others insisting that the state’s hold over the Catholic Church must be maintained. The CCP’s United Front Work Department instructed bishops of the official church to keep a low profile regarding the letter during a meeting in Huairou, at which, it is reported, SARA director Ye Xiaowen remarked, “[w]e have served you with maotai, the best liquor in China. After drinking it, you no longer need foreign wine.”169

The Catholic Church of Hong Kong: Central Government’s Hair Shirt In various capacities, Catholics in Hong Kong have served as a bridge between the universal Church and the Church that is in China, in part with the aim of learning about the state of religious affairs in the PRC, and in part to lessen the antagonism of mainland officialdom toward the Apostolic See. In 1980, the Holy See asked the Diocese of Hong Kong to conduct studies and establish contacts on the mainland. Accordingly, that year, Father John Tong Hon, now auxiliary bishop of the diocese, was selected by the diocesan bishop to start the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Research Center. In February 1984, Pope John Paul II designated the Hong Kong

measures is to eliminate the centuries-old Tibetan Buddhist traditional and religious methods of determining the reincarnation of living buddhas. Tulkus, or living buddhas, are held as highly-realized beings who fill spiritual seats in Tibetan Buddhism. They are recognized through the Golden Urn tradition which embraces designation through intuitive powers. The new measures require that application be made to the SARA and State Council for approval of reincarnations. No lama can be designated as a living buddha or a reincarnation of another without state approval; absence of state approval will make such Tulkus illegal. Further, designations of Tulkus cannot be influenced by individuals or groups outside China (i.e., the Dalai Lama, the supreme leader of Tibetan Buddhism worldwide, and the Tibetan Buddhist community in Dharamsala, India). Monks living outside China are barred from becoming living buddhas or from being reincarnated. Reincarnated lamas must be selected solely by the state and must preserve national unity and solidarity. This intensification of state regulations to restrict religious freedom among Tibetan Buddhists follows the fifty-six articles of the Measures for the Regulation of Religious Affairs, enacted January 1, 2007, by the 11th Standing Committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Region People’s Government to enforce compliance with government regulations and policies on religious organizations, religious personnel, and religious citizens. See Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), “TCHRD Deplores Measures on Reincarnation,” Dharamsala, India, September 2, 2007, http:www.phayul.com/news/ article.aspx?article+ TCHRD+deplores+China’s+new+religious+measures+on+reincarnation (accessed September 2, 2007).169 “Subdued but Predictable Reactions in China to Pope’s Letter.”

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diocese as a “bridge” church to link Catholics in China, the Hong Kong diocese, and the Holy See.170

However, in the same year, the United Kingdom and the People’s Republic of China signed the Joint Declaration on the Future of Hong Kong, raising concern about the fate of Hong Kong’s Catholic Church after the 1997 handover of the territory to PRC sovereignty. Hong Kong’s Bishop John Baptist Wu wrote to both the British and Chinese central governments, expressing concern about the future of religious freedom post-1997. On August 15, 1984, after extensive consultations, he issued a manifesto describing religious freedom as it had been enjoyed under British rule and emphasizing that Catholics must remain united with the universal Church through full communion with the pope.171 He also wrote to Cardinal Hume of England expressing his concerns and to British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe to appeal for a legal guarantee in the Joint Declaration to give “‘full and effective recognition to all the rights and freedoms hitherto enjoyed by all religious associations and their members in Hong Kong and to preserve all such rights and freedoms beyond 1997.’” 172 Beatrice Leung later observed that Wu’s “two visits to China [1985, 1986, after sending low-level representatives to the signing of the Joint Declaration in September 1984 and the celebration of National Day in October the same year] as a guest of the state, which had involved the refusal of his requests to meet the jailed Bishop Gong [Kung] of Shanghai and ... to says Masses in public, provided him with sufficient facts to prove that the quality of the religious freedom provided and supervised by the party differed considerably from that which prevails in Hong Kong.”173 Wu, elevated to cardinal in 1988, died in 2002, to be succeeded by Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, a persistent fighter for religious freedom and democracy.

