c. 1999 Religion News Service

ROME _ Chinese President Jiang Zemin has no intention of meeting with Pope John Paul II during his current official visit to Italy, but Italy is keeping the issue of religious freedom and Vatican-Beijing relations in the forefront.

Jiang, the first Chinese president to visit Italy in 12 years, came to talk about political issues, trade and cultural exchanges. But Italian leaders _ from the prime minister to the mayor of Rome _ have also taken pains to voice their opposition to restrictions on religious freedom and urge Jiang to open direct dialogue with the Vatican.

The pressure on the Chinese leader came as the Vatican signaled it was ready to jettison its diplomatic relations with Taiwan in order to improve its relations with Beijing.

In an interview with the left-wing newspaper L’Unita published in advance of his talks Tuesday (March 23) with the Chinese president, Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema said Italy strongly supports religious liberty and noted Italy’s particular ties to the Roman Catholic Church.”The Italian government is ready to do everything possible to facilitate the search for an agreement between the parties,”he said.”It is my judgment that with a little good will the difficulties could be overcome, and we are ready to do everything possible to encourage dialogue.” A government communique on the talks between Jiang and D’Alema said the prime minister had”expressed the hope that relations between the Chinese People’s Republic and the Holy See may be reknotted on a constructive base.” Receiving Jiang earlier at the Campidoglio, Rome’s city hall, Mayor Francesco Rutelli said the issue was”particularly close to my heart.””It would be very good news for us to receive a simple signal of readiness to dialogue in this area so that a solution might be found to the question in the exclusive dimension of religious liberty,”he said.

The Vatican has not only stated its readiness to improve relations but made clear that it is prepared to”modify”ties with Taiwan in the process.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, said in February that he was prepared to move the Vatican’s embassy from Taipei to Beijing immediately.”We are aware that in order to normalize our relations with Beijing, we will have to modify relations with Taipei,”he said in an interview published in the newspaper Corriere della Sera on Monday.”We are willing to negotiate.” Sodano said the Vatican believes that”appropriate, mutually acceptable solutions”to church-state problems can be found through direct negotiations.

Zhu Bangzao, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, responded at a news conference by saying,”Words are not enough. You have to follow through with deeds.””China desires to improve relations with the Vatican,”he said,”but it must break diplomatic relations with Taiwan, seeing as the international community recognizes the existence of only one China, and it must not interfere in internal Chinese affairs with the excuse of religious activities.” In Taiwan, officials warned the Vatican to beware of China’s”hypocrisy”on religious freedom and human rights issues and foreign minister Roy Wu told reporters any move China makes to improve relations with the Holy City has as its”sole purposes … isolating us diplomatically.” Vatican foreign affairs minister Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, however, insisted that”Our interest in a religious rapport with Chinese Catholics cannot be see as religious interference.” In order to control the ties of Chinese Catholics to the Vatican, China established the Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics in 1957. The government does not recognize the pope’s appointments of bishops and has forced Catholics still loyal to the Vatican to practice their faith underground.

But the Vatican appeared eager to play down these differences even at the cost of repudiating a Vatican news organ. The target was Fides, which reports on the missionary activities of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

The Rev. Bernardo Cervellera, editor of Fides, charged in a March 20 editorial that police are preventing at least 11 Chinese priests and 12 bishops from meeting with their flocks and celebrating Mass in public and have held two bishops incommunicado since 1996.

Bishop Jacob Su Zhiminh, 67, of Baoding in northeast China and his auxiliary bishop, Francis An Shuxin, 50,”disappeared three years ago,”Cervellera said.”At the cost of seeking to meddle anew in the internal affairs of the church in China, we want to ask President Jiang Zemin to release the two prelates or at least to let us know where they are held and why.” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls issued an unusually sharp chastisement two days later. Denying news reports the Vatican had appealed for the bishops’ freedom, he said this information was issued on Cervellera’s”personal initiative”and”not in agreement with the officials of the Secretariat of State.”

DEA END POLK