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| Falun Gong Organ Harvest Simulation, Hong Kong, 2006 |
History of the 1933 concordat with Hitler tells us the 2018 agreement is probably a bad idea.
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…Many suspect the timing of the arrest and delayed trial of Cardinal Zen is all part of a scheme engineered to arm-twist Vatican negotiators as the Vatican seems to be bent on continuing to have a say in the appointment of bishops.
Since many Catholics are uneasy about Rome’s overtures to Beijing and point to the past to stress that deals with the Chinese communists are as good as not having deals. Chinese Communists follow their own path of action, irrespective of international conventions and diplomatic agreements.
Despite Cardinal Zen's warning that the pact will pave the way for China to hijack the Catholic Church, the Vatican has been focusing on the positive results of the pact, which has helped 12 million Catholics in China to come together as one Catholic Church. The Vatican claimed that with the deal “all the Chinese Catholic bishops in China today are in full and public communion with the Bishop of Rome.”
For the Holy See, a nascent unified Church in China — ending the division underground Church and the state-run Church — is important. But the question remains: if all the Chinese Catholic Church becomes one unified Church, will it ever be out of the control of the Chinese communists?
Will the end result of the deal be worth the moral sacrifices the Vatican is making now?
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https://www.ucanews.com/news/chinas-new-measures-on-clergy-ignore-vatican-agreement/91547
—Ben Joseph, “Vatican silence on Cardinal Zen’s trial is disconcerting,” Union of Catholic Asian News, September 28, 2022
Is it the right decision to co-opt a repressive authoritarian regime in order to bring together in dubious unity what will be in effect a compromised church administration?
Ultimately, the Roman Catholic Church is called to witness to the teachings of the faith and to its moral principles in particular. Isn’t co-opting a morally reprehensible authoritarian regime an abdication of the Church’s charge to give Christian witness?
So far the signs say this secret concordat with Hitler is not the best decision for the Church. See “An Agreement with the Catholic Church,” below.
Don’t make a deal with the devil. You’ll be burned both ways—because he’s always setting fires and because you yourself asked to join the party.
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In July 1933, Hitler and Pope Pius XI signed a concordat, or treaty. Historian Fritz Stern explains:
On the face of it, the Vatican had scored a great triumph. No government under Weimar had been willing to sign such a concordat, which would recognize the principal rights of the church—rights that presumably would render it immune from the kind of persecution it had suffered [in the past]. By the terms of the concordat the church renounced all political activities and in turn the state guaranteed the right to free worship, to circulate pastoral epistles, to maintain Catholic schools and property. The Vatican had reason to be satisfied: Catholic rights had been put on a new basis and at the same time a regime had been strengthened that seemed to correspond to the Vatican’s sense that Mussolini and Hitler were indispensable bulwarks against Bolshevism.
Hitler had even more reason to be satisfied. The concordat was his first international agreement, and it vastly enhanced his respectability in Germany and abroad. A great moral authority had trusted his word. But did the Vatican . . . really believe that National Socialism would abide by the concordat, was there really much likelihood that the regime would leave untouched a rival organization with its own dogmas and with such sweeping power over education? [Fritz Stern, Dreams and Delusions: The Drama of German History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 169]
In the months and years after the concordat was signed, the Nazis regularly violated the agreement by shutting down some Catholic organizations, confiscating church property, interfering with Catholic newspapers, and imprisoning or murdering clergy and other Church leaders. But the pope did not openly criticize the Nazis until 1937. By then it was too late. Roman Catholic opposition at this point was limited to isolated individuals who could easily be removed from their positions and lacked the support of their Church. According to Bergen: “The Concordat pulled the rug out from under potential Catholic opposition in Germany. How could parish priests criticize a chancellor who had been recognized by their pope?” [Doris L. Bergen, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 68]
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https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/agreement-catholic-church
—“An Agreement with the Catholic Church,” Facing History & Ourselves, May 12, 2020
As I had observed two years ago, in signing the secret 2018 concordat, Papa Francesco is making a grave mistake.
“The Chinese bishops should be loyal to the pope and Roman Catholic doctrine first, the Chinese state second and only if it is compatible with the former. This Vatican agreement subverts the authority of the pope and bishops and compromises the doctrine of the faith. It is also bad precedent to close a secret agreement with a Communist state. The apparent purpose of secrecy in this agreement is to obstruct transparency and the corresponding accountability. Secrecy implies that there is something objectionable about the agreement, especially if it is a Communist state that is a party to the agreement.”
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What has the four-year-old agreement achieved? Certainly no improvements in religious freedom, either for Catholics or for religious adherents more broadly in China. If anything, religious persecution has intensified, with several Catholic clergy being arrested or disappeared by the Chinese regime.