A principal role of the Catholic Church of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of China is sponsorship and management of education at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels, a service to the community that church leadership maintains is necessary for Hong Kong’s democratization. Incrementally better education is viewed by the HKSAR Catholic hierarchy as a strong force for shaping the political landscape and future welfare of the people. Since the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, however, the HKSAR government has implemented the Education (Amendment) Ordinance 2004, effective January 2005, requiring all government-aided schools to establish incorporated management committees by 2010 to replace boards of directors appointed by the school-sponsoring bodies. Thus, religious-sponsored educational programs will be overseen by management committees with new membership that reports directly to the government, by-passing church sponsors, and inhibiting religious organizations from implementing their visions of education. The government is stepping up its control of the administration of Hong Kong’s 221 Catholic primary and secondary schools,174 which pessimists believe is the initiation of a government plan to take over all church-run schools (the right of religious institutions to run schools and teach religion, even though they receive government subvention, ostensibly is protected by Hong Kong’s Basic Law); meanwhile the local Catholic Church, under the leadership of Cardinal Zen, has fought unsuccessfully in the Court of First Instance against government management of Catholic schools.

170 Leung, Sino-Vatican Relations: Problems in Conflicting Authority 1976-1986, 241-243. 171 Bishop John Wu, “Statement of the Catholic Church and the Future of Hong Kong,” press release, August 23, 1984, Catholic Information Service, in ibid., 246.172 The Tablet (London), May 19, 1984, 471, quoted in Leung, Sino-Vatican Relations: Problems in Conflicting Authority 1976-1986, 246. 173 Leung, Sino-Vatican Relations: Problems in Conflicting Authority 1976-1986, 248.174 Data cited in the November 23, 2006 Court of First Instance ruling against Hong Kong’s Catholic Church.

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Zen has fanned the ire of CCP leaders in Beijing not only for his resistance to government dominance of church-run schools, but also (1) for his advocacy of democracy in Hong Kong and the mainland; (2) his support of the annual vigil in Hong Kong in remembrance of persons who died in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown; (3) diocesan services to celebrate the canonization by John Paul II of 120 Catholic martyrs in 2000, bitterly opposed by the central government; (4) his demand that government leaders uphold the Basic Law provision for right of abode for a mainland-born child of a Hong Kong parent to reside in the SAR, making possible family reunion; (5) his participation in a successful effort (at least for the short term) to prevent passage of an oppressive anti-subversion law proposed by the pro-Beijing faction of the Legislative Council; and (6) his advice to the Holy See not to capitulate to central government domination of a Church in China, independent of the Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican. The Justice and Peace Commission of the Hong Kong Catholic Church, the Union of Hong Kong Catholic Organizations in Support of the Patriotic and Democratic Movement in China, and the Hong Kong Federation of Catholic Students have been vocal in calling for religious freedom and accountability of government officials. In May 2007 in San Francisco, the Cardinal observed that “one kind of wrong information is the general impression that now China is open...it is open also for religious freedom. It is not true.”175

The Cardinal on Sino-Vatican RelationsElevated to the College of Cardinals in March 2006, Zen is the sixth Chinese cardinal in history. Originally from Shanghai, he taught at several seminaries in China between 1989 and 1996, but for six years thereafter, was not permitted by Chinese authorities to enter the mainland. In response to Benedict’s letter, he has vowed to accompany one thousand pilgrims to Sheshan Marian shrine on May 24, 2008, to fulfill the Pope’s request that that day be dedicated to universal Catholic prayer for the Church in China and for Chinese Catholics to travel to the shrine as a sign of deepening their commitment to their faith and allegiance to the Successor of Peter. In anticipation of once again not being permitted to enter the mainland, the Cardinal avows that he will send priests to accompany groups to the shrine if his own travel is prohibited by Chinese authorities.176

Zen participated in the meeting at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican on January 19 and 20, 2007, to consider the future of Sino-Vatican relations. Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone (like Zen, a Selesian), presided at the meeting, also attended by Bishop John Tong Hon, Bishop Jose Lai of Macau, Paul Cardinal Shan Kuo-hsi of Taiwan, representatives of the Roman Curia, officials from the Secretariat of State, representatives of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and other experts. As not all policy advisers see eye-to-eye on the appropriate approach to negotiations with China’s leaders, the potential for a contentious meeting was great. 177

