-
Go
Public - In our Christmas
2005 newsletter, we offered our opinion that the bishops of the
Patriotic Association who had obtained legitimation from the Holy See
ought to make their legitimation public by a profession of Faith, and
that a profession of Faith, by definition, is public, not private. We
wrote:
When these bishops accepted the appointment from the Chinese
government and were consecrated bishops without the approval of the
Pope, they did it publicly and pledged their loyalty also publicly,
not to the Pope, but to the Chinese government. However, when
they supposedly repented and requested recognition from the Pope, they
did it secretly, not publicly….How could this secret arrangement be
justified in view of the damage they have done publicly to the Church
and to its faithful? Moreover, the word “profession” comes from
Latin and means “PUBLIC PROMISE”. When Christians profess their
Faith, BY DEFINITION they do so PUBLICLY. There is no such thing
as a private or secret PROFESSION of Faith. It is a
contradiction in terms. Therefore, if those official Patriotic
bishops have indeed repented, such repentance, in my opinion and in generally accepted
procedures and courtesy, should
have been done publicly and their reciting of the Creed for professing
their Faith, as defined above according to the Latin meaning, should also have been recited publicly for the whole world to
hear and for the Pope to judge. . .
In item 11 of our
synopsis,
we referred to the Pope’s statement about certain bishops in China
to whom he had granted full and legitimate exercise of episcopal
jurisdiction, but who had failed thus far to provide any clear signs
to prove that they had been legitimized. In his letter to
China’s Catholics, the
Pontiff calls upon these bishops to be brought into public domain at
the earliest opportunity and to provide unequivocal and increasing
signs of full communion with the Pope.
Therefore, our conclusion:
“. . .such repentance. . .should have been done publicly and their
reciting of the Creed for professing their Faith…should also have
been recited publicly. . .” and the Pope’s words “. . .these
bishops to be brought into public domain. . .and to provide
unequivocal and increasing signs of full communion with the Pope”
are in fact synonymous. The Pope has confirmed our analysis.
However, we are not aware that any of the Patriotic Association
Bishops who has been legitimized and recognized by the Holy See has
come into the open and provided “unequivocal and increasing signs of
full communion with the Pope.”
-
Schismatic
and Incompatible with Catholic Doctrine —
In Section I of our open letter to the Holy See (published in our June
2000 newsletter), we raised a very important question: “Is the
Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA) a Schismatic Church?”
In that section we explained that the CPA defines itself by its
autonomy and independence of the Holy See. We also quoted the statements of a number of Pontiffs,
including Pope Pius XII, Pope John XXIII, and Pope John Paul II, all
of whom consistently stated, in principle, that
the CPA is either indeed a schismatic Church or emphasized
that one cannot be Catholic apart from full communion with the
Successor of Peter. In item 7 of our
synopsis,
we observed that Pope
Benedict states in his letter that the
proposal for a Church that is independent of the Holy See in the
religious sphere is incompatible with Catholic doctrine, an
apparent reference to the CPA-led Church that the state insists must
be autonomous.
Our referring to the CPA as “schismatic” and the Pope’s
description of the autonomous CPA-led Church as “incompatible with
Catholic doctrine,” amounts to the same thing.
-
One
or Two Churches in China — It is noteworthy that, in his own
letter to China, Pope Benedict never uses the term “schism.”
(Interestingly, as noted in our Christmas 2004 newsletter, Msgr.
