D-Day looms for Vatican relations with China

The human rights abuses of the communist regime are becoming worse by the day, writes David Quinn

W hen Irish people pay attention to what is happening overseas, it is mainly what is happening in Britain and America that occupies our minds. That’s understandable, because so many Irish live in those countries and Britain is our closest neighbour.

We pay some attention to what is happening in the Middle East, especially when it involves Israel, and occasionally to what is taking place in parts of South America.

The reason Israel draws the attention is because we see it is as a Western power in that part of the world, and the South American countries are closely connected with Europe because of immigration patterns down the centuries. In addition, many Irish missionaries have worked in South and Central America.

But a country we should pay far more attention to is China. It is now the second most powerful country in the world, after the US, and it looks set to pass out the US in due course.

Relationship

We must think about what our relationship with China should be. At present that relationship is totally dominated by trade considerations to the almost total exclusion of human rights concerns.

The Communist Party of China (CCP) celebrates the centenary of its founding in July. Last year, it marked the seventieth anniversary of its seizure of power and victory in the Chinese civil war.

Since then, it has carried out some of the worst crimes in history, on a par with those of Stalin and Hitler. Tens of millions of people have died as a direct or indirect result of CCP policies.

It has always been repressive of religion. During the worst of times, it has killed or imprisoned believers. At other times, it has been content ‘merely’ to keep religion under control.

Even before the communist takeover in 1949 and the ascension to power of Mao Zedong, the Chinese State has typically regarded religion as a threat to its authority. In Chinese history, rebellions against the ruling dynasty have often had a religious inspiration.

One in the late 18th century had its roots in Buddhism. A massive one in the middle part of the 19th century – the Taiping rebellion – had a vaguely Christian inspiration. That rebellion was the second bloodiest war in history. At least 20 million people died in it.

Buddhism and Christianity in China are, in a sense, ‘foreign imports’. Chinese emperors for the most part did not want Christian missionaries in China at all, but in the 19th Century were forced to admit them at gunpoint by Western powers.

The Catholic Church makes the Chinese state especially wary because it is both a ‘foreign import’ and its leader, the Pope, is far away in Rome and not answerable to the state.

Response

The response of the Chinese Communist Party to this was eventually to establish a sort of rival Church in China called the Chinese Patriotic Association (CPA) whose bishops were approved by Beijing, while the legitimate Catholic Church, in communion with Rome, called ‘the underground Church’ was often savagely persecuted.

In 2018, the Vatican and Beijing decided to try and resolve the situation. To cut a long story short, the Pope recognised seven bishops of the CPA thereby bringing them into communion with Rome, and from here on in, both Rome and Beijing would oversee the appointment of bishops.

Agreement

The agreement has never been published. It was renewed last year over the strong opposition of Chinese Catholics associated with the underground Church, led by Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong, who is a ferocious critic of Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party.

He believes the Vatican has struck a deal with the devil, on a par with the concordat it signed with Nazi Germany in 1933, which Rome came to regret as the true nature of the Nazi regime became ever more apparent.

In 1937, Pope Pius XI had the encyclical letter, Mit Brennender Sorge, (With Burning Concern) smuggled into Germany condemning Nazism. The Nazis in the meantime had broken the agreement with the Vatican.

Pius wrote that the Church had reached the agreement “in spite of many serious misgivings” and in the hope it might “safeguard the liberty of the Church in her mission of salvation in Germany”.

The Vatican’s deal with China (which is less than a concordat) seems to have a similar motivation. Its compromise with Beijing is motivated by a wish to protect Catholics in China from further persecution.

There are two very big problems with this strategy, however. One is that Beijing already appears to have breached its side of the agreement. According to reports, a document from the Chinese State bureaucracy references the appointment of new bishops but excludes the Vatican from the process totally.

A litmus test will be what happens in Hong Kong. It currently has no sitting bishop. This hugely concerns Cardinal Zen, the former bishop of the diocese. He thinks Beijing will appoint a puppet. If it does so, how will the Pope respond? Will he push back, or might he agree to the appointment of a Beijing puppet to the diocese so long as it is done jointly with the Vatican?

Abuses

The second big problem with the Vatican’s policy is that the human rights abuses being carried out by the Chinese Communist Party are becoming worse and worse. It has recently crushed democracy in Hong Kong. It is cracking down ever harder on religious freedom. It has locked up an estimated one million Muslims in concentration camps in the west of the country.

The Vatican has so far barely referenced any of this for fear of worsening relations with Beijing and because it might also worsen the position of Catholics in China.

But there comes a point at which the evil deeds of a regime have to be condemned and a realisation must dawn that the other party to an agreement is acting in bad faith.

The day may yet arrive when either Pope Francis or his successor will issue a modern-day version of Mit Brennender Sorge, this time about the awful, modern-day crimes of the regime in Beijing.