Zen is cautious about negotiations with Chinese authorities, based on his first-hand and long experience with them. He argues that progress toward normalized Sino-Vatican relations is reliant on compromise by both sides; but he observes that, although the Church has made concessions, Chinese authorities presently appear unwilling to yield on any important matters. Regarding the illicit ordinations of 2006, he contends that the first in April was not quickly 175 “Bishop Zen Visits Chinese Community in San Francisco on North American Swing,” Sunday Examiner, May 27, 2007, 1.176 “Marian Shrine in Shanghai Expects More Pilgrims Following Papal Letter,” Sunday Examiner, August 5, 2007, 3.177 Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, interview by author, Hong Kong, January 15, 2007.

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executed; rather, it took much planning by Chinese officials and was a deliberate attempt to turn back the calendar of Sino-Vatican relations by fifty years.178 Some observers viewed the illicit 2006 consecrations as part of a renewed hardened campaign to ensure the state’s control of religion. In contrast, Immaculate Heart of Mary Father Jeroom Heyndrickx, director of the Louvain-based Ferdinand Verbiest Center and an outspoken critic of Zen, claims the ordinations were a response to Benedict’s elevation of him to the College of Cardinals, as he is “a sharp critic of the communists.”179 Writing that China’s civil authorities were shocked when Zen was elevated to cardinal, Heyndrickx opined, “Those who hoped his appointment as cardinal would motivate him to become more low-key were mistaken.”180

Zen, who is well apprised of conditions in the mainland, reports that religious persecution in China has increased during fourth-generation leadership (an analysis supported by annual reports of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China), and maintains that authorities presently are trying to mobilize people against religious practice not controlled by the government. Regarding the downturn in Sino-Vatican relations in 2006, he concludes that officials in Beijing have been unable to accept in diplomatic stride the transfer of the papal mantle from John Paul II to Benedict XVI, just as they could not cope diplomatically with the shift from Kuomintang rule in Taiwan in 2000 to rule by the Chen Shui-bian administration of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). In both cases, the transfer of power to new authorities whose views were potentially problematic to officials in Beijing led to their strident acts.181

The Cardinal confirms that important progress had been made in Sino-Vatican relations at the highest levels prior to 2006, pointing to the papal appointments of Peter Feng Xinmao in January 2004 as coadjutor of Hengsui, Hebei Province; Joseph Xing Wenzhi as auxiliary of Shanghai in June 2005; Anthony Dang Ming Yan as coadjutor of Xian in July 2005; and Paul He Zeqing as auxiliary bishop of the archdioceses of Wanxian, Sichuan Province, which were followed by the government-required election by representatives of their dioceses and subsequent formal approval by the government.182 Benedict’s invitation to three CCPA bishops and one underground bishop to the synod of bishops in October 2005 as full members was another indication of growing good will, although officials in Beijing refused to grant permission to the bishops to travel to Rome.183

Zen concurs that some officials who hold positions overseeing the “open” Catholic church, including the leadership of the CCPA, do not want to lose power and, consequently, do what they can to inhibit normalization of Sino-Vatican relations. He maintains that China’s highest-level officials were unhappy about the controversial ordinations of 2006, fearful that the Holy See would close the door on negotiations. In support of his view, the Cardinal points to the Holy See’s emphatic statements against the ordinations immediately thereafter, and notes the mild reaction of Chinese authorities. This unusual reserve is read by Zen as an indication that China’s highest officials preferred negotiations and that the third illicit ordination of November 2006 probably was conducted against their will.184 Evidence that Zen’s understanding likely is

178 Ibid.179 UCAN Commentary, “Confrontation and Lack of Dialogue Causes New Conflict.”180 Ibid. 181 Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, interview by author, Hong Kong, January 15, 2007.? Ibid. 182 Ibid.183 Ibid. See also Aikman, Jesus in Beijing , 303.184 Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, interview by author, Hong Kong, January 15, 2007.

