Summer Newsletter 2007

July 2007

Dear Friends:

On the Solemnity of Pentecost, May 27, 2007, The Holy Spirit bestowed a special grace upon the Roman Catholic Church in China. On that day, Pope Benedict XVI issued a letter to the bishops, priests, consecrated persons, and lay faithful in China. This letter was published on June 30, 2007. In his letter, the Holy Father sets forth new guidelines and directives. The underground Church is very grateful for this grace that comes from the Successor of Peter and humbly and happily submits to his teaching. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter's Successor, is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful. For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church, has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered." (¶882)

The Cardinal Kung Foundation is particularly grateful for the Holy Father's China letter. You may recall that on March 28, 2000 we sent an open letter to the Holy See. (The open letter was later published in our June 2000 newsletter.) The purpose of the open letter was to request clarification of a whole series of issues at that time about the Roman Catholic Church in China. We stated: "This letter is written in the spirit of genuine concern for the Church and in the interest of reconciliation between the Roman Catholic underground Church and the Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA) in China. On many occasions, His Holiness Pope John Paul II called for reconciliation and for unification of the Church in China so that it will return to the one fold and one Shepherd. How can the Holy See expect us to carry out this policy of the Holy Father while there is such confusion on the issues cited below?"

The Holy Father appears to have unwittingly answered many, if not all, issues raised in our open letter. The fact that these issues were also the main topics discussed by the Pope's letter to China proves how important those issues were in our open letter, and how correct we were to have raised these issues seven years ago. In a meeting with a very senior Vatican official, I took the time to explain to him the importance of our open letter and urged him to answer us. His answer was: "Time has changed"! That was the only answer to the open letter that I received and the meeting adjourned quickly.

The Holy Father has also given a shining, decisive and unequivocal guiding light for the future of the Roman Catholic Church in China. "We will not cease to study every word that the Pope has said to us until we understand correctly what the Holy Father wants us to do. We will carry out his wishes unconditionally," said one underground religious.

Two days before the official publication of the papal letter to China, 30 bishops belonging to the Chinese government-sanctioned "official" Church attended a meeting in Beijing. During the meeting, top Chinese government officials spoke about the papal letter, of which they had an advanced copy. According to UCAN, which is a reputable news agency based in Asia, after the letter's publication, a mainland Church leader said that China will continue to self-elect and self-ordain bishops. Another senior leader noted, according to other news media, that this issue required further study. The Chinese government said that it is "willing to continue candid and constructive dialogue with the Vatican…..the Vatican must sever its so-called diplomatic ties with Taiwan…..never interfere in China's internal affairs, including in the name of religion…..we hope the Vatican…..does not create new barriers." In the meantime, Beijing removed the papal letter from the web in China. It is now, as of this date, impossible in China to open the internet site of the Holy See, according to the Asia News. In his homily at a church in central China, a bishop belonging to the "official" Church read out the papal letter, omitting those references not favorable to the "official" Church and the Patriotic Association.

The latest news on July 18 reported that Beijing has just elected a Father Joseph Li Shan as the bishop of Beijing, and will be confirmed by the "Council of Bishops". In his letter, the Pope wrote that this group "cannot be recognized as an Episcopal conference of the Apostolic See". As of the time of the printing of this letter, the Vatican had not made any comments.

The entire letter is posted on the Foundation's website. For your convenience, you will find below a summary of the main points in the Holy Father's letter. Following the summary is a discussion of a series of points raised by the Holy Father's teaching.

This is both a special and critical time for the Roman Catholic Church in China. Let us pray that Pope Benedict's Petrine initiative will bring us closer to the day in China when there will be authentic religious freedom and one flock, one shepherd.

When the Roman Catholic Church has the full freedom to evangelize one day, we will need significantly more priests and nuns who have advanced training in universities so that they can provide leadership in the Church and in the society. As it is very difficult to leave China and is expensive to study in Europe or the US, we are advocating a program to send nuns and seminarians to the universities in China. It costs an average of US$1,000 for each student for one year. If you can donate one or more such scholarships, or partially, please contact us immediately so that the students can start in September 2007. We already have at least 40 such students in waiting without adequate funding. "The need emerges both for more careful vocational discernment on the part of Church leaders, and for more in-depth education and instruction of aspirants to the priesthood and religious life," exhorted the Pope in his China letter.

