|
|
|
|
|
| June 2, 2001 | atimes.com | ||
|
|
China
Saints, imperialists, the Catholic Church and China By Ren Wanli On hearing that the Roman Curia canonized 120 missionaries and followers who had died in China during conflicts between the Chinese nation and the imperialists as so-called saints, one cannot help but compare it with another of its recent actions - that is, the adoption this spring of a series of new measures to re-examine the mistakes of hostility and discrimination that the Church has committed against other religions and nations. The result of this comparison is utterly puzzling for the contrast is so great and incongruous that these initiatives contradict each other. Various interpretations could be given, depending on future developments. The Roman Curia started this a self-critical introspection as early as the 1960s - thus, nearly 40 years ago. In the early 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church held the Second Vatican Council (abbreviated as Vatican II), which unveiled the contemporary reform-and-opening campaign of the Church. A comprehensive reformation of Catholicism was launched, encompassing theology, rituals, structures, regulations and so on; on the other side, open dialogues were conducted with "all men of good will" throughout the world. Historically, during the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic Church had always adhered to the doctrine of "no redemption beyond the Church" and the notion that "no one is noble but myself", well-known concepts of the Church referred to as societas perfecta. At the Vatican II, however, for the first time in a 2,000-year history, the Roman Catholic Church gave positive evaluations of other religions to which it had previously been hostile. On the premise of adhering to the Church's enjoyment of the perfect truth of the Lord and the full salvation of Jesus, it recognized that Jesus' salvation was universal for all, and that other religions also contained the light of the truth and were roads to salvation. In documents that the council issued, the Roman Catholic Church for the first time expressly denounced its anti-Semitism, an underlying characteristic of its "theoretical" persecution of Jews throughout the ages, by starting to take "historical responsibility" for Christianity's disintegration into various churches. Pope Paul VI, who presided over the council, repeatedly appealed for the forgiveness of "the severed Christian brothers". This unprecedented self-denouncing attitude and opening position embraced by the Roman Church received a general welcome worldwide, apparent in the understandings and echoes from other Christian churches and other religions. In a short time, Rome became the new center of the Ecumenical movement in Christianity, that is, friendly dialogues between religions and the meeting of religious leaders. After friendly negotiations, the Roman Curia and the Patriarch Office of the Orthodox Church published a joint communique declaring the abolishment of the "absolute punishment" made in 1054 to excommunicate each other. The Roman Curia returned battle banners and religious holy items that had been pillaged during the crusades to Turkey, Syria and other Islamic countries. Intercommunication was made between the Roman Church and Protestants in regard to theological doctrines, rituals and missionary work; in particular, it was most fruitful in terms of the joint translation and publication of the Bible with Lutheranism. The Roman Church also broke its barriers and total estrangement with Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions by carrying out exchange activities to promote mutual understanding. During this period, in order to overcome the isolation of the Roman Catholic Church, the Roman Curia became so absorbed that it invested all its emotions and feelings. At a meeting with the representative of the Orthodox Patriarch, all people present were astonished when Pope Paul VI condescended to kneel down and salute the representative by kissing his feet. Later, the Roman Curia explained that the Pope's action was following Christ's example of washing the feet of disciples and serving others. The best interpretation was given by the chairman of the Secretariat of Christian Consolidation of the Roman Curia, who stated, "The door of consolidation can only be entered by kneeling down." World opinion unanimously admitted that this general dialogue between religions, by exerting inestimable influence on the formation of new patterns and order in world politics, started a new era in relationships between differing beliefs, without doubt making important contributions to world peace. Nonetheless, the Vatican II left many stones unturned; for example, on issues related to China, the council affirmed, without prescribing missionary guidelines, to respect the local culture and customs promoted by Matteo Ricci, the representative of the Jesuits who first spread Catholicism in China. This concluded a historical dispute that has lasted over 200 years in regards to "Chinese rites" without mentioning anything that should be re-examined. Still, the Vatican II stimulated the belief that the reform and opening marked by this council had brought great changes in the view held by the Roman Church toward a modern religion. In China, we could cherish reasonable hope that, with the elapse of time, the Roman Curia would completely carry out the spirit of the Vatican II in their attitudes and actions toward China to