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correct is that Liu Bainian, the CCPA’s vice chairman, blamed the November ordination on local leaders. Zen believes that initiatives for the ordinations were those of officials only up to the United Front level. He suspects, however, that high-level officials permitted the first illicit ordination in April to test the waters with the new pontiff.185 Cardinal Ratzinger had been elected by the papal conclave in April 2005, to succeed John Paul II. That Chinese officials extended an invitation for a delegation from the Vatican to visit China for the first time in more than five years on June 28, 2006, supports the view that high-level authorities were concerned that the Holy See might end negotiations in retaliation for the consecrations that offended them. Still, high-level officials did not reprimand the lower authorities involved in the ordinations, as they do not want to risk challenge by officials close to the grass roots.186

For certain, any significant movement toward improved Sino-Vatican relations would force changes in the underground church—an accepted phenomenon in Benedict’s May letter. Prior to the letter, however, Zen feared that a push for reconciliation could be premature and potentially dangerous. He argued that, although it is discreet to request unregistered Catholics not to speak against bishops in the state-sanctioned church and to support a believer’s right to attend the “open” church if he or she so wishes, he held that it is quite another matter to expect priests to come from the underground into the open at personal risk of harsh consequences.187

The Pope’s approval for local decisions on steps toward union perhaps directly reflects Zen’s concerns, as do recent arrests. On August 23, 2007, as he was preparing a pastoral letter and meetings to explain Benedict’s letter to the people of his diocese, Bishop Julius Jia Zhiquo (73) of Zhengding, Hebei Province, was arrested and removed to an undisclosed location. The seal of the CCPA was posted on the entrances to his residence and the meeting location. By the end of the summer, at least eleven priests had been arrested in various areas of China in connection with the Pope’s letter. AsiaNews reported that the detentions had been harsher than usual.188

Shortly before Benedict’s letter was issued, Zen observed, “We have been compromised for too long,” and argued that it was time for a consensus within the Holy See on how to approach troubled relations with China.189 He maintained that, because there was a disparate effort underway by the government to eradicate the underground Catholic community, the Holy See should not make compromises. He also advised that the Holy See must act to encourage the long-suffering underground church. In sympathy with underground views, he queried, how is it possible to be a member of the state-controlled church that declares its autonomy from the Holy See, and simultaneously a member of the universal Catholic Church that is led by the pontiff? It is this conundrum that he maintained must be resolved for China’s Catholics by authorities in the Vatican,190 as China’s self-run, independent church is a flagrant contradiction of the essence of Catholicism. Yet, he identified opportunity for the universal Church: The illicit 2006 ordinations, he claimed, caused many bishops and priests to seriously question the leadership of the CCPA; whereas they formerly believed that it was impossible to eliminate it and therefore toed the line, the fallout of the ordinations is that many no longer accept the continuation of the CCPA as in the best interests of the country.191

185 Ibid.186 Ibid.187 Ibid.188 AsiaNews, “Unofficial Bishop Detained for Promoting Papal Letter,” Sunday Examiner, September 2, 2007, 3.189 “Clarity a Big Need in Dealing with China Says Bishop of Hong Kong,” Sunday Examiner, February 4, 2007, 1.190 Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, interview by author, Hong Kong, January 15, 2007. 191 Ibid.

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Experience as a TeacherIn advance of the letter, Zen held to a hard line: the Holy See should inform the Chinese government that there could be no compromise at that juncture, and if the government did not want to negotiate, this would be acceptable. Further, the Holy See should tell China’s Catholics that they should follow the ways of the Vatican-centered Church to being Catholic, not the “Chinese way.” If negotiations were stopped, he recommended that the Holy See ask Chinese Catholics to declare whether they belonged to the Roman Catholic Church whose head is the pontiff, or to the independent Catholic Church in China, whose head is the CCPA. He maintained that China’s Catholics sought clarity from the Holy See, including on the grave matter of excommunication, and assessed that many faithful were willing to be imprisoned for their beliefs, if necessary. If, however, the Holy See would not stand firm, he anticipated weakened influence of the universal Church. Insisting that the Catholic Church is a strong institution, he has resisted its surrender to China’s tactics and pressure. He has been fearful that some officials in the Holy See are convinced that a conciliatory, compromising approach to Chinese officials will lead to a soft landing for the Apostolic See in China, suggested by its tempered statement following the November 2006 ordination. He observed, the concept of reconciliation is appealing and avoids confrontation— it is easier to yield than to take a firm stance.192

Based on his experience with China’s leaders, Zen understands the ability of leaders in Beijing to exploit or manipulate the differences among opponents to their own advantage, rewarding or flattering those who will bend to their demands, and ostracizing others whom they consider unsympathetic.193 As it is the Holy See, rather than Chinese officials, that appears most desiring of normalized relations, when its representatives want to visit the mainland, Chinese authorities likely will grant invitations when it is to their gain, and deny visits when it is not. The handling of persons wanting access to China’s religious and government officials will be an important negotiation tactic. Zen is an example, as for six years he was denied the right to travel to his homeland, a strategy to try to make him bend to Beijing’s will.