In the meantime, I wish to alert you to an article entitled "Keeping Faith," written by Adam Minter in the July/August issue of The Atlantic. This article one-sidedly describes the Chinese government-appointed Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian. Bishop Jin, at the time of his ordination, did not receive the Pope's mandate. The article depicts Cardinal Kung as the trouble-maker, Jin as the peace maker, and the Cardinal Kung Foundation as the agitator. What the article did not say was that Jin stole the authority of the Bishop of Shanghai from Cardinal Kung while the Papally appointed Bishop of Shanghai, namely Cardinal Kung, was still living and was not retired. Kung was Jin's bishop. Jin should have been obedient to Cardinal Kung. Instead, in collaboration with the Chinese communist regime, Jin betrayed his own bishop and stole the diocese from Cardinal Kung. For more details, you may view this article at The Atlantic's website at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200707/chinese-bishop . If you do not have access to the internet, please ask me for it, and I will mail you a copy. I have written a three-page rebuttal that The Atlantic is most likely to publish after its edit.

The annual Mass for this year will be held as planned on September 30. However, henceforth, effective 2008, the annual Mass will be changed to May 24, feast of Our Lady, Help of Christians. This date has been decreed by His Holiness as the day of prayer for China. I urge you to start reserving the Mass now for the annual Mass on May 24, 2008 in grateful support to His Holiness's proclamation and, in the meantime, to join the prayers of probably tens of millions Catholics worldwide as the result of the Holy Father's request.

Yours sincerely in Christ,

Joseph Kung
President

I. SYNOPSIS

You will find below a synopsis of the main points in the Holy Father's letter. In order to preserve the original flavor of the Pope's own teaching and in order to make the following as easy to read as possible, we have made every effort to use the Pontiff's own wording without quotation marks.

Church-State Relations

1. The Holy See always remains open to negotiations for the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China.

2. The Catholic Church in China does not have a mission to change the structure or administration of the civil government, but rather to proclaim Christ as the Savior of the world. However, she has to play her part through rational argument in the fight for justice and reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice cannot prevail.

Citizenship and Religious Freedom Go Hand in Hand

3. The Church invites the faithful to be good citizens and active contributors to the common good in their country. At the same time, the Holy See 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 and visibly certain aspects of their belonging to the Church and of their hierarchical communion with the pope. He also asks the Chinese government for authentic religious freedom in China.

The Need for Reconciliation, Perseverance and Prayer

4. The Church seeks to overcome tensions, divisions and recriminations. There is a need for memories to be purified, for wrong-doers to be pardoned, for injustices suffered to be forgotten, and for the restoration of serenity to troubled hearts in order to grow and to make visible the bonds of communion between the faithful and the pastors of the Church in China.

5. The Asian Churches experienced dismay at God's silence in the face of the persecutions to which they were exposed at the time. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that many bishops have undergone persecution and have been impeded in the exercise of their ministry, and some of them have made the Church fruitful with the shedding of their blood. Lay faithful have shown total fidelity to the Gospel, even paying a personal price for their faithfulness to Christ. However, we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

An Annual Day of Prayer

6. On May 24, Catholics of the whole world will ask the Lord of history for the gift of perseverance in witness, in the certainty that your sufferings past and present for the holy name of Jesus and your intrepid loyalty to his Vicar on earth will be rewarded, even if at times everything can seem a failure. The date May 24 could in the future become an occasion for the Catholics of the whole world to be united in prayer with the Church which is in China. This day is dedicated to the liturgical memorial of Our Lady, Help of Christians, who is venerated with great devotion at the Marian Shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai.

Communion Among Bishops and with Pope-Essential to the Church:
"Independent" Patriotic Association incompatible with Catholic doctrine

7. It is indispensable, for the unity of the Church in individual nations, that every bishop should be in communion with the other bishops, and that all should be in visible and concrete communion with the pope. Therefore the proposal for a Church that is "independent" of the Holy See in the religious sphere is incompatible with Catholic doctrine. State Agencies: No Substitute for Legitimate Episcopal Conference

State Agencies: No Substitute for Legitimate Episcopal Conference

8. The claim of some entities, desired 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. At a national level, only a legitimate Episcopal conference can formulate pastoral guidelines, valid for the entire Catholic community of the country concerned.

