林中斌 部落格 / Blog Chong-Pin Lin

Talks to heal Catholic rift in China gain momentum

New York Times, NOV 29, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/world/asia/catholics-china-francis.html

accessed Nov. 29, 2016

• 中梵外交磨合仍在發展中。2016年12月西北Changzhi主教任命同時得北京及梵諦岡認可。

Pope Francis has spoken of his admiration for Chinese culture. He has greeted a delegation from China, accepting a silk imprint of an ancient inscription about Christianity. And he had his picture taken with a Chinese bishop in St. Peter’s Square last month.

Now, he appears to be considering more significant action: a grand compromise with China’s Communist leaders to heal the bitter, decades-old rift that has divided generations of Chinese Catholics and prevented the pope from openly exercising authority in the world’s most populous country.

The Vatican says talks are continuing, and much work remains before a deal is done. But Francis’ apparent determination to see a rapprochement with Beijing has already caused unease among some who are worried that he might give too much away to the hard-line Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

“Most agree that the two sides must talk,” said a priest in Hebei, a northern province with many “underground” Catholics who reject state oversight.

“But there is the risk that if the pope moves too quickly, the underground priests will feel the church will lose its autonomy,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Some people have sacrificed a lot, and worry that their sacrifice will not be recognized.”

The Communist Party expelled Catholic missionaries after taking power in 1949, condemning them as tools of Western imperialists, and has required Catholics to worship in “patriotic” churches under state oversight. But a third or more of China’s estimated nine million to 12 million Catholics worship in “underground” congregations that are loyal to the pope and have resisted state control, sometimes enduring persecution and imprisonment.

The Vatican has long dreamed of returning to China, bringing the underground church out of the shadows and healing divisions among Chinese Catholics. Under Francis, negotiations with Beijing over reconciliation have gained momentum.

“We need patience, a lot of patience,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, who has overseen talks with China, told reporters this month in Bologna, Italy.

Though expectations have been building, a breakthrough has been elusive given the Communist government’s deep suspicion of foreign and religious influences as subversive, and the fears of Chinese Catholics wary of state interference in their faith, said people closely following the talks. “There are still difficult issues that are not yet agreed upon,” said the Rev. Jeroom Heyndrickx, the acting director of the Ferdinand Verbiest Institute in Belgium, which studies Catholicism in China.

The central dispute is over the power to name new bishops and the fate of existing bishops in China. For the Catholic Church, bishops are divine successors of the apostles, to be appointed by the pope. But China has long insisted on controlling ordinations, arguing that anything else amounts to interference in its internal affairs.

Most Chinese bishops are recognized by both the Vatican and the Chinese authorities, but there are several in the state-backed church who are excommunicated and working without papal approval, including some rumored to have broken their vows of chastity and fathered children.

There are also more than two dozen underground bishops, many of whom are viewed with suspicion by the government and a few of whom are believed to be in prison.

Any deal would have to decide what happens to both groups. “The Vatican can’t be seen as selling out people who have suffered and gone to jail for their faith,” said a Vatican official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the secretive talks.

There is little doubt of Francis’ enthusiasm for China.

In 2014, he sent a greeting to President Xi while flying through Chinese airspace on his way to South Korea. And his encounter with Joseph Xu Honggen, the bishop of Suzhou, in St. Peter’s Square last month was said to be the first public meeting between a pope and a bishop resident in mainland China since the Communist Revolution.

“For me, China has always been a reference point of greatness,” the 79-year-old pontiff told an Italian reporter in January.

Mr. Xi has repeatedly warned against religion’s being used to undermine Communist rule, and his government has torn down crosses from Protestant churches in eastern China and instituted new controls on worship.