“This marginalization of one of the Church’s most courageous and most senior Cardinals was symbolized by the pope’s refusal to meet Cardinal Zen”
Images of Xi Jinping adorn many churches now in China, alongside or sometimes even instead of religious imagery. Surveillance cameras monitor congregations, and under-18s are prohibited from engaging in religious worship. Censorship of online religious literature has increased, and the regime is planning its own translation — and reinterpretation — of the Bible.
Yesterday, Hong Kong’s 90-year-old Bishop Emeritus, Cardinal Joseph Zen, who was arrested in May, went on trial, on spurious politically-motivated charges. Yet the Vatican has maintained a studious near-total silence on his case, with even Pope Francis responding to a question about the case with these shockingly cautious words which fail to show even a flicker of pastoral concern: “Cardinal Zen is an elder who is going to be tried these days, isn't he?” the pope began. “He says what he feels, knowing that in China there are limitations [to religious freedom],” the pope concluded without further comment.
This marginalization of one of the Church’s most courageous and most senior Cardinals was symbolized by the pope’s refusal to meet Cardinal Zen when he visited Rome for what he said was likely to be his last visit, in October 2020.
For the pontiff to refuse even a short audience for one of his cardinals who is in the final years of his life seemed a remarkably heartless act. Even if the pope disagrees with Cardinal Zen, as a pastor one would have thought he could have given the retired prelate a few minutes.
In the recent consistory of cardinals, Cardinal Zen was conspicuous by his absence — he could not have traveled because he had been forced to surrender his passport to the authorities in Hong Kong, but it appears the Vatican did not utter so much as a murmur of appeal on his behalf.
In the four years since the agreement was first signed, worldwide outcry at the Chinese regime’s increasingly severe repression has grown. Several parliaments around the world have recognized the atrocities committed against the predominantly Muslim Uyghur as genocide, as have both the previous and current US administrations and an independent tribunal chaired by the lawyer who prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic, Sir Geoffrey Nice, KC.
“Beijing’s behavior in Hong Kong ought to ring alarm bells in the Vatican, for it shows that this is a regime that cannot be trusted”
Even the United Nations, in its long-delayed report following the ill-fated visit to China by its previous High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, acknowledges that China may be committing crimes against humanity.
The regime in Beijing also stands accused of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, another crime against humanity. Atrocities continue in Tibet, the crackdown on lawyers, civil society, bloggers, media, dissidents and whistle-blowers across mainland China intensifies, and the threats to Taiwan grow.
On top of all this, Beijing has completely trashed its international treaty with the United Kingdom, the Sino-British Joint Declaration, breaking all its promises to uphold Hong Kong’s freedoms and unleashing a draconian campaign of repression in the city, which has resulted in the jailing, exile or silencing of almost all pro-democracy activists and the dismantling of an independent media.
Beijing’s behavior in Hong Kong ought to ring alarm bells in the Vatican, for it shows that this is a regime that cannot be trusted. No agreement with Beijing is worth the paper it is written on; its word means nothing.
https://www.ucanews.com/news/popes-legacy-at-stake-in-vatican-china-deal/98820
—“Pope’s legacy at stake in Vatican-China deal,” Union of Catholic Asian News, September 20, 2022
“Abandoning the battle for religious liberty in the face of Communist China’s relentless anti-religion campaign has not come without a cost for the pope. Maintaining the Sino-Vatican deal undermines the moral authority of the church, and many of the devout are not happy about it.”
—James Jay Carafano and Stefano Graziosi, “The Vatican Should Abandon Its Agreement With Beijing,” The Heritage Foundation, August 16, 2022
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Hundreds of underground Catholic clergy have refused to register with the state-approved database because they are unwilling to obey atheistic dictates in the services of the Church.
However, under the new regulations, clergy who are not registered with the state could be arrested and jailed if they perform any clerical office, Catholic insiders say.
A church observer said the new regulations are a legal tool to intensify the crackdown on underground clergy and annihilate the underground church.
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https://www.ucanews.com/news/chinas-new-measures-on-clergy-ignore-vatican-agreement/91547
—“China's new measures on clergy ignore Vatican agreement,” Union of Catholic Asian News, February 25, 2021
“If I were in the place of those victimized by the registration agreement—assuming I survive—I would feel betrayed by my Church and of course by the pope as well.”
Photo courtesy of Wrightbus
ReplyDeletePhoto link:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Djy_organ.jpg
Gonzalinho
Greg Burke, the director of the Holy See Press Office, stated that “the objective of the accord is not political but pastoral, allowing the faithful to have bishops that are in communion with Rome but at the same time recognized by the Chinese authorities.”