Eugene Nugent, a Vatican representative in Hong Kong, when issuing new
guidelines for China in
2004, described the Patriotic Association as having “the
characteristic of being in schism.”) On the other hand, as noted in
item 12 of our synopsis, Pope Benedict refers to a very small number
of bishops in China who have been ordained without Pontifical mandate
and who have not asked for or have not yet obtained the necessary
legitimation. By referring to these bishops in this way, Pope
Benedict implicitly acknowledges that there are indeed two Churches in
China: one that is in communion with the Successor of Peter (One,
Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church) consisting of the entire
underground Church and most of the CPA bishops who are now in
communion with the Pope, and one that is not in communion with the
Successor of Peter, consisting of a few CPA Bishops who have not been
recognized by the Pope. Please note that Pope Benedict
never categorically said, as Cardinal Tomko had said, that the “two
groups in the Church in China” (the underground Roman Catholic
Church and the Patriotic Association) “are not two Churches because
we are all one Church”. This two-Church scenario implied by
the Pope is the same as what the Cardinal Kung Foundation pointed out
a number of times, especially in its in-depth analysis published in
our July and Christmas
newsletters of 2001. We said: “China has two Churches
that call themselves Catholic. They are not the same Church.”
At that time, the Holy See’s official spokesperson has not
disclosed that there were many CPA bishops who had already been
legitimated by the Holy See and were in communion with the Pope;
therefore, we had ample reasons to believe that they were not in
communion with the Successor of Peter. Indeed, Pope
Benedict never said in his letter that there is only one Church in
China. His call for Church unity in China would make no sense
if, as many still maintain, even after Pope Benedict’s most recent
letter, there is only one Church in China.
We have advocated that China has two Churches because one Church
is not in communion with the Successor of Peter. The Pope’s
acknowledgement that there are CPA bishops in China not in communion
with the Successor of Peter is based on the same dogma that to be in
One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, all members including their
bishops must be in full communion with the Successor of Peter.
-
Underground
Church’s Possible Extinction — The underground Church is
rapidly to become extinct because the Holy See has not appointed any
new bishops in the underground Church for the last 10 years or
so. Currently, only approximately 31 underground bishops
remain. Of the 31, 20 are more than 80 years old, and 6 are
between 70-80 years old. There are only 5 underground bishops
who are under 70 years old! Obviously, without the ordination of
any new underground bishops, within the next five years, in keeping
with standard mortality statistics, few underground bishops will
remain. Thus, the Pope’s emphasis on unity will ring hollow
when within 5 or 10 years, there will be a single-digit number of
underground bishops. By that time, there will be only the
official Patriotic Church’s bishops shepherding the Catholic Church
in China. With whom does the Holy See wish the official
CPA-controlled Church to unite? Without the appointment of new bishops
in the underground Church, the suffering underground Roman Catholic
Church, whose members will have by then experienced more than 60 years
of severe persecution for their Faith to God and for their total
obedience and loyalty to successive Popes, will finally be de-facto
eliminated, not by the Chinese communists, but by the Holy See itself
by virtue of its refusal to appoint any more underground
bishops. Rome would possibly lose the loyalty and obedience of
tens of millions proven faithful in China who have suffered
immeasurably for the Successor of Peter. (Please read for more
details in the July 2001
and July 2007
issues of our newsletter.) We wish that the Pope had explained in his letter
to China why the Holy See has engaged in its progressive severance
of the underground Catholic community. If this were the official
policy of the Holy See, shouldn’t the Holy See declare it publicly?
Moreover, as the Holy See wants the Chinese government to recognize
the current underground bishops as legitimate pastors, why has the
Holy See herself not recognized them in its official listing of
bishops in its Annuario Pontificio? (We raised this same question
toward the end of Section VII of our open letter.)
-
Educating
Seminarians and Priestly Faculties — In Sections II and III of
our open letter, we ask, respectively: “Why Are Roman Catholic
Bishops and Religious Orders Educating Seminarians of the Schismatic
CPA?” and “Why Are Roman Catholic Bishops in the United States
Granting Priestly Faculties to Priests of the CPA?” In his letter to
China, Pope Benedict renders these two questions irrelevant,
because, as noted in item 19 of our synopsis, all previous
guidelines for China issued by the Holy See have been revoked and
replaced by the new directives.