Bishops May Seek Government Recognition On Condition

9. There would not be any particular difficulties with acceptance of the recognition required and granted by the civil government - necessary in order to function publicly - on condition that this does not entail the denial of unrenounceable principles of faith and of ecclesiastical communion. Because of varying circumstances in China, the Holy See leaves the decision about seeking such recognition to the individual bishops for their respective dioceses.

Government Should Recognize Underground Bishops as Legitimate Pastors

10. Some Chinese bishops, who have received Episcopal ordination in communion with the pope, not wishing to be subjected to undue control exercised over the life of the Church, and eager to maintain total fidelity to the pope and to Catholic doctrine, have felt themselves constrained, not without suffering, to opt for clandestine underground consecration. The Holy See hopes that these legitimate pastors may be recognized as such by the civil government.

Patriotic Bishops Legitimized by Pope Need to Go Public

11. Other pastors, however, under the pressure of particular circumstances, have consented to receive Episcopal ordination without the pontifical mandate, but have subsequently asked to be received into communion with the pope. The pope has granted them the full and legitimate exercise of Episcopal jurisdiction. Unfortunately, some of these legitimized bishops have failed to provide any clear signs to prove that they have been legitimized. For this reason it is indispensable that legitimization, once it has occurred, is brought into the public domain at the earliest opportunity, and that the legitimized bishops provide unequivocal and increasing signs of full communion with the pope.

Valid but Illegitimate Patriotic Bishops:
Enter into Communion with the Pope

12. Finally, there are certain bishops - a very small number of them - who have been ordained without the pontifical mandate and who have not asked for or have not yet obtained the necessary legitimization. According to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, they are to be considered illegitimate but validly ordained as long as it is certain that they have received ordination from validly ordained bishops and that the Catholic rite of Episcopal ordination has been respected. Therefore, although not in communion with the pope, they exercise their ministry validly in the administration of the sacraments, even if they do so illegitimately. Great spiritual enrichment would ensue for the Church in China if these pastors too were to enter into communion with the pope and with the entire Catholic episcopate!

No Valid Episcopal Conference in China

13. The present College of Catholic Bishops of China cannot be recognized as an Episcopal conference by the Apostolic See. The "underground" bishops, those not recognized by the civil 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.

Holy See's Desire to Appoint Bishops Freely

14. The Holy See desires to be completely free to appoint bishops, and trusts that an accord can be reached with the civil government so as to resolve certain questions regarding the choice of candidates for the episcopate, the publication of the appointment of bishops, and the recognition - concerning civil effects where necessary - of the new bishops on the part of the civil government.

Conditions for Concelebrating the Eucharist

15. Concelebration of the Eucharist presupposes, as conditions, profession of the same faith and hierarchical communion with the pope and with the universal Church. Therefore it is licit to concelebrate with bishops and with priests who are in communion with the pope, even if they are recognized by the civil authorities and maintain a relationship with entities desired by the civil government 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.

Receiving the Sacraments from Illegitimate but Valid Bishops:
Permissible on Condition

16. Concerning bishops whose consecrations took place without the pontifical mandate yet respecting the Catholic rite of Episcopal ordination, their ordination is illegitimate but valid, just as priestly ordinations conferred by them are valid, and sacraments administered by such bishops and priests are likewise valid. Therefore the faithful, taking this into account, where the Eucharistic celebration and the other sacraments are concerned, must, within the limits of the possible, seek bishops and priests who are in communion with the pope. Nevertheless, where this cannot be achieved without grave inconvenience, they may, for the sake of their spiritual good, turn also to those who are not in communion with the pope.

Setting Ecclesiastical Boundaries

17. The Holy See is prepared to address the entire question of setting the boundaries of ecclesiastical provinces in an open and constructive dialogue with the Chinese episcopate and - where opportune and helpful - with the civil government.