Also, Chinese officials will look at normalization of relations as a milestone in building China’s international credentials, as the Holy See leads the world’s largest religious community. The Catholic Church is the oldest Western institution and the Vatican is the last Western state to establish a normalized relationship with Beijing, thus, initiatives by the Holy See convey at long last its acceptance of the CCP regime as the legitimate government over China. The precondition to negotiations that the Holy See derecognize the government in Taipei, likely includes pressure by authorities in Beijing to support their one China policy and to deny the right of Taiwan to be independent. Bishop Wu observed in 1985,

“To set conditions that must be fulfilled before one is even willing to engage in dialogue, is not a method used today in any kind of fruitful international negotiations. Such a stance, on its face value, may be judged as lacking in sincerity, and also could result in one’s views not being taken too seriously in international circles.”194

192 Ibid.193 Discussion in the following paragraphs of the strategies of the central government is based on the author’s studies of Chinese authorities’ interaction with the British during negotiations over the fate of Hong Kong and with political and business leaders of Taiwan over cross-Strait relations, as well as on observations and analysis by James Mann in About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999).

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Although the Holy See will yield willingly on Taiwan—as Taiwan’s Catholics long have anticipated and as Benedict’s letter suggests by the emphasis in it on the desire to arrive at normalized Holy See-central government relations—the second precondition to negotiations, that the Holy See must abandon any claim to a role in China’s internal affairs, including in the name of religion, would deny that the Successor of Peter is the legitimate leader of China’s Catholics, subverting Catholic doctrine—thus, the unrenounceable principles of apostolic succession and uninhibited communion of China’s Catholics with the universal Church will be the chief points of contention in negotiations. Even though the Holy See no longer challenges the right of the CCP to rule China, it does challenge party-state’s control of the Catholic Church that is in China. As Zen points out, if the Holy See were to yield on these points, the concessions would strike a severe blow to the authority of the Holy See in China and internationally.195

Despite the vast spectrum of problems, limited common ground is found in the CPP regime’s and the Holy See’s impulses for secrecy. Therefore, it could be difficult for outside observers to track how China attempts to establish its customary pattern of setting the terms, conditions, and locations of negotiations predominantly in China. Zen, a close-range witness to the British negotiations with government officials over the fate of Hong Kong, is keenly aware of the hazard of giving the government the upper hand by being too eager to do business with Beijing. Indeed, Zen has maintained that the Holy See should not be too anxious to negotiate with Chinese authorities, as it unwittingly could concede negotiating advantage at a time when changing conditions of religious practice in China and the growing desire of Chinese to exercise personal independence could greatly favor the Holy See.196

Unlike many in the Catholic hierarchy, Zen is seasoned in dealing with China. In the run-up to 1997, within Hong Kong’s religious sector, the leadership of the HKSAR Catholic Church was uncommon in that it was not readily co-opted nor did it sink into self-censorship. A danger looms, however, that unseasoned interlocutors, whom Chinese prefer to address on a personal basis, could be manipulated into becoming advocates for the interests of Chinese authorities by bowing to a mystique that Catholicism in China is a unique case. This would undermine Zen’s defense of the Church’s rights, as the government tries to curtail them in the region.

Regardless whether Chinese officials instigated the 2006 illicit ordinations as a response to Zen’s elevation to cardinal, or as a means to show their determination to retain their control of China’s Church, they created a crisis, which, too, is a strategy familiar to Zen. In advance of the Hong Kong handover, they created crises over the construction of Hong Kong’s new airport and by establishing a “second stove” government for Hong Kong across the border in the mainland to undermine Governor Patten’s democracy initiatives, and to place the British on the defensive in an effort to make them tread lightly. Repeatedly, China’s authorities frustrated British plans for the territory or forced them to yield ground to maintain financial and social stability—and when they capitulated, in turn, the Chinese asked for more. Britain’s Hong Kong negotiations, with which Zen is intimately familiar, are a stern warning how not to deal with Chinese authorities.

