Issued by the Catholic Center for Studies and Media - Jordan. Editor-in-chief Fr. Rif'at Bader - موقع أبونا abouna.org

Published on Tuesday, 20 November 2018
The China-Holy See agreement in the crosshairs

By Gianni Valente/ lastampa.it :

Impositions and restrictions suffered by the underground Catholic communities fuel criticism on the agreement. While in reality, the channels of contact between Rome and Beijing represent an effective tool for gradually resolving the problems still on the table.

If the Pope “is wrong” in accepting an agreement with People's China on the nomination of bishops, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun hopes that the Pope himself will admit "his mistake". And if that doesn't happen, the 86-year-old cardinal hopes "that the next Pope will indicate the mistake" made by his predecessor. After his preventive war against that agreement had not reached the desired effect, the bishop emeritus of Hong Kong projected his demands on the future scenarios and on the next Conclaves. He entrusts to some coming Pope his desire to see the steps taken by the Holy See in relation to the Chinese "dossier" during the time of Pope Francis dismissed as accidental and reversible misunderstandings.

The Salesian cardinal of Hong Kong expressed his wishes in a recent interview published in the Ucanews agency, where he recognized that in any case the final decision was up to the Pope, and urged the "mainland's brothers" to take courage, "without rebellion". While at the same time, he insisted on making accusations - as senseless as they were slandering - of the Pope's collaborators (beginning with Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin).

Two months after its signing, and even before being applied and measured by its concrete effects, the provisional agreement between the Holy See and the government of Beijing on the future nominations of the Chinese bishops continues to be criticized and crushed even by Western political-media circuits. Recently, led by the conservative parliamentarian Sir David Amess, a group of Catholics from the United Kingdom - where the Anglican bishops are appointed by Queen Elizabeth - they made known through the British weekly The Catholic Herald their "profound dismay" at the Vatican’s provisional agreement, which in their opinion will allow the "officially atheist Chinese government" to play a role in the choice of Catholic bishops, at a time when Chinese Catholics "are enduring the harshest repression for many decades”.

Bishop Shao’s journey

The aspiring sinkers of the provisional agreement between China and the Holy See rely on cases of persistent impositions exerted by the local political apparatus on members of the so-called "underground" Chinese Catholic communities (those who seek to escape the rules and control imposed by the government's religious policy). On 9 November last - the agency Ucanews reported - some members of the political apparatus went to pick up Pietro Shao Zhumin, auxiliary bishop of Wenzhou, not recognized by the government, and led him on a 10 to days "transfer", during which they will presumably try to push him to accept the procedures and instruments of governmental religious policy. Priests from the underground community of that city confirm that the officials of the apparatus have not used aggressive treatment against the bishop, who should soon return home. Shao - Ucanews sources also confirm - had himself agreed with the officials on the day the trip began, asking them to postpone it until 9 November, so as to be able to fulfill previously arranged commitments.

In the face of incidents such as that of Bishop Shao some hardened floggers in Sino-Vatican negotiations seem unable to hold back a certain euphoria, while they continue to portray the work of the representatives of the Holy See as a manifestation of yielding to the apparatus that mistreats the Chinese Catholic communities. They report the cases of new restrictions and impositions suffered in China by ecclesiastics and Catholic communities as "overwhelming evidence" that the recent provisional China-Vatican agreement will not produce any positive repercussions for the condition of Chinese Catholics.

In reality, the smokescreen raised by the criticism on the agreement between the Chinese government and the Holy See conceals substantial data and elements to grasp what is really happening on the Rome-Beijing axis with regard to the anomalous condition of the Church in China. Attention is drawn to the impositions still suffered by various Chinese Catholic communities, precisely when it is clear to all that the next steps in the path of dialogue will take on the problems of bishops and underground communities themselves (starting with those related to their recognition by civil authorities). Critics also aim to make the objective results of the agreement signed on 22 September fall into oblivion in the media. And above all they exclude from their representations any reference to the criteria and spirit that have guided and guide the Holy See in its negotiations with the People's Republic of China.

The compass of the Popes

All the words used by Pope Francis and his collaborators on the Chinese issue made it clear that the first provisional agreement with Beijing was signed by the Holy See to safeguard the apostolic and sacramental nature of the Church in China. In the People's Republic of China, the illegitimate ordinations of bishops celebrated without pontifical mandate under pressure from political power have for decades fed the division, even sacramental, among the Chinese Catholic communities. That was the first hemorrhage of trust and hope that needed to be remedied, followed then by attempts to try and resolve other problems as well. And if one stands by the facts, the implications of the provisional agreement already involve objective and substantial changes on the present condition of Chinese Catholicism. From now on, in China, there will be no more illegitimate bishops. The new bishops will be appointed by the Pope, recognized by all as head of the Church. In the choice of the new successors of the apostles in China, full fidelity to the substance of Tradition and the great discipline of the Church will be guaranteed. And no Catholic conscience would be instinctively impelled to ignore or minimize the effects of the agreement that affect these traits proper to the apostolic and sacramental nature of the Church. The same ones that Chinese Catholics have continued to recognize and confess, even in times of blood-stained persecution.

