Some 17,000 mainland Chinese Catholics were baptized on Easter Sunday alone. These striking numbers emerged during a symposium on the conditions of Chinese believers held in Rome on Wednesday under the auspices of the Holy See’s Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions and AsiaNews, a Catholic news agency based in Italy. So despite all the restrictions and limitations imposed by the Chinese government, the Catholic Church is showing strong resilience coupled with the capacity to spread across the country.
In his greeting message, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said the “Holy See is working for the Roman Church in China”. A dialogue between Beijing and the Vatican is indeed under way, but negotiations have so far been slow to make headway.
State persecution
Guests at the event pointed out that the major problem for Chinese Catholics remained the suppression of religious freedom. As evidence of this situation, AsiaNews reported that Monsignor Peter Shao Zhumin, bishop of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, had been held under arrest by Chinese authorities since May 22, the latest episode in a long history of persecution against Catholic prelates.
Shao is an “underground” bishop, which means he is loyal to the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church but is not recognized by the government-sponsored Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) and Chinese Catholic Bishop’s Conference (CCBC).
The appointments of bishops, which both the CPCA and the Holy See lay claim to, is the real sticking point in the current Sino-Vatican engagement. Communist China and the Catholic Church cut diplomatic ties in 1951. Since then, the Vatican has been lamenting the stifling control of the Chinese government over the local Catholic Church.
In a 2007 letter to Chinese Catholics, then-Pope Benedict XVI clearly demanded autonomy in the spiritual sphere for the Church in China as opposed to the power exerted by Beijing through the CPCA and the CCBC.
Benedict’s words went unheeded, however. The symposium’s organizers read testimonies by official and underground priests from different provinces of China who were prevented from participating by a ban levied by the authorities in Beijing. They provided a grim picture of the religious situation in the country, with both the official and unofficial churches being forced to submit to the political leadership and compete with one another to secure economic support from the state.
Cultural unification and ‘gray pragmatism’
Through the meeting, Richard Madsen, an American sociologist of religion from the University of San Diego, said China was experiencing a religious renaissance. In his opinion, however, this trend is slowed by the Chinese leadership’s efforts to create a unified culture across the country (including in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), which, in contrast, has always been characterized by different “social ecologies”.
For Monsignor Savio Hon Tai Fai, secretary of the Holy See’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, China’s religious renaissance is also endangered by what he described as “gray pragmatism”, the notion of growth at all costs that permeates a large part of Chinese society – and, by extension, portions of the Chinese Church. Savio Hon stressed that this gray pragmatism in China had grown along with economic reforms and megaprojects like Belt and Road, Beijing’s initiative to improve transport infrastructure across Eurasia and beyond.
In the face of state-managed persecution, social unification and the promotion of consumerist materialism in China, it is improbable that a diplomatic compromise between the Vatican and Beijing over episcopal ordinations will be sufficient to generate real improvements for Chinese Catholics, unless it is matched by the recognition of freedom of speech, movement, association and assembly.
According to Father Bernardo Cervellera, editor of AsiaNews, diplomatic relations and arrangements are not so important when the oppression of Catholic believers by the Chinese government continues unabated. In his view, Beijing will make no overture ahead of the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress this autumn, all the more so when divisions within the Communist ruling nomenklatura on how to cope with the Catholic Church start to surface.
But rifts are also visible in the Vatican ranks between those who want to move forward with incremental gains in the relationship with China and those ready to question excessive concessions to the Chinese government – a contrast that further contributes to the stall in the negotiating process.
China have its own Buddhism and ancestral worship, no need for the infamous churches from Europe.
Europe went thorugh hundreds years of trial and error to arrive at its diminished form today, China have no need it to go thorugh anything of the sort.
Buddhism promotes self-awareness and self-enlightenment, a much better form of spiritual practice for the modern era. Christianity
puts one’s faith at the mercy of another authority, prone to be abused by self appointed interpreters. No thank you.
After the cultural revolution the spiritual and social vacuume have been left behind for breakneck economic development, churches are taking advantage of it for now. China’s social intellectuals are slow in taking up the task of filling the vaccume, but in time they will.
What repression? Numbers are growing and there are churches with halls large enough for a congregation of 10,000 worshippers, with large crosses prominently displayed on the dacade, carparks, etc.
Abrahamic religions are evil and should be banned
Religion means religion and not in politics. In fact all religions are linked to politics in order to overthrow the legitimate government. If want to play politics, join the political party.
The theistic religion of Christianity, Islam, Hindu and Judaism
had left a trail of blood in their wake through their religious and
sectarianian fanatism (mass murdering in the name of their religion) and the annals of atrocities in their past and continues unabated to the present.
Such religions are not conducive to unity of Chinese nation and shouldn’t be encouraged or to be promoted.
Buddhism and Taoism have strong roots and had served China well with good moral teaching since ancient time and will continue to do so into the future thus, the Chinese government have no problem with them and are happy to see religious Chinese citizen becoming Buddhist or Taoist instead for the simple reason first and foremost Buddhism and Taoism is ‘apolitical’ and will not create unneccessary conflict with the government and other ethnic or religious group. In contrast, the theistic religion is political and martial and could bring conflict and strife for China especially when under the influence of those foreign rabble rousers.
The past Christian missionaries have had a sordid historical past in China known for destabilising activities working hand in gloves with foreign agents. This is also the reason why the Chinese government have no formal relation with the Vatican up until now. In truth China doesn’t need the Vatican in it serves no useful purpose or value and it will only suck a lot of money from the dumb Chinese Christians and at the same time will only empower and entrench foreign influence.
For the unity and good of China, all foreign religion should not be promoted or encouraged.