Zen is a sharp thorn in the side of Catholics who want no confrontation and Chinese authorities. Unlike decision-makers remote in the Vatican, he stands in the heat of the fire, unwilling to set aside the troubling questions about China’s political system. Pope Benedict has sent his letter to China’s Catholics which reflects many of Zen’s concerns, but it remains to be 194 John Tong, “With Bishop Wu on His Historic Visit to China,” Tripod 26 (April 1985): 53-54, in Leung, Sino-Vatican Relations: Problems in Conflicting Authority 1976-1986, 251.195 Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun, interview by author, Hong Kong, January 15, 2007.196 Ibid.

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seen to what extent the Holy See will further press for freedom of religion in China—and what compromises it will be willing to make. Does the Holy See deeply care about authoritarianism on the mainland, as Benedict’s letter suggests? Could it construct a justification, moral or otherwise, for opposing it in Eastern Europe, Chile, the Philippines, and elsewhere, while acquiescing to it in the PRC?

Vietnam-Vatican Relations: Inspiration for Mainland Authorities?

The Holy See historically has had working relationships with many authoritarian societies, Nazi Germany being one, but relationships with communist societies have been distant. Yet, this situation may be changing as the world’s few remaining communist societies197 open themselves to outside influences and contact.

On January 25, 2007, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung became the first head of state of a communist nation to visit the Holy See. The meeting between Dung and Pope Benedict opened the way for further talks on steps toward formalization of diplomatic relations.198 Inevitably, the potential for normalized relations between the Holy See and Vietnam, a nation of some six million Catholics (over 7 percent of the population), has raised hope among Catholics internationally for a rapprochement also in Sino-Vatican relations. Vietnam, like China, has witnessed a marked upturn in its economic prospects, aided by the country’s entry into the World Trade Organization in November 2006. Having Asia’s second-fastest-growing economy of 8.17 percent in 2006,199 trailing only China’s, this growing economic power has attempted to embrace capitalism to counter the widespread poverty and even hunger that was the outgrowth of the state’s control of the economy.200 Vietnam’s prospects are bolstered by the fact that three-fifths of Vietnam’s 83 million people are under the age of twenty-seven. Besides being the focus of intense foreign investor interest, the sense of regained stature for Vietnam was advanced by its hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in November 2006, by the grant of Permanent Normal Trade Relations status by the United States, and by the removal of Vietnam by the United States from its list of “countries of particular concern” regarding freedom of religion.201 As in China during the second- and third-generation leaderships, economic ascendancy has been accompanied by less governmental control in Vietnam over religionists. Vietnamese Catholics now enjoy the liberty to participate in Mass and religious classes and to perform community service, without persecution.202 There is an improved level of religious freedom, although governmental controls over the practice of religion, including Catholicism, are still in place. There has been substantial progress since 1989, however, when Roger Cardinal Etchegaray made the first visit by a representative of the Vatican to Vietnam since April 1975, when the communists gained control of power. The first official

197 People’s Republic of China, Republic of Cuba, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Socialist Republic of Vietnam.198 “Vietnam and the Vatican,” Review & Outlook, Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2007, http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB116995832386190324.html (accessed February 7, 2007), and UCAN, “Vietnam Publicises Policies on Religious Freedom,” in Sunday Examiner, February 18, 2007, 3. 199 “Economy of Vietnam,” Wikipedia, March 11, 2007, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Vietnam (accessed March 16, 2007).200 Keith Bradsher, “Vietnam’s Roaring Economy Is Set for World Stage,” New York Times, October 25, 2006, A1, C4.201 CNS/UCAN/SE, “Pope Hosts Vietnamese Prime Minister in Move toward Normalising Relations,” Sunday Examiner, February 4, 2007, 1.202 “Vietnam and the Vatican.”

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visit by a Vatican delegation followed in 1990, when there also was an up-tick in the interest of Vietnamese officials to restructure the economy.

