Can China and the Vatican
ever reach mutual understanding?
Pope Francis continues to make overtures to China, but so far
Beijing shows no signs of being wooed. Conditions have been laid out by
Beijing, but even if an agreement were reached and a concordat of sorts were
signed to end this battle of wills, the larger problem may have to do with the
perception of both sides by Chinese citizens.
China’s
sortie into capitalism has created one of the world’s highest rates of income
inequality. As a result, many young Chinese are losing faith in the Party. Xi’s
“Chinese Dream,” an attempt to rekindle that faith, is a working treatment but
not a cure. The elimination of the Four Olds and the failure of the state to
deliver a communist utopia have left a generation of Chinese with a sense of jingshen
kongxu (spiritual emptiness). This, in turn, is generating a thirst for
meaning and a growing number of Chinese are trying to slake this thirst by
taking up the cross.
While the
Party is aggressive toward religious groups, its aggression is often
misunderstood. The incarceration of senescent bishops and priests, for example,
is one of the many ruthless measures taken by the government. However, this is
not merely the irrational lashing-out of an avowed atheist state. It is, from
Beijing’s perspective, a defensive act against foreign imperialism. This may
sound like a line from the Party handbook, but in truth Christian missionaries
have historically caused a good deal of harm in China.
Missionaries
were, for instance, involved in the Opium War. They profited from the infamous
1842 Treaty of Nanking. During World War II, the Vatican stationed a diplomatic
officer by the name of Charles Lemaire in Japanese-controlled Harbin,
Manchukuo, effectively giving support for Japan’s presence in the region. And
of course, there was the 1715 decree against Confucian ancestral rites,
effectively declaring one of China’s most cherished cultural practices evil.
Pope Pius XII reversed this in 1939, though one has to wonder about all the
Chinese Catholics who practiced the faith during the intervening 224 years.
To be
fair, the Church has recently exhibited a sensitivity not seen since the Jesuit
missionary Matteo Ricci, who was so adapted to the local culture that he used
to dress in the robes of Buddhist monks. But China has not yet warmed to the
sudden change of heart. Both sides, however, routinely express their desire to
establish diplomatic relations, which ended in 1951 when Beijing officials
accused the Vatican of plotting to assassinate Mao Zedong (and subsequently
executed an Italian and a Japanese by firing squad). These days, the détente is
noticeable, but unlikely to proceed further if Beijing’s demands are not met.
Its first
demand is that the Vatican must not interfere in China’s domestic affairs. The
main problem here for the Vatican is that Beijing considers the ordination of
bishops a domestic affair and bishops are now selected by the Chinese Patriotic
Catholic Association (CPCA). Vatican officials are trying to work out a
protocol similar to the diplomatic process of agrément (mutual consent),
but a solution is not yet in the wind. The second demand, that the Vatican end
ties with Taiwan, has been met by the Vatican with voiced consent but no action
thus far.
To
understand Beijing’s dealings with the Vatican, and religions in general, one
must understand the sanzi (three selfs) doctrine. This policy,
reminiscent of North Korea’s juche, promotes self-governance,
self-support, and self-propagation. Simply put, religious groups that threaten sanzi
are not tolerated. So for instance, while the government supports the Tibetan
Catholics of Cizhong, or quietly watches the wealthy Christian community of
Wenzhou, it arrests Korean “house churches” at every turn. This is
because the Cizhong community offers a path of assimilation for other Tibetans,
and the Wenzhou community presents an argument that Christianity might be good
for the economy, whereas Korean “house churches” maintain strong ties to
churches in South Korea and frequently help North Koreans refugees find homes
in China, Mongolia, South Korea or elsewhere. These Korean communities are, in
other words, a threat to sanzi in a way that other churches are not.
What the
Vatican needs, then, is a pope who can speak to China on China’s own terms,
rather than as a former imperial power. Marxism and capitalism were both
embraced in China after being adapted to local culture, and Catholicism can
succeed in this way too. Likewise, Beijing should avoid presenting itself as a
modern-day Rome to Chinese Christians.
Fortunately,
Beijing and the Holy See have compatible objectives. The gospel doesn’t
necessarily conflict with sanzi. In fact, as growth generates
inequality, the Church could play a stabilizing role. As Viktor Frankl wrote,
nothing helps one survive trouble “as the knowledge that there is a meaning in
one’s life.” By David Volodzko
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