Heroism in the Face of Tyranny: An American Perspective on the Roman Catholic Church in China

by Bob Baker

The history of the Catholic Church spans many centuries – first brought to Asia by Syrian monks in the fifth and sixth centuries – and has labored through the centuries since.  Periodic persecutions have marked the Church’s existence but none as great as the Communist accent to power in 1949.  Beginning in the early 1950’s and again during the Cultural Revolution, there was a concerted effort to remove all traces of organized religion in China.  Religion is inconsistent with communist adherence to atheism.

Semantics aside, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) was created by the government during an interim period in 1957 and is an official organ of the state’s bureaucracy.  Through it, all the official clergy of China are trained, consecrated and controlled in their “patriotic” religious functions.

The government of China eventually understood, after trying to eradicate all forms of religion, that it couldn’t completely eradicate religion from within its borders.  Instead, after Mao’s death, the government decided to control it. 

The only way for oligarchies (and China is one, despite its “openings” to the West) to remain in power is control.  This control applies to all facets of everyday Chinese life.  The government controls what the Chinese people see and hear by strict control of the media, including the internet.  China enforces this control over all aspects of everyday life through the Public Security Bureau (PSB), much like the Soviet Union’s KGB. 

In 1999, China’s Communist Party’s Central Committee directed that the PSB tighten its control over the “official” Church and eliminate the underground Church if it didn’t succumb to government control.  The Patriotic bishop of Beijing (also a vice-president in the National People’s Congress), Michael Fu Tieshen, and Ye Xiaowen (Director of the Office of Religious Affairs) now rule over an authoritarian department devoted to extinguishing all non-government controlled religions in China. They use the PSB as an instrument of control over underground (i.e., Roman Catholic) church activities. 

The issues facing the Church’s continued existence in China are simple, though not easy for the faithful.  Roman Catholics in communion with Rome will continue to bear true witness to The Faith.  Like those before them, many will be called to suffer great hardships and sufferings through arbitrary detentions, arrests, reeducation and even martyrdom.  There must surely be untold martyrs who have refused to give up The Faith. 

For example, both Bishop Peter Fan of Baoding and Father Beda Chang, S.J. were tortured and died in jail; Bishop Fan, in April 1992; and Father Chang, the rector of St. Ignatius High School in Shanghai, in November 1951. Both Brother Joche-Albert, F.M.S. and Mr. Francis Shen were executed in public; Brother Joche-Albert, in April 1951; and Mr. Shen, president of the Legion of Mary, Shanghai Chapter, in November 1953.  Ignatius Cardinal Kung, who spent 32 and one half years in jail, died on March 12 2000.  Archbishop Dominic Tang, in jail for 25 years, died 9 years ago on June 27, 1995; and Father Xavier Tsai, in jail for 35 years, died 7 years ago on June 1, 1997. These and many others are listed on the website of the Cardinal Kung Foundation. 

In December 1994, the underground bishops issued a pastoral letter that stated that bishops and clerics of the Patriotic Church are no longer members of the Catholic Church.  This action must surely strengthen the faithful’s resolve to remain true to the Church. 

It is inconceivable for many in the West to comprehend what the situation in China is like.  The compelling evidence that the Chinese government is afraid of the masses, much less anyone being Catholic, is plain.  China will not allow anything that it cannot control.  Lessening its control amounts to lessening its complete dominance over millions of people.  China does not trust its citizens and believes that they will not remain loyal to the country of their birth.  Additionally, communist governments, by their nature, are atheist.  They could not eradicate religion, so they opted to control it by setting up their own Catholic Church.  Even though the appointment of its own Patriotic bishops brings automatic excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church of any bishop who ordains new bishops for the Patriotic Association (Canon 1382), the government gives every indication of not changing its ways in the future. Still, for the laity, questions concerning the safety of the Seal of the Confessional are naturally to be asked of state-appointed priests. 