As a model of an arrangement that could be worked out with China, the Vatican proposes the names of candidates to become new bishops in Vietnam, and, if the candidates are acceptable to the government in Hanoi, it commonly officially approves them,203 a system of mutual accommodation not unlike the working relationship on course in China before the government’s illicit ordinations of bishops in 2006. If a candidate is rejected by the Vietnamese government, another candidate is proposed in the same pattern. Thus, the pope names a new bishop and the Vietnamese government gives its statement of nihil obstat (nothing hinders).204 There are established communication channels between the Vatican and Hanoi, even though the Holy See and Vietnam do not have formal diplomatic relations. It is through these channels, which allow representatives from the Vatican to go to Vietnam annually, that the Holy See expects problems remaining in Church-state relations to be resolved, such as the insistence of the government in Hanoi that it approve Vatican candidates for bishop before they are announced, its restriction of the number of men who are permitted annually to enroll in seminaries, and the lack of clarity regarding the operations of Vietnamese Catholic institutions.

That progress toward improved relations is underway was marked, however, by the visit of a Vatican delegation under the leadership of the Holy See’s undersecretary for Relations with States, Monsignor Pietro Parolin, in March 2007, within two months of the Vietnamese prime minister’s visit to the Vatican. This was the fourteenth official visit by a delegation from the Vatican to Vietnam under communist rule, and it was couched in speculation that the Vatican is prepared to establish full diplomatic relations with Vietnam.

In a three-chapter white paper entitled Religion and Policies Regarding Religion in Vietnam, released by the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Vietnamese Government Committee for Religious Affairs on February 1, 2007, the government guaranteed the rights to freedom of belief and freedom of religion to all Vietnamese. The thrust of the paper is the pursuit of national unification “without any discrimination on the basis of belief or religion.” Nguyen The Doanh, deputy head of the religious affairs committee, admitted that uneven development in the country had inhibited adequate implementation of religious policies in the past, but said that, by means of the white paper, the government aimed to raise awareness among Vietnamese citizens and the international community of the realities of religious practice in Vietnam, in part by including government religious policies and guidelines in the document and a description of the achievements of local religions in expanding their relationships with foreign counterparts.

The spring 2007 crackdown on a new generation of Internet-based democracy activists by imprisonment, which included the sentencing of the Reverend Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly, a Roman Catholic priest and one of Vietnam’s best known dissidents, to eight years for antigovernment activities,205 shows that relations between the Vietnamese government and the Holy See remain subject to great tension. However, among Vietnam’s six state-sanctioned religions, Catholicism, introduction to the country in 1533, has the second largest number of adherents after mainstream Buddhism’s some ten million.206 At a time of growing religious

203 Ibid.204 Gerard O’Connell, “Holy See Delegation on another Visit to Vietnam,” Sunday Examiner, March 11, 2007, 3. The statement of nihil obstat is a veto power that could be abused and thus destroy Vietnam-Vatican relations if not used sparingly.205 “Vietnam: Dissident Lawyers Sent to Prison,” World Briefing, New York Times, May 12, 2007, A9.206 UCAN, “Vietnam Publicises Policies on Religious Freedom,” 3.

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practice that is accompanying vital economic growth, the Vietnamese government and officials in the Vatican seemingly are searching productively for positive solutions.

Conclusion

As 2007 progresses, it is anticipated that at least some eight to ten elderly Catholic bishops will be unable to continue their work or will die, leaving vacancies which can be filled without approval of the Holy See. The central government could opt to continue its contravention of Catholic Canon Law—not by forcing Chinese Catholics to belong to the official, registered, legal church, which the Holy See does not oppose—but by continuing to require that the official church be autonomous of the ecclesial hierarchy centered in Rome and the universal Church—to which Benedict’s May letter vigorously objects. There is no indication that Chinese officials will yield on the requirement for members of the Church in China to be “authentically Chinese Catholics,” which requires a kind of patriotism that does not challenge the government and denies the Holy See’s right to exercise its authority in the religious affairs of China’s Catholics.