Priests Seeking Full Communion with Church:
Public Profession of Faith Required

18. Among priests in China there have been some who have had to deal with difficult times and situations, adopting positions that cannot always be condoned from an ecclesial point of view and who, despite everything, desire to return to full communion with the Church. The Holy See calls upon the bishops who are in communion with the pope to evaluate these matters case by case and give a just response to that desire, having recourse - if necessary - to the Apostolic See. As a sign of this desired reconciliation, these priests should make a profession of faith within the public liturgical setting of the priestly day of Holy Thursday (or some other appropriate occasion), for the edification of the holy people of God , entrusted to their care and to the praise of the Most Holy Trinity.

All Previous Faculties and Pastoral Directives Replaced by This New Letter

19. All the faculties previously granted as well as directives of a pastoral nature, past and recent, for addressing particular pastoral necessities that emerged in truly difficult times are revoked. The doctrinal principles that inspired them now find a new application in these new directives.

II. Reflections on Pope Benedict XVI's Letter

A) Persecution and imprisoned faithful: One of the primary missions of the Cardinal Kung Foundation is to spread the word about the persecution and sufferings of the clandestine (underground) Church. There are people, including some religious in the United States and elsewhere, who said in public that there is no persecution of the Catholic Church in China. However, throughout his letter, the Pope referred many times to the persecution of the Church as we described in the 5th paragraph above. It is indeed music to our ears when the Pope insisted that there must be "authentic religious freedom" in China. This will preclude the jailing of any religious for the sake of carrying out their pastoral duties. This could also be interpreted as calling for the release of all those clandestine (underground) religious and faithful currently in jail. "We are not asking the Pope to offend the Chinese government by mentioning those imprisoned clandestine religious, nor do we ask for special privilege…..We only hope to hear that the universal Church has not abandoned these imprisoned Catholic religious and faithful suffering in silence….." remarked a clandestine priest.

B) Profession of Faith: In our Christmas 2005 issue of newsletter, we advocated that the PROFESSION of Faith should not be made in private or in secret as many religious from the official Church had done in the past. We wrote: "When these bishops (belonging to the government-sanctioned official Church) accepted 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 communion with 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, because it is a contradiction in terms."

In paragraphs 11 and 18 above, the Holy Father was very clear on the issue of the PROFESSION of FAITH. It must be made in public so that "the legitimized bishops provide unequivocal and increasing signs of full communion with the Successor of Peter." We need to pray that the legitimized bishops of the official Church will have the courage to make their full communion with the Pope public, and that the Chinese government will honor this.

C) Two Churches: A number of cardinals, bishops, other religious and pundits claimed in the past that there was only one Church in China. In our July and Christmas 2001 newsletters, we presented our analysis to rebut that they were wrong. There are in fact two Churches.

After the publication of the Pope's letter to China, a number of news media were very quick to put out a headline proclaiming that the Pope advocated that there was only one Church in China. They are wrong again.

In the third paragraph from the end of section 8 in his letter, the Pope writes: "Finally, there are certain Bishops - a very small number of them - who have been ordained without the Pontifical mandate and who have not asked for or have not yet obtained the necessary legitimization…..Although not in communion with the Pope, they…." (Please refer paragraph 12 above)

Therefore, the Pope clearly pointed out that there is still a group of bishops in the official Church in China that are "not in communion with the Pope." Pope Benedict clearly distinguishes between those bishops who are in communion with the Pope and those who are not. By making this clear distinction, Pope Benedict acknowledges that one cannot claim that there is only one Church in China.

In addition, in his speech in January 1995 during the World Youth Day celebration in Manila, our late Pope John Paul II stated very clearly and firmly: "A Catholic who wishes to remain such and to be recognized as such cannot reject the principle of communion with the successor of Peter." He repeated the same quote again on other occasion. Therefore, communion with the Pope as requisite for being a Roman Catholic is a basic Catholic doctrine. It is not a mere discipline.

Inasmuch as that portion of bishops in the official Church in China are still not in communion with the Pope as I have described above, and inasmuch as the late Pope John Paul II stated that in order to be a Catholic one must be in communion with the Pope, it is clear that the part of the official Church controlled by those bishops who are not in communion with the Pope, is not Roman Catholic.

