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PopeWatch: The Middle Kingdom

 

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Sandro Magister at his blog Chiesa notes the surrender of the Pope to the gerontocracy clinging to power in Peking:

 

In China, among the one hundred and nine Catholic bishops there are eight who have been consecrated at the behest of the communist authorities and who have never received the pope’s approval, thereby incurring excommunication, a couple of them with children and lovers.

But for none other than these eight, by the end of this summer or at the latest before the end of the jubilee Francis is ready to perform a spectacular gesture: a pardon.

Francis missed another stunning gesture by just a hair’s breadth last September 26, during his journey to Cuba and the United States.

That day, his touchdown in New York on his way to Philadelphia coincided with the landing of Chinese president Xi Jinping, who was expected at the United Nations. Everything had been calculated for the two to cross paths “accidentally” at the airport and exchange a greeting. Xi was aware of this ardent desire of the pope, but in the end he let it drop and the meeting did not take place.

From that moment on, however, the secret contacts between the Vatican and Beijing underwent an acceleration. In October and then in January a delegation of six representatives of the Holy See went to the Chinese capital. And in April of this year, the two sides set up a joint working group that now seems to have come to an understanding over a point that the Vatican takes very seriously: the appointment of bishops.

Since it has been in power, in fact, the Chinese communist party has wanted to equip itself with a submissive Church separate from Rome, with bishops of its own appointment ordained without the pope’s approval, beholden to a Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association that Benedict XVI called “irreconcilable” with Catholic doctrine.

A Church of the regime, therefore, on the verge of schism with its eight excommunicated bishops, contrasted with an “underground” Church with about thirty bishops earnestly faithful to the pope, which however pays all the costs of clandestinity – oppression, surveillance, arrest, abduction.

And in the middle the vast gray zone of the remaining dozens of bishops who were ordained illegitimately but then were more or less reconciled with Rome, or were ordained with the parallel recognition of Rome and Beijing but must still remain under the iron control of the communist authorities.

The bishop of Shanghai, Thaddeus Ma Daqin, ordained in 2007 with the twofold approval of the pope and the government, has been under house arrest for four years for the simple offense of having resigned from the Patriotic Association. Two months ago he retracted, but he is still deprived of his liberty. The eighty-five-year-old Joseph Zen Zekiun (in the photo), who has more freedom of speech in Hong Kong, has called “inevitable” the suspicion that this retraction was also desired by the Vatican, just to reach an agreement at any price.

That an agreement has already been reached was confirmed in recent days by Zen’s successor in the diocese of Hong Kong, Cardinal John Tong, with an open letter released in Chinese, English, and Italian that bears all the marks of wanting to prepare the faithful to make the best of a bad lot:

> Card. Tong: Communion of the Church in China with the Universal Church

Because the solution at which Tong hints is one of those against which Cardinal Zen has already raised covering fire to the point of threatening conscientious objection:

> Card. Zen: My concerns over China-Holy See dialogue and repercussions on Chinese Church

The example that is brought up most often is that of Vietnam, where the candidate for bishop is proposed by the Vatican but the government can veto him, and then on to other candidates until the government approves one of them.

But for China, the solution of which Cardinal Tong appears to have knowledge sees the roles reversed. The candidate will be selected and proposed to the Vatican by the Chinese episcopal conference. Only that this conference is a creature of the communist party, completely at the beck and call the regime, devoid of “underground” bishops and with one of the excommunicated eight as its president.

“Let us dare to believe that Pope Francis will accept nothing that could endanger the communion of the Church in China with the universal Church,” Tong wrote.

But the pope’s pardon of the eight illegitimate bishops will certainly not suffice to reassure him, Zen, and most Chinese Catholics.

____________

This commentary was published in “L’Espresso” no. 33 of 2016, on newsstands August 14, on the opinion page entitled “Settimo cielo” entrusted to Sandro Magister.

Here is the index of all the previous commentaries:

> “L’Espresso” in seventh heaven

__________

One indispensable point of reference for a detailed reconstruction of the negotiations underway between the Vatican and China is the analysis published on July 14 by the international news agency Reuters:

> After decades of mistrust, Pope pushes for diplomatic breakthrough with China

__________

Among the eight Chinese bishops ordained without papal mandate and the authors of illicit ordinations in their turn, who because of this have automatically incurred excommunication according to canon 1382 of the code of canon law, three have also been excommunicated in explicit form by the Holy See:

– Lei Shiyin, bishop of Leshan (Sichuan), ordained June 29, 2011;
– Huang Bingzhang, bishop of Shantou (Guangdong), ordained July 14, 2011;
– Yue Fusheng of Harbin (Heilongjiang), ordained July 6, 2012.