-
Pope’s
Recognition of CPA Bishops — Pope Benedict clearly has
responded to the question of Section IV of our open letter: “Is It
True that the Vatican Has Recognized Some Patriotic Bishops?” As
noted in both items 11 and
12 of our synopsis, the Holy See indeed has
done so. (We might add that this is the first time that an
authority in the Vatican has officially made this public.) Inasmuch as
the Pope has said that “a very small number” of official bishops
have not yet obtained the necessary legitimation, we certainly can
extrapolate that a great majority of official bishops have been
recognized by and are, to varying degrees, in full communion with the
Pope.
-
Financially
Supporting the CPA — In Section V of our open letter, we
ask: “Why Are Catholic Officials and Organizations Financially
Supporting the CPA and not the Underground Roman Catholic Church in
China?” While Pope Benedict does not directly address this
question, he does, as noted in item 10 of our synopsis,
call upon the Chinese government to recognize the bishops of the
underground Roman Catholic Church as legitimate pastors.
-
Attending
Service in a CPA Church — Section VI of our open letter
addresses the issue of “Catholic Visitors in China Attending
Religious Services in or by a CPA Church.” As noted in item 16
of our synopsis, Pope Benedict instructs that the faithful must,
within the limits of the possible, seek bishops and priests who
are in communion with the Pope. Nevertheless, he adds, where
this cannot be achieved without grave inconvenience, the
faithful may, for the sake of their spiritual good, turn
also to those who are not in communion with the Pope.
Related to this point is Pope Benedict’s instruction, noted in item
15 of our synopsis, that concelebration of the Eucharist presupposes,
as conditions, profession of the same Faith and hierarchical communion
with the Pope and the universal Church. This means, the Pope
continues, that it is licit to concelebrate with bishops and
priests who are in communion with the Pope even if they are
recognized by the civil authorities and maintain a relationship with
entities required by the civil government [the CPA] and extraneous to
the structure of the Church, provided that this recognition and this
relationship do not entail the denial of unrenounceable principles of
the Faith and of ecclesiastical communion.
-
Section
VII of our open letter raises a variety of questions, two of which are
relevant in the light of Pope Benedict’s letter. All others
are negated by (1) the Pope’s revocation of many faculties
previously granted to the underground prelates and his revocation of
all directives of a pastoral nature as described in item 19 of our
synopsis, or (2) by the Pope’s refusal to recognize the present
College of Catholic Bishops of China, or (3) by the Pope’s
recognition of the majority of the CPA bishops.
9.1 CPA’s
Pastoral Letter — The first is a question about a pastoral
letter issued by the CPA bishops’ conference in 1995. In that
letter, the CPA bishops called for all Chinese Catholics to support the
Chinese government’s policies on contraception, sterilization, and
mandatory abortion for those families who already have one child. We
asked how the Holy See could remain silent about this letter. While
the Pope does not respond directly to our question in his letter to
China’s Catholics (although his teaching on these matters is undeniably
clear), as noted in item 13 of our synopsis, Pope Benedict points out that the present College of Catholic Bishops of
China cannot be recognized as an episcopal conference by the Holy
See. This is the case, he explains, because the underground
bishops — those not recognized by the government but in communion with
the Pope -- are not part of it; it includes bishops who are still
illegitimate; and it is governed by statutes that contain elements
incompatible with Catholic doctrine. The statutes to which the Pope
refers directed the CPA bishops to write the 1995 pastoral letter that
supports government policies contrary to Catholic doctrine. Also
relevant to this issue is Pope Benedict’s instruction, noted in item 8
of our synopsis, that the claim of some entities, established by the civil
government and extraneous to the structure of the Church, to place
themselves above the bishops and to guide the life of the Church does not
correspond to Catholic doctrine.