The martyrdom of patience

The agreement with China was signed by the Holy See with hope and trepidation, but without any triumphalist self-satisfaction. Even the Pope's collaborators who are most involved in the dialogue with the Chinese - starting with Cardinal Parolin - have never attributed to the agreement the thaumaturgical power to dissolve in a whisker all the evils and problems that make the condition of Chinese Catholicism anomalous and painful. Everyone acknowledged that new incidents on the way were foreseeable. They all affirmed without hesitation that there are still many knots to be untied, that they will have to be dealt with one at a time, and that no one already has in their pocket pre-packaged solutions to overcome difficulties and contrasts that have become gangrenous during the past decades. But everyone is confident that the open channels of contact with the Chinese authorities - which have probably reached influential levels of Chinese power such as the United Front, a key apparatus in the Chinese system - are the useful tool for gradually trying to resolve, step by step, the problems still on the table.

The Pope and the Holy See do not forget anyone. Least of all the Chinese Catholic communities struggling with the today’s challenges. The gradual method used in contacts with the Chinese government does not leave out any controversial issues, seeking solutions that are compatible both with the needs for political control of the civil authorities and with the nature of the Church itself. The two parties have undertaken not to leave the negotiating table and not to take unilateral initiatives over problems which haven’t been solved in a consensual manner. For this reason, the channels of contact are also the most direct instrument for intervening and holding accountable the cases in which members of the Chinese clergy are subjected to undue restrictions by the local authorities.

The representatives of the Holy See note that the most demanding work in relations with the Chinese government begins now. They do not proceed out of reckless gambling or illusory confidence in their negotiating skills. They appear resolute only because they recognize that the path taken is that suggested by a gaze of faith on the events of history. A gaze of faith should be followed, if one really wants to help the Chinese Catholic communities in what is today's China.

In the current reality of the People's Republic of China, many bishops, priests, religious and faithful, not only of the underground communities, experience every day the "martyrdom of patience" in the relationship with invasive political and administrative apparatus. But the whole affair of Chinese Catholicism shows that even within so many external constraints, ecclesial life can flourish, and also that the most hostile situations, over time, can evolve for the better. Already now, in most Chinese dioceses, the local authorities, even with their request to subject everything to registration and political authorization, do not hinder the growth of the Church by grace, as the multitudes of new baptized people show every year.

The Church's martyrdom path and lobbies’ operations

Representatives of the Holy See know that they are called upon to make delicate choices, on questions conditioned by ambivalence, by human pretensions and frailties that accompany every real historical journey. But they do not move on the basis of personal opinions. The direction and criteria they follow are the same as those already taken into account and progressively brought into focus in substantial continuity by the Popes and the Apostolic See in recent decades, as the real condition of the Catholic Church in China after the years of the Cultural Revolution became better known also in Rome. It was John Paul II who first legitimized and welcomed into full communion Chinese bishops who had been ordained without pontifical mandate. And at that time, they were not asked to abandon the bodies created by the governmental religious policy to control the Church, such as the Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics.

The criteria followed by the Holy See to accompany the path and growth of the Church in China are essentially the same as those that have guided the Apostolic See towards modern China since the times of the Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud. Benedict XV published that text in 1919 also to put an end to the maneuvers of Western congregations and missionary institutes that in their work seemed to take into account more the colonial interests of their respective nations than the good of the blossoming Churches in the mission countries. Even now, as then, the choices of the Holy See seem to have been motivated by the intention of favoring everything that is to the advantage of the salvation of the souls of Chinese Catholics and their fellow country people. A criterion that dominates and judges over every other consideration of political and geopolitical nature, even in dealing with the civil authorities that govern China today.

The petty keyboard inquisitors who attack the China-Vatican agreement also aim to hide the substantial continuity of the guiding criteria followed by the Holy See on the Chinese question. In addition to concealing the real effects of the agreement with China on the nomination of bishops - also publicly desired by Benedict XVI in his Letter to Chinese Catholics of 2007 - they believe they can impose through propaganda the idea that it is an ephemeral and reversible event, linked to a specific ecclesial sensibility. While they continue to keep alive the focus of the polemics against the China-Vatican agreement, they try to diminish its scope by presenting it as a fleeting effect of the Vatican's orientations pro tempore, exposed to potential rethinking and U-turns to be propitiated through operations of ecclesiastical policy (perhaps in the medium-long times necessary to see future Conclaves convened).

Disastrous bets

In recent years the flag of militant criticism of the Beijing-Holy See agreement in progress has guaranteed media visibility to those who are fueling it. Those same opinion makers now seem to be wandering about the failure of the Sino-Vatican negotiations, like business people who invest their incomes betting on the economic crises of the countries at risk of default. The eagerness with which those same aspiring influencers want to demonstrate that for the Chinese Catholic communities nothing has changed since the agreement seems in many ways to mirror the watchwords of the Chinese apparatus, intent also on repeating that for the Church in China everything continues and will continue as before. The same language is used especially by those who according to the scheme of "permanent conflict" between the Holy See and the Chinese authorities, gained importance along with political and social status. And perhaps even this curious "convergence between opposites" is a clue that really, for the Church of China, something is beginning to change.