Therefore, when I referred to two Churches in China, one of these Churches is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church that is in full communion with the Pope, and the other is the Church that is not, as I described in the previous paragraph.

However, should this group of small number of bishops that the Pontiff characterizes as not presently being in communion with the Pope has enough courage to ask to be received into communion with the Successor of Peter and with their other brothers in the episcopate, and if the Pope grants them the full and legitimate exercise of Episcopal jurisdiction, then there will be only one united Church in China in full communion with the Pope and with the Universal Church. Let us pray that this day will arrive soon.

D) Bishops to go public: Many Vatican officials and news media had indicated for a long time that 75-85 % of the bishops belonging to the "official" Church controlled by the Patriotic Association have been legitimized. However, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the Holy See has officially acknowledged that it has legitimized many bishops of the "official" Church as described in Paragraph 11 above. This acknowledgement from the Pope himself clarifies an issue that was raised in our August 2006 newsletter. The Pope clearly wants those legitimized bishops of the "official" Church to step forward and make their legitimization publicly known. This will be very risky for these legitimized bishops, but this risk must be taken with courage even it means imprisonment and other penalties which might be imposed by the government of China.

E) Guidelines: In our Christmas 2004 newsletter, we reported on and presented the Holy See's guidelines - both of 1988 and 2004 - for the Church in China. The Pope has now revoked these guidelines and replaced them with new ones in this letter. (Paragraph 19 above) At the time of the writing of the Christmas 2004 newsletter, we noted that in the Holy See's 2004 guidelines, it is stated: "Obviously, the Patriotic Association has the characteristic of being in schism." To the best of our knowledge, that was the first time that a directive authorized by a Vatican representative used the word "schism" to describe the CPA. Since that time, apparently chiefly as a result of the Holy See's legitimization of some CPA bishops, there are some in the CPA who are still in schism and some who are not but rather in communion with the Pope. This suggests that the Holy See has decided not to relate to the CPA as a whole, but rather with its individual bishops. This is supported by the point made by Pope Benedict in Paragraph 13 above: the present College of Catholic Bishops of China cannot be recognized as an Episcopal conference by the Apostolic See.

F) Concelebration and unity: The following is a true story. An underground bishop, having been incarcerated by the Chinese authority, was released and returned to his diocese. Learning the return of this underground bishop, a Patriotic bishop of the same diocese went over to visit him. During the visit, the Patriotic bishop knelt before this underground bishop and handed over his crosier to the underground bishop and said: "I am not the bishop appointed by the Holy Father, but you are. I am the bishop of this diocese as appointed by the government, but you are the real bishop appointed by the Holy Father. You are my bishop. I am here to pledge my loyalty and obedience to you and to the Holy Father. Please accept me. I have never used this crosier during my appointment by the government. It is now yours representing your power and authority." The underground bishop helped the Patriotic bishop up, and embraced him. They together walked over to the cathedral of this underground bishop and concelebrated a Mass. Hundreds came. Many of them were surprised, seeing their bishop concelebrating with a Patriotic bishop. Some of them were moved to tears. But a few, without knowing what the Pope would say, complained. "Therefore, it is licit to concelebrate with Bishops and with priests who are in communion with the Pope…….," writes the Pope in his China letter as presented in Paragraph 15 above.

G) A day of prayer for China: We are extremely grateful to His Holiness for his decree that May the 24th , the feast of Our Lady, Help of Christians "becomes an occasion for the Catholics of the whole world to be united in prayer with the Church which is in China" as presented in Paragraph 6 above. For many years, the Cardinal Kung Foundation has promoted An Annual Mass Day for China on the Sunday closest to October 1st. We shall continue this in 2007. However, supporting His Holiness' proclamation for a day of prayer for China, we will move this Annual Mass to May 24th, effective 2008, to join spiritually tens of millions of Catholics all over the world in prayer for China. Thank you, your Holiness.

Please Remember The Cardinal Kung Foundation In Your Will.
Thank You.

Please direct any questions or comments regarding this web site to: Joseph M. C. Kung