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China, Catholic Church at a
crossroads
By Francesco Sisci
ROME - The Taiwanese press reported on
Chen Shui-bian's presence at the funeral of pope
John Paul II: "The Holy See used an alphabetical
order of country names for seating arrangements,
and they used 'Taiwan' to seat President Chen
Shui-bian. Chen's seat was therefore placed on the
right side of the church in the first row and in
the fourth seat. And since no translators or
bodyguards were provided, Chen and other leaders
had a bit of difficulty speaking with one another"
(Dongsen Xinwen, April 8, "President Chen arrives
at Vatican City to mourn").
This item
illustrates two serious brush-offs that the
Vatican, the most ancient and careful diplomacy in
the world, gave Chen: 1) It didn't give him the
right to represent China, but only his island,
Taiwan; and 2) it did not help Chen in his attempt
to rub shoulders with other state leaders, which
was probably his main reason for traveling to
Rome.
Sources in the Vatican are much
blunter about the event. They say Chen asked to
meet senior officials and cardinals, but all his
requests were denied. Nobody spoke to him, he was
put in a situation where he would be de facto
isolated, and none of the big state leaders wanted
to be seen talking to him - and the Vatican did
nothing to ease his difficulty. The Italian
government rapidly whisked Chen in and out of the
city, not allowing him to stay for more than a few
hours in Rome; indeed, Chen would have had to
spend four times as much time sitting on a plane
from Taipei and back as he spent in Rome itself.
All this is no breakthrough, however, in
relations between China and the Vatican, and
nobody is sure what it really is. Certainly it is
something, especially considering that in the days
before the Chen visit the government of China
expressed, via the state-controlled Catholic
Patriotic Association, Beijing's condolences on
the pope's death. Being does not have diplomatic
ties with the Vatican.
Notwithstanding
that, the day before Chen's arrival, China
protested against the Vatican allowing him at the
funeral at all. "Under current circumstances,
China won't send representatives to the Vatican,"
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said last
Thursday at a regular press briefing in Beijing.
The Chinese government had expressed its "strong
dissatisfaction" to the Vatican and to Italy for
issuing Chen a visa, Qin said. Qin's statement
proved that China had been considering sending a
delegation to the funeral, and that it did not
because of Chen's presence. Arguably, China would
have sent a delegation if Chen had not been
allowed in Rome.
It is not clear what
actually went on in the contacts between the
Vatican and China, but one can surmise from Qin's
statements that there were such contacts, but that
they made little progress. We know that the day
before Qin's statement, Chen had already announced
he would go to Rome to the funeral. The Vatican
did not send any invitation for the event, which
was a public ceremony where anybody would be
welcome to attend. Under the all-encompassing
forgiveness of the Church, the Vatican could not
exclude anybody who wished to come to the ritual.
So to force Chen out of the funeral after he had
announced his arrival would have been very
unCatholic, if indeed the Vatican did not approve
of having Chen there - which appears to be the
case, judging by the glacial shoulder the Vatican
gave him at the funeral itself.
But even
if the Vatican had wanted China at the funeral and
China wanted to go, there would have been many
practical difficulties, as the two governments do
not have formal diplomatic relations. And now
there are more difficulties with establishing
bilateral relations: Chen's visit and Beijing's
failure to send a delegation; and who the new pope
will be, and what he will think about China.
Certainly, the humiliation of China's absence
from the prime drawing room of international
politics, the pope's funeral, was largely
self-inflicted. After the canonization of Chinese
saints on October 1, 2000, China cut all contacts
with the Vatican. Pope John Paul II tried to
bridge the gap - he sent some kind of formal
apology through an open letter to Beijing in 2001
- but nothing happened (see Pope apologizes to China and calls
for ties, October 26, 2001). Beijing
missed a chance to normalize ties with a pope who
was eager to work in this direction.
The
next pope could be very different.
But the
predicament is not good for the Vatican, either.
China's absence from the funeral was a cry louder
than a thousand prayers. It represents an open
wound, a perhaps not-so-holy stigmata the Church
has endured for years.
With more than 20%
of the world's population, China represents the
greatest single market of souls for the Church.
These days Chinese people are converting to new
brands of Christian sects or neo-Buddhist cults.
The Catholic Church would like to offer an
alternative. This market could be the future of
Catholicism.
Moreover, the economic
expansion of China also matters. In the past
couple of years, China has invested in Latin
America, the major Catholic reservoir, twice as
much as the US, according to studies at the
Vatican. Similarly, the Chinese economic presence
in Africa, the continent of growth for the
Catholic Church, doubles year after year. In those
continents the relationship between the Vatican
and China will be become very important, also for
political reasons.
If 27 years ago the
issue of Eastern Europe and communism contributed
to the choice of Karol Wojtila as the pope, it is
possible that the Chinese issue will weigh in the
conclave to open Monday.
There are more
than a billion Catholics on the Earth, so the 10
million Chinese believers divided into two
churches, official and underground, are just a
drop in the sea. Thus the issue may appear
unimportant, but there are two reasons giving
specific weight to Chinese Catholics.
First, there is history. During John Paul
II's papacy, the Church felt it had made a mistake
at the beginning of the 18th century when it order
the Jesuits to leave the imperial Chinese court.
Those priests were high officials, with a huge
political influence. At that time the Vatican
accused the Jesuits of having adapted too much to
the local culture. The Vatican Council laid the
foundation for the vindication of the Jesuits'
work, arguing for the adaptation of the Catholic
faith to local cultures. Nowadays, a lot of people
in the Vatican think that the Church at that time
lost a unique opportunity to convert China.
The other reason is the quality of Chinese
Catholics. Subject to persecution and oppression
that came well before communism, they are strong
believers without being fanatics. Even the leader
of the official Catholic Church, pro-Beijing Fu
Tieshan, comes from a family that has been
Catholic for generations.
In the city of
Baoding, in Hebei province, a Catholic bulwark,
the faithful flock there from all over China to
worship the local miraculous Madonna that in 1900
saved the local church from a fire set by the
anti-Christian Boxers.
During more recent
times, Catholics endured the Cultural Revolution
silently and stubbornly, without much protest, and
without joining any anti-government social
demonstrations, such as the one in Tiananmen
Square in 1989. Those believers could be a unique
basis for Catholicism in China and in Asia, in a
moment where the Communist Party has renounced the
right to lead the spiritual lives of the people
and has adopted a more relaxed attitude to
religions.
The Vatican, in serious crisis
in other places, could need the vitality of
Chinese Catholics, who may turn out to be as
active in the faith as they are in the economy.
But all this depends on the choice of the
new pope. So in a way the destinies of China and
the Vatican could be held together in Rome in the
next days, or even longer.
(Copyright 2005
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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