Over the past five years,
relations between the government of China and the Catholic Church
unfortunately have been marked by "misunderstandings, accusations" and
new "stumbling blocks" to religious freedom, said the prefect of the
Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
Cardinal Fernando Filoni, congregation prefect, said, "Control over
persons and institutions has been honed and sessions of indoctrination
and pressure are being turned to with ever greater ease."
In an article published in late October in Tripod, a publication of the
Holy Spirit Study Center in Hong Kong, the cardinal, who spent nine
years in Hong Kong as a Vatican diplomat monitoring the situation of the
church in China, issued a call for dialogue with China's communist
government.
He asked for the establishment of a high-level, bilateral commission of
China and the Holy See, similar to the China-Taiwan commissions that
continue to discuss issues of importance even though relations between
the two are strained politically.
The Catholic community in China, he said, does not enjoy the freedom it
should and it cannot move toward unity and reconciliation as long as the
government appoints bishops unacceptable to the Holy See, pressures
other bishops to participate in illicit ordinations and detains bishops
who insist on maintaining their ties with the Vatican.
The situation also is exacerbated by misunderstandings between what
Cardinal Filoni described as the "two currents" of the Catholic Church
in China: one basically underground because it "did not accept
compromises and political control," and the other existing openly, but
accepting government control for what he termed "existential reasons,"
by which he meant its very existence.
Pope Benedict XVI, in a 2007 letter to Chinese Catholics, urged the two
communities to recognize each other as Catholic and move toward
reconciliation.
The pope's letter, Cardinal Filoni said, recognized that "as a whole,
the church in China was never schismatic," even though some Catholics
accepted government control in order to ensure the survival of the
church.
China's estimated 10 million to 12 million Catholics are divided between
officially registered communities supervised by the
government-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and
so-called "underground" communities that recognize only the authority of
the Vatican.
Pope Benedict's 2007 letter, Cardinal Filoni said, urged a process of
reconciliation among Catholics "to eliminate prejudices, interference,
divisions and connivances, hatred and ambiguity" between the two
communities.
The pope's hoped-for reconciliation "experienced difficulties" because
of "external pressures on the church itself," presumably by the
government, "but also because of misunderstandings between the two
'currents,'" the cardinal said. "Decades of separation had dug furrows
and built walls, so that deep internal wounds inflicted on the church
are present even today."
The healing of the Chinese Catholic community cannot proceed while the
government continues to act in ways that further test and divide
Catholics in the country, the cardinal said.
The Vatican insists, he said, on the Catholic Church being able to be
true to its identity and its teachings in China. For that to occur, the
bishops must be united among themselves and with the pope; pastors must
be holy and suitable; the community must be truly "catholic" or
universal by being in communion structurally and in matters of faith
with the pope and other Catholics around the world; and the church must
be apostolic, which is ensured through the proper succession of bishops
recognized by the pope.
Citing three specific "stumbling blocks," Cardinal Filoni said the
Chinese government and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association have
increased the divisions in the past few years.
First, he said, the government-organized national assembly of Catholic
representatives in 2010 "sharpened the control of the state over the
church," pressured underground clergy to join the patriotic association,
and began exercising greater control over internal church matters. As
an example, the cardinal cited the appointment of a government official
as vice rector of the seminary in Shijiazhuang.
Second, he said, "rigorous control over the appointment of bishops has
led to the choice of controversial candidates, who were both morally and
pastorally unacceptable."
Third, the cardinal said, the ordinations of new bishops -- both those
acceptable to the Vatican and those the Vatican considered illicit --
were marred by the participation of "illegitimate bishops" as
co-consecrators, "creating a dramatic crisis of conscience" for all
participants.
The situation of Catholics in China "remains serious," Cardinal Filoni
said. "Some bishops and priests have been segregated and deprived of
their liberties, as the case of (Auxiliary) Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin of
Shanghai has clearly demonstrated."
The bishop, 45, quit the government-approved Catholic Patriotic
Association at his ordination July 7. Since then, he has been in
"retreat" at the Sheshan Seminary, reported the Asian church news agency
UCA News.
However, a mainland bishop who is recognized by both the Vatican and
Beijing told UCA News he does not think Cardinal Filoni's invitation
will yield results because the government "doesn't care about the church
or the Vatican. They never want to have sincere dialogue."
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said: "The government will not
make any response because its top priority is to maintain stability on
the eve of the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and
ensure smooth transition of the state leadership."
UCA News also reported that, as the Nov. 8 opening of the congress
neared, Chinese officials were tightening security across the country as
well as in cyberspace. The congress was expected to see a
once-in-a-decade power transition.