ameliorate the relations between China and the Vatican. In the nearly 40 years since Vatican II, however, we have been very disappointed that no satisfying changes have taken place, but only more new man-made conflicts. The year 2000 was a holy year in the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Curia has taken a new round of actions to reflect upon itself, reportedly to "purify the memory" of the Roman Catholic Church in order to salute the beginning of the third millennium in the history of Christianity. On March 7, 2000, the eve of the Catholic Quadragesima, the Roman Curia published a document entitled "Remembrance and Reparation: the Church and its Errors", which summarized the past errors of the Church from a theological standpoint and appealed for forgiveness. Prior to and following this, Pope John Paul II visited in succession Egypt, Jordan and Jerusalem, publishing apologetic proclamations appealing for forgiveness and reconciliation to Christians of other churches, all Muslims in the Islamic world, and all Jews who had been harmed throughout history by the Roman Catholic Church. In addition, the Roman Curia also defined March 12, the First Lord's Day of Quadragesima, as the day of "Forgiveness Appealing", reminding Catholics to seek forgiveness from the Lord for their misdeeds. On this day, the Pope faced Jesus' crucifix on the communion table and, together with several dignitaries, held the ceremony of forgiveness by making penitence and appealing for forgiveness from the Lord. This ceremony attracted extensive international and media attention. In terms of scale as well as moral standards, or depth and extent of theological theory, the series of self-reflective actions of the Roman Curia was to match the great turning of the century, and thus received wide and prudent welcomes from leaders of other religious groups. This document was entrusted by the Pope and drafted by a special committee under the International Theological Commission of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Roman Curia. Bruno Forte, head of the special committee and a well-known Italian theologian, as well as a good friend of mine, was in charge of this work. In 1997, I met him in Naples, and he said that he was examining the Church's traditional theology so as to remove doctrines that were unfavorable to the Jewish nation. And now, I gladly hear that Professor Forte has accomplished the project - a great reason to celebrate. We are fully aware that the Roman Curia's apology and appeal for forgiveness is in fact a great victory for the voice of justice in the world. After World War II, when the German Nazis conducted the atrocity of genocide upon the Jewish nation, world opinion denounced the Roman Curia's ambiguous attitude of silence, and waves gradually formed to protest the so-called "silence of the Lord". Under strong international pressure, the Roman Curia first made positive evaluations on other religions, including Judaism, and expressly condemned anti-Semitism during Vatican II. At the beginning of 2000, the Curia further eliminated anti-Semitic ideas, and at the same time asked for the forgiveness of the Jewish nation. This accumulated rancor had lasted for nearly 2,000 years, and now the Roman Curia has thoroughly reformed itself by turning hostility into friendship. The striking contrast between history and this new reality makes one unable not to shed tears. The more I think of the repentant feelings of the Roman Curia for its wrong-doings committed against the Jewish nation, the more intense are my feelings of complaint about the unfairness against our Chinese nation. And the feelings haunt me all the time, choking me like a fishbone in the throat that must be coughed out. In confession activities held by the Roman Curia in 2000, the holy year of Catholicism, China again became the land that fell into oblivion. Does the Roman Curia really have nothing to say to China? Absolutely not! From the late 16th Century, when Catholic missionaries came to China to begin spreading the gospel during the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, to the early 19th Century, the Church encountered many difficulties and achieved little due to the barriers between Eastern and Western cultures. Only when Western colonialists and the sizeable powers of the imperialists forced open the gates of China with warships and cannons, by relying on the power of colonialism and imperialism, did Catholicism begin to achieve greater development. But, until the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the leadership of the Chinese Catholic Church had been under the control of foreign missionaries, and the Chinese clergy were looked down upon. This fact dabbed heavy colonial colors upon the Chinese Catholic Church. The close tie between the Catholic missionary cause in China and the invasion of Western colonialists and imperialists has been not only commonly recognized by all men of insight abroad and at home, but also acknowledged as a historical fact by many Western Catholic scholars who possess a sound conscience. In the first half of the 20th Century, when the Japanese imperialists began to invade China, the inkling of this wild ambition was to support the puppet Manchukuo government. In 1934, Roman Pope Pius XI hastily declared acknowledgement of Manchukuo and severed, for a special purpose, the Northeast from the missionary district of China by establishing a separate Northeast missionary district in line with the