For the other illegitimate bishops, the agency “Asia News” of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions has furnished the following names:

– Zhan Silu, bishop of Mindong (Fujian), ordained in 2000, installed on May 14, 2006:
– Ma Yinglin, bishop of Kunming (Yunnan), ordained April 30, 2006;
– Liu Xinhong, bishop of Wuhu (Anhui), ordained May 3, 2006;
– Guo Jincai, bishop of Chengde (Hebei), ordained November 20, 2010.

One of these, Ma Yinglin, is also president of the council of Chinese bishops, the pseudo episcopal conference controlled by the communist regime.

___________

In the statement cited above in the body of the article, Cardinal Zen harshly criticizes the abolition of the advisory committee for China that had a de facto role at the Vatican already at the time when the prefect of Propaganda Fide – the dicastery with jurisdiction over missionary territories, including China – was Cardinal Jozef Tomko (1985-2001), sidelined during the prefecture of Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe (2001-2006) but then reactivated during the prefecture of Cardinal Ivan Dias (2006-2011) and of his successor Fernando Filoni.

The committee, made up of bishops, missionaries, and experts including Zen himself, was repeatedly convened and consulted all throughout the pontificate of Benedict XVI, author of the 2007 letter to Chinese Catholics that is the most significant pontifical document on the subject in the last few decades:

> Letter…

According to Cardinal Zen, one of the last effects of the guidelines from the committee was the courageous July 7, 2012 resignation of newly ordained bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin from the Patriotic Association, which came at the cost of house arrest:

> Shanghai, a Strong and Hard-pressed Diocese

But since then, and for the whole pontificate of Pope Francis, the committee has not been convened again, without anything having been said about its fate. With Cardinal Zen now commenting as follows:

“No death certificate, no obituary. Extreme disrespect to the members of the commission and to the one who set it up in the first place! Extreme deviation even from the tradition of formal politeness of the Roman curia! The fact is that one of the two living Chinese cardinals [meaning him, Zen – editor’s note] is barred from knowing anything about how [in the secretariat of state] they are negotiating the affair of the Church in China. There is still a Chinese in Rome, but he must be a nuisance, he was exiled to Guam.”

The “exile” to whom Zen alludes is his fellow countryman bishop and friend Savio Hon Taifai  – he too a Salesian like the cardinal – called by Benedict XVI from Hong Kong to Rome in 2011 as secretary of the congregation for the evangelization of peoples, but now dispatched by Francis to an island of the Pacific Ocean, as apostolic administrator of Guam, with an unexpected appointment last June 6.

Go here to read the rest.  Throughout her history the Church often has had to come to terms with odious regimes in an attempt to protect local Catholics from persecution.  The folly with this policy switch however is that Christianity is thriving in China, and the regime, technocrats who believe in little but preserving their power, clearly is living on borrowed time.  Pope Francis should listen to the faithful members of the underground Catholic Church in Europe who have been writing a glorious chapter in the history of the Church.
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Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Wednesday, August 24, AD 2016 4:17am

“The example that is brought up most often is that of Vietnam, where the candidate for bishop is proposed by the Vatican but the government can veto him…”
The same system exists in France, except in Alsace-Moselle where, for historical reasons, the President of the Republic nominates the Archbishop of Strasbourg and the Bishop of Metz.
In practice, diplomatic contacts ensure the veto is never exercised and that presidential nominations are invariably accepted. The details of the procedure were worked out between Cardinal Roncalli (as he then was) as Nuncio and first Léon Blum as Chairman of the Provisional Government and then President Auriol.
In 13 of the German sees, three of the Swiss and one in Austria, the bishop is elected by the Cathedral Chapter.

Penguin Fan
Penguin Fan
Wednesday, August 24, AD 2016 4:44am

Typical of this pontificate…..bleat about the envoirnment, teen unemployment….but not a word about Communist or Islamic suppression. Mario Vargas Llosa needs to write a second edition of The Perfect Latin American Idiot and put this Pontiff on the cover.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Wednesday, August 24, AD 2016 5:33am

This is the Pope who gladly received a commie crucifix from a tin pot Latin American dictator. Of course he will capitulate to the commies rulling China. The enemy to him is American capitalism.
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Depose and anathematize this heretic occupying St Peter’s seat.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, August 24, AD 2016 9:07am

Sandro Magister at his blog Chiesa notes the surrender of the Pope to the gerontocracy clinging to power in Peking:

‘Gerontocracy clinging to power’ is a description of Cuba, whose top echelon is studded with octogenarians who are contemporaries of the Castro brothers. China adopted term limits for certain offices more than 25 years ago and subsequently some set of policies which approximates mandatory retirement. There are published capsule biographies of members of the cabinet, the politburo of the Communist Party, and the Central Military Commission. Supposedly, none of the current members of these bodies were born prior to 1945. The members tend to be people in their early 60s.

Teng Hsaio-ping was 92 when he finally shuffled off and the succession of people who held the position of head of state during his tenure were typically octogenarians. Mao was past 80 at his death and Chou En-lai nearly 80.

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