Vatican Mulls New Strategy for Chinese Catholics

c. 2007 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ When it comes to addressing the spiritual needs of China’s estimated 12 million Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI knows his options are limited. In recent years, China has shunned nearly every overture the Vatican has made towards restoring diplomatic relations severed more than a half-century ago. When […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ When it comes to addressing the spiritual needs of China’s estimated 12 million Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI knows his options are limited.

In recent years, China has shunned nearly every overture the Vatican has made towards restoring diplomatic relations severed more than a half-century ago.


When the Holy See invited a Chinese representative to attend John Paul II’s funeral in 2005, Beijing demurred. When the newly elected Benedict rolled out the welcome mat for bishops in China’s state-run church to attend a synod in Rome, the bishops were grounded.

So now, after more than a year of failed diplomatic gestures, Benedict is reaching for his pen.

A statement from the Holy See press office on Saturday (Jan. 20) announced that Benedict will write a letter to China’s Catholics in a bid to shed light on the tangled state of affairs keeping Rome and Beijing locked in a diplomatic stalemate.

The announcement came after a summit Friday and Saturday where Benedict was briefed on the “wide-ranging and intricate debate” by his top foreign policy advisers at the Holy See and leading prelates from Asia.

Liu Bainian, the hard-line vice chairman of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, welcomed the news that Benedict planned to write to China’s Catholics.

“I hope and I also believe that the pope’s letter will show his love of China’s churches,” Liu told the Associated Press. “I am hopeful that it can improve Chinese-Vatican ties.”

The two-day summit provided a chance for high-profile churchmen in China, such as Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong, to formally challenge the wisdom of the Vatican’s dovish approach.


Church officials who attended the meeting expressed hope for “the normalization of ties at all levels,” including diplomatic ones, the statement said. But it also acknowledged the obstacles arising from the “troubled history” of China’s church.

In his letter, Benedict will indeed be writing to a highly divided audience. China’s Catholics are split between those who practice in a state-run “open church” and those who follow an “underground church,” administered by clandestine network of clerics who are routinely harassed and persecuted by China’s communist government.

In recent months, at least 17 underground bishops have disappeared, been arrested or been detained in isolation, according to Asia News, a news agency affiliated with the Vatican. In its statement, the Vatican praised “the inspiring witness of the bishops, priests and lay faithful” who have remained loyal to the pope “at the cost of grave suffering.”

The crackdown compounds tensions resulting from Beijing’s decision to consecrate new bishops in its state-run church without gaining Benedict’s approval. The consecrations have provoked searing condemnations and threats of excommunication from the Vatican, which considers the promotion of bishops without papal approval a transgression of church law that directly “wounds the unity of the church.” Beijing has rejected the Vatican’s attempt to weigh in on the bishop appointments as interference with the country’s “internal affairs.”

China is also wary of Benedict’s relations with Zen of Hong Kong. Zen, who attended the two-day meeting, has been an outspoken advocate of religious freedom in China. A year ago, Benedict elevated him from bishop to the rank of cardinal, angering officials in Beijing.

KRE END MEICHTRY

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