The positive realism that is bringing
the Vatican and China closer together
by Lucio Brunelli
Translated from
January 31, 2009
There is a way that rejects any dialog a priori, every dealing with the 'enemy', which gratifies a vain image of one's purity, but does not bring any concrete good to one's own community.
There is also a hard-fought search for compromise, a discreet flexibility which perhaps may not sound heroic, does not gain applause, but brings about a real improvement, the best that is possible under a specific historical circumstance.
Which then is the more just, more moral attitude? That is the dilemma that Benedict XVI faced with the Catholic community of about 15 million in the immensity of mainland China.
In the time of Mao Zedong, the policy of the regime was brutally clear: to extirpate every trace of God, to throw priests and bishops into jail, to close down all the churches.
At the end of the 1970s, things changed with Deng Xiaoping - churches reopened, worship was allowed, but on condition of vowing independence from the Pope to form a 'patriotic' national Church.
The margins for compromise appeared so narrow that many priests chose to operate underground. With the Vatican's approval, many bishops were consecrated secretly as 'clandestine' bishops, as opposed to the 'patriotic' bishops named by the regime.
Now, we are in a third phase that is more pragmatic. Most of the 'patriotic' bishops, secretly linked to Rome, have obtained pontifical recognition. Between the Vatican and Beijing direct contacts have begun that have so far to produced some results: almost all the new bishops have been chosen by a sort of parallel consensus between Rome and Beijing.
Thus a new generation of priests is emerging who act within the official structure - with the administrative limits and controls imposed by the government, but carrying out their essential activities of catechesis, prayer and witness rather normally. They are, at the same time, one with Rome, even if direct physical and institutional contact is still forbidden between the local Catholic hierarchy and Rome.
It is a situation Benedict XVI is perfectly aware of. In 2007, he wrote a historic letter to the Catholics of China in which he took note of the new reality and called on 'clandestine' andd 'official' Catholics to reconcile and to work together.
The greatest resistance to the Pope's instructions have come from the hardline, 'pure' Catholics who grew up in the time of the 'catacombs'.
The latest issue of the magazine 30 GIORNI recounts an emblematic case - that of the auxiliary Bishop of Baoding, Francis An Shuxin. Formerly an underground bishop, with ten years of jail behind him, he decided in 2006 to operate within the official system, while writing down for the civilian authorities his clear intention to stay in communion with the Pope.
He informed the Holy See of his decision, and the Vatican supported him. But the clandestines cried he had betrayed them, organized 'political' campaigns against a bishop they considered collaborationist, and spread stories about him in the Western media to put him in a bad light.
It is a sad and complex situation. The reaction of the underground priests, especially those who in various ways continue to suffer the obtuse and often brutal policies of local functionaries, must certainly be understood and they should not be ostracized. But there is no future for them.
If only because the Great Wall is not about to come down as did the Berlin Wall. And
it is precisely a Pope who does not compromise on doctrinal points who also understands that there is no better alternative at this time, for the good of the Church in China, to patient dialog, to negotiation, to a policy of taking small steps when dealing with the giant of Asia.
NB: One of this small 'big steps' is the authorized publication in Chinese of a book of traditional Christian prayers distributed in China by 30 GIORNI, which carried an introduction by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when it was issued in Italian in 2005.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 31/01/2010 23:30]