Letter #3, 2018: The First "Post-Western" Pope

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Letter #3, 2018: The First "Post-Western" Pope

[2018-02-20]

[Engleză]

February 19, 2018, Monday

“So, do I think that the Vatican is selling out the Catholic Church in China? Yes, definitely, if they go in the direction which is obvious from all what they are doing in recent years and months.” —Chinese Cardinal Joseph Zen, 86, Emeritus Archbishop of Hong Kong, at the end of a Facebook post on January 29, 2018, almost one month ago. Zen had flown to Rome in early January to request a meeting with Pope Francis, which he was granted. Speaking directly to the Pope, Zen protested a rumored Vatican decision to allow the Chinese government to choose who would be consecrated as Catholic bishops in China, a decision many expect will be announced in March or April

"With reference to widespread news on a presumed difference of thought and action between the Holy Father and his collaborators in the Roman Curia on issues relating to China, I am able to state the following:

'The Pope is in constant contact with his collaborators, in particular in the Secretariat of State, on Chinese issues, and is informed by them faithfully and in detail on the situation of the Catholic Church in China and on the steps in the dialogue in progress between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China, which he follows with special attention. It is therefore surprising and regrettable that the contrary is affirmed by people in the Church, thus fostering confusion and controversy.'" —Director of the Vatican Press Office Greg Burke, an American, in a prepared statement on January 30 in response to Cardinal Zen's suggestion that the Pope had not been fully informed by his diplomats about the implications of a decision to allow the Chinese government to have more control over the selection of Chinese Catholic bishops (link)

“Those who best realize the social doctrine of the Church at this time are the Chinese. They seek the common good, subordinating all things to the general good.” —Argentine Archbishop Marcel Sanchez Sorondo, 75, head of the Vatican's Academy for Social Sciences and a personal friend of Pope Francis, speaking with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, on February 2, following a visit to China

"Whether Sorondo understands it or not — and I would guess he doesn’t have a clue — there’s only one reason why the Chinese Party-State wants an agreement with the Vatican at all. For control... Most of all, it wants to force the Underground Church out into the open. There its heroic bishops will give way to state lackeys. Its members more effectively watched. Its preaching stopped. That the Vatican is contemplating cooperating with this scheme is mystifying." —Steven Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute, in a web essay published by TheStream.com on February 6, in response to Sanchez Sorondo's comments (link) Mosher is an internationally recognized authority on China and population issues. In 1979, he was the first American social scientist to visit mainland China. He was invited there by the Chinese government, where he had access to government documents and actually witnessed women being forced to have abortions under the new “one-child policy.” Mr. Mosher was a pro-choice atheist at the time, but witnessing these traumatic abortions led him to reconsider his convictions and to eventually become a practicing, pro-life Roman Catholic

"The Vatican knows China is good for business. As a spiritual enterprise, organised religion is all about numbers and, with 1.37 billion souls to be saved on the mainland, it’s no surprise relations with Beijing are warming." —Alex Lo, article in the South China Morning Post (already tomorrow, February 20, in China) (link)

"There is one place where we are seeing conversions: in the adoration chapels. We have actually been quite surprised. Quite a few young people in Budapest are spending time in our adoration chapels." —Cardinal Peter Erdo, 65, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary, in a private conversation with me in New York City two weeks ago

================

A few months ago, I was standing by La Vittoria restaurant on the via delle Fornaci in Rome following a dinner with friends. It was a quiet, warm summer evening, about 10 p.m., already dark.

An Italian man whom I knew came walking briskly down the street. He is an internationally respected writer on geopolitical affairs. I stopped him, greeted him, and asked him what he was working on at the moment.

"China!" he said.

His hair was disheveled and standing almost on end in different places.

"China?" I said.

"Yes! The Pope and his advisors would like to make a breakthrough in China! It's their #1 priority. Nothing else is even remotely as important to them."

"Ah!" I replied, mentally rifling though a series of other matters of concern in mid-2017: the Church's liturgy, the dubia... the bloody conflicts in Libya and Syria and the consequent massive immigration into Europe... the Vatican's opaque finances... the tragic conflict in Ukraine... the post-Christian West's seemingly Gnostic longing for, and embrace of, what will transcend man and perhaps dominate man, the "transhuman," the "superhuman"...

"Ok," I said. "Interesting. So, what is the vision?"

"Simple!" my friend replied. "The people of China, so hard-working, so oriented toward becoming successful, in their hundreds of millions, are nevertheless, of course, souls, souls with a hunger for the divine, for the eternal, for God..."

He stopped and pointed toward the Apostolic Palace in the distance, above the colonnade.

"And that is something about which the Church..." (he shook his finger at the Vatican palaces) "knows very much, for two millennia now. And the Chinese government, despite its best efforts, does not, and cannot, fully understand this hunger.

"And so we have these two great powers, one secular, one spiritual. And the Pope is persuaded that if the Chinese government gives the Church an opening to function in China, something extraordinary will happen."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Mass conversions," the excited writer said to me. "By the millions. When the Church presents Jesus Christ to the Chinese people, when the sacraments are celebrated in churches in every part of the country, the people will respond because they are spiritually thirsty, spiritually starving. What the Church offers has been systematically excluded from every aspect of Chinese life, which was traditionally rooted in a reverent Confucianism, which respected elders and nature's laws. All that was uprooted in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. But the desire for something more remains, for it is a human desire, intrinsic to our nature. And for this reason, the Pope thinks the Chinese people will be fascinated by the Church and the Christian message, and ultimately, by Jesus Christ. And he believes there may well be, if there is an opening, perhaps 100 million Catholics in China in 10 years, perhaps 200 million in 20 years. Making China the largest Catholic country by number of believers in the world. And that would have extraordinary consequences."