ReplyDeletehttps://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/12/07/extremely-high-stakes-china-vatican-deal
—Paul P. Mariani, S.J., “The Extremely High Stakes of the China-Vatican Deal,” America: The Jesuit Review, December 7, 2018
Gonzalinho
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle uses calm tones and carefully measured words to explain the reasons for the Holy See’s decision to extend the Provisional Agreement with China on the appointment of Bishops.
ReplyDelete“The reason for everything is to safeguard the valid apostolic succession and the sacramental nature of the Catholic Church in China,” says the Filipino Cardinal, adding, “And this can reassure, comfort and enliven baptized Catholics in China.”
The Cardinal also recalls the sensus fidei of so many Chinese Catholics, describing it as “a precious testimony, which often sprouted not in well-cultivated and protected gardens, but on harsh and uneven grounds.” At the same time, he acknowledges “certain wounds need time and God's consolation in order to be healed.”
He notes, too, that Bishops “cannot be seen as ‘officials or functionaries’” and insists “Bishops are not ‘functionaries of the Pope’ or ‘of the Vatican,’ because they are the successors of the Apostles.”
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2022-10/tagle-why-holy-see-is-renewing-the-provisional-agreement.html
—Gianni Valente, “Cardinal Tagle: A decision to safeguard apostolic succession for Chinese Catholics,” Vatican News, October 22, 2022
Bishops, by the present law of the Roman Catholic Church, take an oath of obedience to the pope. This obedience, however, is strictly limited by the canons, and is only held to bind in things consistent with the divine and natural law.
https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/O/obedience-(ecclesiastical).html
—“Obedience (Ecclesiastical),” McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia
An agreement to keep apostolic succession intact and beyond dispute and to preclude and heal de facto schism.
The historical problems that arose from the Anglican schism come to mind.
Gonzalinho
At least two competing moral-theological imperatives—one edges out the other.
DeleteGonzalinho
DE FACTO SCHISM IN CHINA
ReplyDeleteFrancis has been more conciliatory to the People’s Republic than any of his predecessors. His approach has brought some stability to the Church in China, but it has also meant accepting restrictions on the religious freedom of Chinese Catholics and undermining the Vatican’s credibility as a champion of the oppressed. Francis sees himself as holding the Chinese Church together; he might be helping to stifle it in the process.
That trade-off becomes apparent when comparing the two major groups that make up China’s estimated 10 million Catholics. One is the state-controlled Church, overseen by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which has a long history of appointing bishops without the Vatican’s approval—a nightmare for popes because it presents the danger of a schism. In 2018, Francis mitigated that threat by negotiating an agreement in which the Chinese government and the Vatican cooperate on the appointment of bishops. The details of the pact, which is up for renewal in the fall, remain secret, but the pope has said it gives him final say. In return, the Vatican promised not to authorize any bishop that Beijing doesn’t support.
The agreement came at the expense of China’s second group of Catholics: the so-called underground Church, which previously ordained its own bishops with Rome’s approval and is now in effect being told by the Vatican to join the state-controlled Church. The underground community rejects President Xi Jinping’s campaign of “Sinicization,” a program that seeks to reinforce Chinese national identity, in part by demanding that all religious teaching and practice accord with the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Occasionally that means prohibiting religious worship entirely: Shortly before the Vatican and Beijing signed the deal, new legislation went into effect that led to stricter enforcement of such rules as a ban on minors attending Mass. And sometimes Sinicization means muddling Catholic doctrine with CCP dogma. As one priest in the official Church claimed in 2019, “The Ten Commandments and the core socialist values are the same.”
To be continued
Gonzalinho
DE FACTO SCHISM IN CHINA
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Whether the Chinese Church can remain authentically Catholic in the face of Sinicization is an open question. That Francis came to terms with the government just as the program intensified felt to some underground Catholics like a betrayal, a sign that he might tolerate the continued compromising of their faith. He accommodates Beijing in order to stabilize the Church in China, but Chinese authorities aren’t interested in the faith that Francis professes. They’ve made clear that they want a Church that submits to the state; such a Church might be stable, but would it be Catholic?
Safeguarding orthodox Catholicism in China depends on whether Francis and his successors can strike the right balance between cooperation and confrontation. The Vatican must cultivate greater influence in Beijing while also defending the faith—a daunting challenge for even the canniest diplomat.
…the Vatican achieved its primary goal of reducing the risk of schism. “The aim is the unity of the Church,” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, defending the agreement in 2020. “All the bishops in China are in communion with the pope. There are no more illegitimate bishops.” Unity, in this case, means integrating China’s underground clergy into Beijing’s state-recognized hierarchy. In other words, Chinese Catholicism will be more and more controlled by the government, an undesirable outcome for Francis but one that he’s apparently willing to bear.
