The
most senior Chinese Catholic, Cardinal Joseph Zen, has slammed a potential
rapprochement between the Vatican and Beijing, saying it would be “betraying Jesus Christ”,
amid a thaw in more than six decades of bitter relations.
Talk of a deal between the two sides has been
building for months, with some saying the diplomatic coup for Pope Francis
would be resolving the highly controversial issue of allowing China’s Communist
government to have a hand in selecting bishops.
But Cardinal Joseph Zen, the 84-year-old former
bishop of Hong Kong, has been an outspoken critic, saying any agreement where
Beijing would have a hand in approving clergy would be “a surrender”.
“Maybe
the pope is a little naive, he doesn’t have the background to know the
Communists in China,”
Zen said at the Salesian school in Hong
Kong where he still
teaches. “The pope used to
know the persecuted Communists [in Latin America], but he may not know the
Communist persecutors who have killed hundreds of thousands.”
Chinese
Catholics are free to go to mass and attend government-sanctioned churches, but
barred from proselytising. The state-controlled China Catholic
Patriotic Association controls the church and appoints bishops, currently
without any input from the Vatican.
An “underground” Catholic church exists, with
some estimates saying it is larger than the official one, and its members and
clergy have faced persecution by authorities.
Protestant
Christians also face similar challenges, and a recent campaign
by authorities in eastern China has seen more than 1,200 crosses removed from buildings and churches
demolished.
Zen complained that most supporters of the deal
did not truly know China,
lacking first-hand experience with the state of the church under the
Communists. He spent seven years frequently teaching in cities across China in
the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, a bloody
crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that was followed by severe tightening of
freedom of expression and religion.
One motivation for the Vatican is the
relatively small number of Catholics in a country filled with people who are increasingly searching for meaning
in their lives. There are roughly 10 million Catholics, just a 10th
of the overall number of Christians in the country.
With “fake freedom” under a proposed deal, priests could more easily preach and more churches would open, Zen predicted, but “it’s only the impression of freedom, it’s not real freedom, the people sooner or later will see the bishops are puppets of the government and not really the shepherds of the flock.”
“The
official bishops are not really preaching the gospel,” Zen added “They are
preaching obedience to Communist authority.”
Francesco Sisci, an Italian scholar and
journalist who is based in Beijing, said “a very wide-ranging agreement”
appeared to be on the horizon but that it remained unclear exactly when the
deal would be unveiled. No observers expected it to lead to full diplomatic
relations.
Sisci, who conducted a rare interview with Pope Francis at the start of this year in which the
leader of the Catholic church backed the idea of dialogue with Beijing, said he
believed the deal would represent a “a major breakthrough” for China, the
Vatican and people of all faiths.
In your
Watchman’s opinion, the Vatican is abandoning its principles by by by engaging
with Beijing and believing it is be more
effective to talk to China’s Communist leaders than to “wage war” against them
on issues such as human rights and religious freedom.
The pope falsely believes the church can play
“a crucial role in helping China move into the modern world, to become a modern
society”.
Sisci made the bizarre comment that “the pope
may be naive but it is his job being naive, being a man of faith.”
Naivety will harm the Church in China for
decades to come, according to Zen, and a perception is building that the pope
is pushing a pact he does not understand.
Your watchman believes the Pope
understands exactly what he is doing and he is acting like the false prophet he truly
is. If Francis doesn't understand then he should not be pope! It means he is losing touch with his reason and real politik!
“You cannot go into negotiations with the
mentality ‘we want to sign an agreement at any cost’, then you are surrendering
yourself, you are betraying yourself, you are betraying Jesus Christ,” Zen
lamented.
“If you cannot get a good deal, an acceptable
deal, then the Vatican should walk away and maybe try again later,” he added.
“Could the church negotiate with Hitler? Could it negotiate with Stalin? No.”
“If they
could really strike a deal, not only would us Catholics be happy, but all of
the Chinese people should rejoice,” said Zhao, 36, who has been a Catholic for
20 years and works at the oldest Catholic church in China, close to Tiananmen
Square in Beijing. He declined to give his full name because he fears the
communist government.
“Chinese society needs faith right now,” Zhao
added, saying a warming of ties would increase the number of Catholics, “which
is a benefit to all society”.
But Zen warned that gains, diplomatically and
in the number of faithful, could be short-lived.
In the
long run people would leave the church as they became disillusioned with the
“fake” institution, Zen said, adding “the clergy need to side with the people,
the poor and the persecuted, not to government”.
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of new
Christians,” Zen said. “If that blood is poisoned, how long will those new
Christians last?
No comments:
Post a Comment