For the Vatican, things were once clear during Pius XII’s reign during the onset of the communist regime in China.  In fact, Pius XII was quite insightful when in 1951 he wrote to Roman Catholics in China, “…you are opposing with a firm will all forms of insidious attack, whether subtle, hidden, or masked under a false appearance of truth.” Three years later, he continued to have the foresight to see what was to soon occur when he penned, “…they seek, in a word, to establish finally among you a “national” church, which no longer could be Catholic because it would be the negation of that universality or rather “catholicity” by which the society truly founded by Jesus Christ is above all nations and embraces them one and all.” 

In the years since Pius XII, things have not remained consistent with his foresight and clarity over China’s true intentions. 

During Pope John Paul II’s tenure, there has been wishful thinking among those in the Vatican.  This is somewhat ironic, given a man that lived through Nazi and communist control of his native country, and who understands the necessity of the Faith remaining consistent and true in spite of attempts to control religious activity and other assaults on the Church.  Perhaps the answer for such accommodations towards China lies elsewhere in the Vatican.

In the face of so many Patriotic priests and religious training in the United States, one wonders about the status of the 1988 Vatican advisory to all bishops that, “…all ‘communicatio in sacris’ is to be avoided.”  Is the injunction that “patriotic bishops and priests are not to be invited or even allowed to celebrate religious functions in public, either in the churches or in the oratories of the various religious institutes,” being followed?  We know that it is not being followed.

For example, in June 2001 Vatican official Cardinal Roger Etchegaray was honored for his work in “promoting relations with China.” The Basque-French cardinal had been received by the People’s National Assembly in Beijing in 1981. He was the first cardinal to celebrate Mass in public in a Chinese (Patriotic Association) cathedral.  Moreover, some U. S. dioceses, such as New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., have granted priestly faculties to Patriotic Association priests, allowing them to openly offer Holy Mass and administer other Sacraments, including hearing confessions in Roman Catholic parishes.  

In the 1988 advisory, the Vatican allowed that an “intermediate level” of priests and laity in China exists – those who remain loyal to the pope but who are compelled to become part of the Patriotic Association. This advisory has had a major effect and one not well regarded in its consequences.  Not only does it provide the Patriotic Association religious a convenient way to receive education and financial support but it also strengthens this government because this “intermediate level” is still controlled by the Patriotic Association, with the PSB to enforce its directives. This has given de facto recognition to Patriotic Association priests and provided cover for religious communities, such as the Jesuits and Maryknollers, to provide finances and training to government priests and religious.  Not only do underground Church members refuse to have anything to do with Patriotic priests and bishops, but to think that the Chinese government would not look askance at those priests trained in the U.S. and Europe is an unreasonable conclusion. 

There are reports that some Patriotic bishops have received Vatican approval after the fact.  If true, it makes a mockery of China’s martyrs and of those who have and are still suffering under the iron grip of the Chinese government.

Since Mao, China has a history of signing on to international agreements on religious, human rights and military affairs but has selectively chosen their application, using the well-worn phrase, “interfering in China’s internal affairs,” as the excuse to ignore their pledges.

Many Patriotic priests and religious are good people, but when official government policy (e.g., birth control, abortion, etc) and Papal authority clash, state policy takes precedence in the Patriotic church.  This is untenable.  It is much like the split between the Church of England and the Catholic Church – an “external political context” that has snowballed its lasting effects onto today.  Those “intermediate level” ordained face a dilemma and one would naturally wonder how many make the choice to abide by state rulings (“No man can serve two masters.  For either he will hate the one and love the other: or he will sustain the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24)?

As the U.S. State Department finally declared China a “country of particular concern,” based on the U.S. Commission on International Freedom’s recommendation in 2002, and declared that the situation in China has deteriorated even further in 2004, it seems that the U.S. government has finally awakened to the fact that China actively represses non-state-controlled religion.  It is not enough to take active measures against China, however, because big business will never sit still for it and China knows it.

Viewing the Patriotic Church from a purely Catholic point of view, one sees that it fails to live up to the true meaning of the four Marks of the Roman Catholic Church (one, holy, catholic, and apostolic), wishful thinking notwithstanding. Keeping lines of communication open with the Patriotic Church is good, but not at the cost of forsaking those in communion with the Roman Catholic Church.  More importantly, if the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t speak for its own flock, who will? 

Those who suffer from persecution for the Faith deserve better. Theirs are the true "heroic achievements."

This item 6224 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org