Some see that calculation as prudent. Francesco Sisci, a Sinologist and an expert on Vatican-China relations, told me that if the Vatican continued cooperating with the underground Church and holding the CCP at a distance, “you have to wait for the current power to fall, and who knows if the new power will be better than the old? In my opinion, the choice to go underground is much riskier.”
…History suggests that resistance rather than compromise makes for a vital Church. During the Cold War, the Vatican pursued a policy of accommodation with Communist states in the Soviet bloc, negotiating over the appointment of bishops. But it was in Poland—where the Catholic hierarchy was least cooperative with the authorities, and where an underground Church was strongest—that Catholicism remained most vibrant.
…Criveller noted that many Catholics in the state-controlled Church lose respect for bishops and clergy who are seen as “too aligned with government policy.” Ceding ground to Beijing might limit oppression, but it can weaken the authority of the Church.
…The Vatican has grown both more conciliatory toward the state-controlled Church and less supportive of the underground Church. In 2019, the Vatican publicly encouraged underground clergy to comply with the CCP’s demand to register with civil authorities, even though they would be required to sign a statement endorsing the “independence, autonomy and self-administration” of the Church in China. At least 10 underground bishops have refused, according to the Vatican official; one was arrested earlier this year.
…Vatican officials have suggested that Sinicization is akin to the Catholic Church’s long-standing practice of inculturation—that is, presenting the Church’s teachings and practices in the terms of different cultures. But Yang, the Purdue professor, makes a crucial distinction: The goal of Sinicization, he argued in Christianity Today, “is not cultural assimilation but political domestication—to ensure submission to the Chinese Communist party-state.”
To be continued 2
Gonzalinho
DE FACTO SCHISM IN CHINA
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[Bishop Joseph] Shen Bin…stressed that Sinicization means not only adapting liturgy and sacred art to traditional Chinese culture, but also interpreting Catholic teaching in accordance with Communist doctrine. Sinicization, he said, “should use the core socialist values as guidance to provide a creative interpretation of theological classics and religious doctrines that aligns with the requirements of contemporary China’s development and progress, as well as with China’s splendid traditional culture.” …By accepting the dominance of the official Church, whose bishops Shen Bin leads, Rome is in practice accepting the supremacy of politics over religion.
Another cost of Francis’s overtures has come in the form of his silence about China’s human-rights violations. In July 2020, amid China’s crackdown on prodemocracy protests in Hong Kong, Francis decided not to deliver prepared remarks calling for “nonviolence, and respect for the dignity and rights of all” in the city, and voicing hope that “social life, and especially religious life, may be expressed in full and true freedom.”
…Francis has drawn particular criticism for his failure to denounce China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority, whom Beijing has forced into reeducation camps to eradicate their religion and culture—a striking omission given the pope’s emphasis on promoting dialogue with Islam. The most he’s said on the matter came in a book published in 2020, in which he made a brief reference to “the poor Uighurs,” including them in a list of “persecuted peoples.”
The Vatican’s reluctance to denounce China has also caused tension in its dealings with the United States. In September 2020, then–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seemed to criticize Pope Francis’s relative silence while speaking to an audience in Rome that included the Vatican’s foreign minister. After noting the Vatican’s unique ability to help protect religious freedom in China, he admonished: “Earthly considerations shouldn’t discourage principled stances based on eternal truths.” Sisci, the Sinologist, told me that Pompeo’s comments only helped Francis in his dealing with the Chinese authorities, reassuring them that the pope was not “an instrument of U.S. policy.”
…[The next pope] can wait and see if Francis’s approach bears fruit. There’s an old saying that applies to the Church and China in equal measure: They think in centuries. The wait could be a while.
Francis X. Rocca has covered the Vatican since 2007, most recently for The Wall Street Journal, where he also reported on global religion. He is the director of the documentary film Voices of Vatican II.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/pope-francis-catholic-church-china/678372/
—Francis X. Rocca, “The Vatican’s Gamble With Beijing Is Costing China’s Catholics,” The Atlantic, May 14, 2024
“The goal of Sinicization…‘is not cultural assimilation but political domestication—to ensure submission to the Chinese Communist party-state.’”
Unfortunately, the current Vatican policy is encouraging the development in China of an apostate syncretism wherein political ideology poisons religious doctrine.
The original purpose of the policy was to prevent schism but possibly the actual result has been to co-opt and sustain it. It’s very disturbing for the Vatican to purposely maintain what is in effect de facto schism.
Gonzalinho
Do you want to butt heads with the schismatic Church and cement the schism?
DeleteOr do you seek a working relationship with the schismatics in the hope—remote, in my opinion—that the Communist government will eventually undergo a democratic revolution and ease off the persecution of the Church in China, allowing it to administer itself independently?
Two bad options...it's a choice between stepping off a cliff…or waiting for the inevitable rockfall.
Gonzalinho