From Catholic News Service

Chinese church situation not normal for more than 50 years

By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Under normal circumstances, bishops are named by the Pope and run dioceses where the number of priests, nuns and baptized faithful is recorded and reported annually to the Vatican.

But things have not been normal in China for more than 50 years.

Some of the bishops are approved by the Pope, some are approved by the government, but increasingly most are approved by both.

As for statistics, the estimated number of Catholics in China runs from about 8 million to as many as 16 million.

While the Vatican pays homage to Chinese Catholics who risk their freedom and even their lives to remain in full communion with the Pope and universal church, it has allowed some compromises to ensure the ongoing survival of Catholicism in the country.

Until the mid-1980s, the only Catholic bishops in China recognized as legitimate by the Vatican were those chosen and ordained secretly by other bishops in the underground Catholic community, said Belgian Missionhurst Father Jeroom Heyndrickx, one of the most authoritative experts on Catholicism in China.

In the mid-1950s, when China's communist government expelled all the foreign-born bishops, the Vatican gave the remaining bishops "special faculties to select and ordain their successors" to ensure continued service to the faithful and the survival of the church, Father Heyndrickx said.

In 1957, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association was formed under government sponsorship to assure the Catholic community's harmony with state policies and to separate the church from "foreign interference," especially its ties with the Vatican.

Members of the patriotic association elect their own bishops, who are ordained with government approval.

As happened under communism in Eastern Europe, the existence of an underground church and of a government-approved church did not mean all Catholics chose one and excluded the other, especially when remaining underground meant they could not receive the sacraments.

Bishops, priests and the faithful who continued to practice their faith without submitting to the patriotic association were arrested and imprisoned. Bishops who accepted their elections by the patriotic association were excommunicated.

Then, Father Heyndrickx said, in 1984 Bishop Bernardine Dong Guangqing of Hankou -- who in 1957 was the first bishop illicitly ordained -- sought reconciliation with and received recognition from Pope John Paul II.

Dozens of bishops elected by the patriotic association followed suit over the years and now, many China church experts say, as many as 90 percent of the bishops in the government-approved church are recognized as legitimate bishops by the Vatican.

Father Heyndrickx, who was in Beijing in late April and early May when the patriotic association ordained two bishops without Vatican approval, said that for the past five years the Chinese government has looked the other way as the patriotic association chose candidates for the office of bishop, then sent the names to the Vatican for approval prior to their ordinations.

The priest listed nine dioceses where ordinations were scheduled only after Vatican confirmation, the latest being the May 7 ordination of Coadjutor Bishop Paul Pei Junmin of Liaoning.

In a May 8 commentary sent to Catholic News Service, Father Heyndrickx wrote, "It happened that the Chinese civil authorities told the local priests explicitly: 'We know that you have to submit your proposal to Rome. Do your job. We do ours.'"

"The Holy See was happy with this positive evolution," he said. While the Vatican would prefer no government interference at all, "some openness and good will was apparently growing on both sides."

As for church statistics, Father Heyndrickx said: "Question any number you read. Everyone gives something different because everyone is guessing."

The only certainty, he said, is that there were 4 million Catholics in China when Mao came to power in 1949.

"Under normal circumstances with normal growth, you would expect the total to be about 8 million today," counting both members of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the underground church, he said. "But there is no way to know."

In a statement last October, the patriotic association claimed it had about 5 million members. And the latest Vatican statistical yearbook estimated that there were about 4.6 million Catholics in countries that could not provide an accurate report to the Vatican, mainly China and North Korea.

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