"But the Chinese government..." I said. "Would the government ever allow such a thing?"

"Good question," he said. "No one knows the answer. But the bet is that the situation will become uncontrollable. The longing for the faith, for the transcendant, will become a cultural phenomenon, an explosion of spiritual force. And the government will be unable to take repressive measures because the longing will be too widespread, and open repression too negative for the country's global image. So the conversions will come, and they will be massive."

And he summed up: "But one thing is quite clear: this Pope is the first 'post-Western' Pope. He sees far beyond the old boundaries of what we called Christendom."

We talked a while longer, and then parted. But I did not forget the conversation.

====================

(Above, children reach out to touch Pope Francis during an audience at the Vatican. He is flanked by his security men. In Rome, it is said that Francis would like to make a visit to China.)

A few weeks ago, there began to be reports that the Vatican is on the eve of an historic accord with the Chinese government regulating the choice of bishops for the Catholic Church in China.

According to an article yesterday, February 18, in Italy's Corriere della Sera daily, by Massimo Franco and Paolo Salom, the Pope has now, in fact, already given his approval in principle to the agreement. (link)

The Vatican's goal is for the Catholic Church to be accepted by China as a "foreign religion" that is "no longer hostile" to Communist China, the writers say.

And they cite a Vatican official telling them: "For our part, the decision has been taken: after the end of March, any day will be a good day to sign the accord with the Chinese government on the procedure for the naming of Catholic bishops."

The official said there remain some "unknowns," including who, from China's side, will sign the accord, where the signing will take place, and whether there might be some last-minute surprises.

But otherwise, according to this official, it is a "done deal."

Of course, Taiwan is looking on nervously, since it has official diplomatic relations with the Vatican, and does not want to lose them. But if the Chinese agree on this accord with the Vatican, it might not be long before China might try to have the Vatican abandon its relations with Taiwan and establish them with China. This would be a diplomatic coup for China, and a severe blow to Taiwan.

Also, American analysts seem to be watching developments closely at the request of the US government.

The question they are attempting to answer is: Why is the Vatican moving now so boldly to reach an agreement with China?

The answer the US analysts are reaching, the Corriere report says, has two parts. First, the Vatican wants to defend the Catholic minority in China through legalizing the Church. Second, the Vatican, by moving very quickly right now, hopes to head off a schism between the government-approved "Patriotic Church" and the underground Church loyal to Rome, which has been persecuted by the Communist regime.

In fact, Taiwan is so worried about what is happening that it recently sent a five-member delegation to Rome to meet Francis and plead with him to keep their country in mind. But the Pope did not receive the five; they met instead with Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher (photo), 64, the Vatican's "foreign minister." (Chinese sources say the United States was indirecly behind the mission of the five Taiwanese, the two journalists say.)

The two journalists note — and this is the point — that the diplomacy guided by the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin (photo), 63, depended a great deal on the fact that, in China, the Pope was seen as a "post-Western" Pope, not "an agent of a foreign power," that is, of the United States.

Moreover, the Vatican has assured China, the journalists say, that it does not wish to change the regime, but only to permit its own faithful to live in freedom. Therefore, no interference in political matters, something Beijing fears more than anything else.

"It is a matter of turning a page," one Roman source told the journalists,. "We no longer want a Church that must remain by definition in opposition to the regime. We must enter into a prgmatic dialogue, transcending the ideology of the Cold War and of conflict."

And the journalists add that the "mantra" of the Vatican diplomacy is as follows: "We do realize it is a bad accord, because the Chinese have a knife up their sleeve, and every time we Catholics grab it, we bleed. But Beijing does accept that the Church of Rome may enter into religious questions, something never accepted before. And more, now the door is ajar. Tomorrow it could shut tight and any dialogue whatsoever could become difficult. Better a bad accord than no accord."

In fact, the Vatican diplomats fear that, following China's last Party Congress, where some "hard-line" views were expressed, the situation may soon get worse, not better.

So, in Rome, during March, probably after the closing in China of the annual session of the National Assembly, Vatican officials are awaiting a Chinese delegation to put the final touches on the agreement. The Chinese deputy foreign minister is expected to come (the responsible for the European section) as the counterpart to Monsignor Antoine Camilleri (photo), 52, who is in charge of the negotiations, together with Gallagher and another veteran of China-Vatican negotiations, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli. Then, in China, the country's leader, Xi Jinping, is said to be ready to approve the agreement.

So, in conclusion, in order to re-establish contact with the largest Asian country following the complete break which occurred in 1951 — 67 years ago now — the Pope from Argentina seems ready to re-open this front, quite aware that there will be criticism from his adversaries both within and without the Church. But it is time, say the diplomats: "If we delay, in the Communict Party, the resistance could re-emerge, and this accord set aside."

So it does now seem that, barring some unexpected development, such an accord will be signed in March of April.

Is it a good agreement? Or a bad one, even a terrible one, a "sell-out" of the Catholic Church in China, as Cardinal Zen has described it? And does it even matter, if a bad agreement is better than no agreement, as the Vatican diplomat argued?

It is impossible to say at this point, though many are exercising their right to comment — including Cardinal Zen himself.

Below, I offer four articles which form a sort of "Dossier" that may help to provide a context for the meaning and likely consequences of this decision.

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

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