In July 2007, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association celebrated its golden anniversary, a milestone in the party and government’s ability to control Catholic practices, and April 2008 will mark fifty years since the consecration of the first mainland bishop without the approval of the Holy See.207 Presently, the party and government continue to wield their control over Catholic organizations, they still oversee arrests of clergy in the unregistered Catholic community, and they acknowledge no contradiction between their tolerance of “open” church Catholics’ regarding the pope as their spiritual leader, and the state’s requirement that they deny the pope is the Supreme Pastor of universal Catholicism with legitimate pastoral and authoritative ecclesial roles in the affairs of all Catholics.

Still, the state must take stock that Benedict’s letter to China’s Catholics has brought the universal Catholic Church as an institution into open opposition with the fourth generation of China’s leadership over the absence of authentic freedom of religion on the mainland. The letter potentially can help to deprive the Hu Jintao regime of whatever legitimacy it might claim from the state-dominated Catholic church, if the majority of China’s Catholics prefer to be led by the Successor of Peter and to be in full communion with the universal Church rather than continue their subservience to the state in their religious practice. Depending on how China’s contending Catholic communities respond in the longer term both to the Pope’s letter and to evolving social and political conditions in China, either a disappointed, still persecuted, underground Catholic community that coalesces politically, or a united Catholic Church with aspirations for a normal relationship with the Holy See that remain frustrated by the state, might provide protection, support, resources, and perhaps even some leadership to a prodemocratic opposition movement if it should resurface in China.

Benedict’s letter stresses the legitimacy of traditional Catholic ecclesial practices and the need for political change in China that permits Catholics to exercise their faith freely. He emphasizes the importance of the unity of the Catholic Church that is in China, collegial action among bishops, priests, and laity in full communion with the Successor of Peter and the worldwide Church, the rights of individual religionists, dedication to helping Chinese confront the challenges before them, and the contingent character of religious and political structures with regard to promoting justice in the PRC. In critiquing the situation of Catholics in China, Benedict

207 “2006: Neither the Best not the Worst of Years,” China Bridge: Observations on China from the Holy Spirit Study Centre, Sunday Examiner, January 14, 2007, 11.

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has passed a moral judgment on the existing political order that continues to deny basic human rights in the religious sphere. This analysis, as it is internalized, could be a significant force against the established political order in China’s growing Catholic and other religious communities.

Much will depend on how the Apostolic See approaches the development of its future relationship with authorities in Beijing. It could be so eager to have normalized relations with China that it allows the central government to play off differences within the ecclesial hierarchy and to use the Apostolic See’s keen desire for rapprochement for its own political purposes. Or, instead, Catholic leaders in Rome could pursue authentic religious freedom in China by downplaying the sense of urgency for a more normal relationship with China and by carefully keeping its appeal for reforms of the central government’s policies that prevent religious freedom in full public view. The outcome also will depend in part on what type of relationship the Holy See seeks for the Catholic Church with China’s government. One alternative is that it will agreeably accommodate the state’s interpretation of religious organizations as social institutions and its control over aspects of the Church as long as policies and regulations do not directly violate the unrenounceable principles of Catholicism; another is that the Holy See so thoroughly mistrusts the state that, in the long term, it will seek a Church in China that is altogether independent of the state. It is unclear where the Holy See believes the line is to be drawn, exactly, between the things that are Caesar’s and the things that are God’s. The hierarchy in the Vatican has withdrawn faculties and pastoral directives that allowed the underground church to survive; observers will look for demonstration that it nevertheless cares much about the Chinese state’s intolerance of dissent. Benedict’s May letter states that the Catholic Church “cannot and must not replace the State,”208 but Catholic and other democrats will be watchful that the Holy See does not deemphasize human rights nor make apologies for the state’s control of religions to minimize at all costs potential conflict that would jeopardize normalization of Sino-Vatican relations. As Cardinal Zen has observed, miscalculation by deferring to the state on vital principles could have disastrous consequences for the influence of the Apostolic See. However, proclamation by the Apostolic See that it does not intend to challenge the state by rallying forces against it in the political sphere does not mean that the CCP and central government can count on authorities in the Vatican to set aside the party and government’s troubling, extensive interference in religious affairs and other questions about the nature of China’s nondemocratic political system that are worrisome concerns of the Church.

208 Pope Benedict XVI, Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, sec. 4, Willingness to Engage in Respectful and Constructive Dialogue.

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