9.2 Too
Quiet on Religious Persecution —
In Section VII / 3 of our open letter, we pointed out that there are many
bishops, religious personnel, and other Catholic faithful still in
jail. We asked: "Has the Vatican taken steps to liberate any
other bishops, priests, and other faithful currently in jail in
China?" Although Pope Benedict does not specifically answer this
question, we noted in item 3 of our synopsis that Pope Benedict
calls for a respectful and open dialogue with the Chinese bishops and the
civil government for the purpose of allowing Catholics to live and
express fully certain aspects of their belonging to the Church and of
their hierarchical communion with the Pope. As noted in item 4 of
our synopsis, Pope Benedict again responds to this question when he
explains that the Church seeks to overcome tensions, divisions, and
recriminations, when he calls for the purification of memories, the
pardoning of wrong-doers, the forgetting of injustices suffered, and the
restoration of serenity to troubled hearts in order to grow and make
visible the bonds of communion between the faithful and the pastors of the
Church in China. Also, as noted in item 5 of our synopsis,
Pope Benedict responds to this question even more clearly when he
acknowledges the widespread persecution of the faithful even to the point
of the shedding of their blood. Nevertheless, he adds, we
must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
-
Annual
Mass — Finally, in our March 2001 newsletter, we announced
our promotion of the celebration of an annual Mass for the persecuted
underground Roman Catholic Church in China. At the time, we
proposed the annual date of the Sunday closest to October 1, the date
that is the National Day of the founding of the People’s Republic of
China and also the anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s canonization
of the 120 blessed martyr saints of China. Thus, we are
extremely grateful that, as noted in item 6 of our synopsis, Pope
Benedict has decreed that May 24, the feast of Our Lady, Help of
Christians be an occasion for Catholics of the whole world to be
united in prayer with the Church which is in China.
Therefore, beginning in 2008, the Cardinal Kung Foundation shall move its annual Mass to May 24
in order to join spiritually tens of millions of Catholics all over
the world in prayer for China.
-
Conclusion
— We understand clearly that Pope Benedict did not write his
letter to China in order to answer our open letter to authorities in
the Vatican (Cardinal Ratzinger was the first recipient of this open
letter). In fact, we are not even sure that he received and read
this open letter. But the fact that in his letter to China
the Pope raises and answers directly and indirectly so many questions
and concerns that are more or less the same questions and concerns
that we asked in our open letter written more than seven years ago
proves how important and relevant that open letter’s questions were.
In addition, the fact that other important topics discussed in the
Pope’s letter, such as “unity” (paragraph 3 above) and the need
for CPA bishops to publicly display signs of full communion with the
Pope (paragraph 1 above) were first raised in our newsletters also
proves that our analysis of various issues is accurate – especially
in light of the fact that the Pope reached our own conclusions.
Someone has criticized this Foundation by emphasizing that “times
have changed.” In fact, regarding the topics that we have
discussed above, time has NOT changed. What was true is still
true. The previous dogma of the Catholic Church is still the
dogma of the same Church. In our open letter, we asked simple
questions and raised simple issues. These questions and concerns
were raised largely by the underground bishops in China. They
asked the Foundation to clarify them. The Foundation,
representing the underground Church and acting as her mouthpiece,
contacted various members of the Church hierarchy for clarification.
However, our efforts were not successful. Hence, our open letter
was written in the legitimate hope that the Holy See would answer
these questions and address the serious issues that we illuminated.
The questions could have been answered by many within the Vatican’s
hierarchy. However, none replied. They did not even have
the courtesy to acknowledge receipt of this open letter. Inasmuch
as the questions and concerns that Pope Benedict raised and addressed
in his May letter
to China existed more than seven years ago when we
posed them in our open letter (actually, these conditions were
brought to the attention of the Holy See much longer than seven years
ago, as we had spent many years in vain trying to obtain answers from
the Holy See before we wrote the open letter), can
one imagine what China-Vatican relations would be today had this
Pope’s Letter to China been written seven or more years earlier?
We have the right to ask questions, and we have asked, but have no
power to move those with authority to act. Nevertheless, seven
years later, we are exonerated by virtue of the Pope’s own Letter to
China. Now that the Pope has answered our open letter – albeit
some indirectly — our wait for the Holy See’s reply is over.
However, we still cannot yet rest our case, because we
now need resolutions as well as enforcements of the aforementioned
issues that are consistent with, and not contrary to, the
unrenounceable principles of the universal Church.
|