Manchukuo territory. At the same time, he appointed Gao Dehui, bishop of the Northeast missionary district and a member of the Paris foreign missionaries, as the papal representative of Manchukuo. After this, ceremonial and communicative letters and telegrams were frequently exchanged between the Roman Curia and the Manchukuo. After the anti-Japanese War broke out in September of 1938, Pius XI interviewed at the Vatican the envoy group of the Roman Curia in Manchukuo. Cai Ning, a Vatican papal representative, in March 1939 published an official letter demanding the detachment of Chinese clergy and believers, neither "left nor right", in the face of the Japanese invaders. During the whole war, the Roman Curia directed the foreign clergy in control of the Chinese Catholic Church to prohibit Chinese Catholics from fighting against Japanese invaders. At a time when the Chinese government and anti-Japanese armies and civilians were trying hard to receive international support, crying loudly also for the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Vatican, the Vatican established ties with Japan, in spite of dissuasion and opposition from allies, before establishing diplomatic relations with China in 1943. In the same year, China dispatched a minister to the Vatican. The Roman Curia, however, did not send its diplomatic representative to China until 1946; the anti-Japanese War had already succeeded when the First Minister of the Vatican, Italian Antonio Riberi, came. These actions of the Roman Curia greatly hurt the Chinese people's sentiments. In contrast to issues concerning Jews, where the Roman Curia was denounced for its ambiguous attitude toward Nazi Germany's genocide of Jews, there were strong pressures from world opinion on the Roman Curia to make confessions. However, the Roman Curia, which has committed such grave historical wrongdoing against the Chinese people, shows not a bit of repentance or self-accusation; this is extremely puzzling. Are the German Nazis condemnable while the Japanese militarists not? Is the Roman Curia using double standards when it undertakes self-reflection on its historical mistakes? It is significant to recall that the German government has accepted moral responsibility and apologized many times to the Jewish nation, while some Japanese politicians have disavowed by all means crimes committed during the invasion of China, and that while Japanese militarism is dead, it was not wiped out. Therefore, it is of great necessity for the Roman Curia to make repentant self-reflections over its actions towards the Chinese people during the anti-Japanese War. This September, when I met an old friend, who came to attend an academic symposium in Beijing, I asked him why the Roman Curia had not apologized to the Chinese people. Being only a theologian, he replied that he was only responsible for the elaboration of ideological principles of confession and appeals for forgiveness from the theological perspective; to take the initiative of drafting the Curia's documents of Remembrance and Reparation was beyond his capability. The documents did not make any apology, for the specific apology was made by the Pope himself. While we were still regretting the evasive Roman Curia's attitude toward historical wrongdoings committed in China, the news came that the Roman Curia had canonized "executed" missionaries and believers in China as so-called saints, an action I was utterly appalled by. Despite having ruminated over the humble image set up by a series of actions to appeal for forgiveness this spring, it has promptly been replaced by a truculent countenance in early autumn. The facts tell us, by "match-making" the 120 saints, the Roman Curia was not only trying to gloss over the infamous history with which it was involved with the invasion of the imperialists, but it also encouraged contemporary Catholic clergy and believers to follow the model of these saints; that is, to have enough boldness to confront the emancipative cause of the Chinese people and breach Chinese laws for the sake of courageously defending their belief. The only conclusion is that the Roman Curia's consciousness was deeply submerged in a Cold War mentality, and thus too eager to be involved in struggles in the domain of ideology and politics. This triggered the contradiction between the imperialists and the Chinese nation and did great harm to the national sentiments of the Chinese nation. What the Roman Curia did is extremely indiscreet and can only evoke the memory of China's afflicted history during the old semi-feudal and semi-colonial society, in which an egregious logical similarity of the Roman Curia's image between what was left and what is occurring now can be found. Thus, phrases like "respect the great Chinese people, improve relations with China," and "encourage Chinese believers to be good citizens as well as good believers", and so on that the Roman Curia used, appear simply devoid of sincerity. (translated by Yao Ximing) ((c) Heartland. This version has been edited by Asia Times Online.) To subscribe to Heartland, please email cassanpress@sina.com |
|||||||||
|
|
|
Front | China | Southeast Asia | Japan | Koreas | India/Pakistan | Central Asia/Russia | Oceania Business Briefs | Global Economy | Asian Crisis | Media/IT | Editorials | Letters | Search/Archive |
|
back to the top ©2001 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd. Building B - 5th Floor, 102/1 Phra Arthit Road, Chanasangkhram, Bangkok 10200, Thailand |
