China’s Catholics in an Era of Transformation: Observations of an “Outsider” [1st ed.] 9789811561818, 9789811561825

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CHRISTIANITY IN MODERN CHINA

China’s Catholics in an Era of Transformation Observations of an “Outsider” Anthony E. Clark

Christianity in Modern China

Series Editor Cindy Yik-yi Chu Department of History Hong Kong Baptist University Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

This series addresses Christianity in China from the time of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties to the present. It includes a number of disciplines—history, political science, theology, religious studies, gender studies and sociology. Not only is the series inter-disciplinary, it also encourages inter-religious dialogue. It covers the presence of the Catholic Church, the Protestant Churches and the Orthodox Church in China. While Chinese Protestant Churches have attracted much scholarly and journalistic attention, there is much unknown about the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church in China. There is an enormous demand for monographs on the Chinese Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. This series captures the breathtaking phenomenon of the rapid expansion of Chinese Christianity on the one hand, and the long awaited need to reveal the reality and the development of Chinese Catholicism and the Orthodox religion on the other. Christianity in China reflects on the tremendous importance of Chinese-foreign relations. The series touches on many levels of research— the life of a single Christian in a village, a city parish, the conflicts between converts in a province, the policy of the provincial authority and state-tostate relations. It concerns the influence of different cultures on Chinese soil—the American, the French, the Italian, the Portuguese and so on. Contributors of the series include not only people from the academia but journalists and professional writers as well. The series would stand out as a collective effort of authors from different countries and backgrounds. Under the influence of globalization, it is entirely necessary to emphasize the intercultural dimension of the monographs of the series. With Christianity being questioned in the Western world, as witnessed in the popularity of Dan Brown’s books since some time ago, the Chinese have surprised the world by their embracement of this foreign religion.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14895

Anthony E. Clark

China’s Catholics in an Era of Transformation Observations of an “Outsider”

Anthony E. Clark Whitworth University Spokane, WA, USA

Christianity in Modern China ISBN 978-981-15-6181-8 ISBN 978-981-15-6182-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6182-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: “Roman Catholic procession in front of St. Ignatius church,” Shanghai, China, 1935. Source: Whitworth University Collection. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Acknowledgments

Much of what is included in this collection was written in cramped accommodations in China’s large cities and remote villages—cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Taiyuan, and small villages such as Dongergou, Liuhecun, and an isolated community high in the mountains of Tibet where I visited an old Roman Catholic French vineyard still used for making wine. Travel to such locations to conduct scholarly research and fieldwork is often supported by grants, scholarships, institutions, and made possible by the assistance of generous friends and colleagues. I am enduringly grateful for the financial support and research assistance that has facilitated these essays. Kind support was received from the National Endowment for the Humanities; the American Council for Learned Societies; the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange; the William J. Fulbright Foundation; the National Security Education Program; the Congregation of the Mission Vincentian Studies Institute at DePaul University; and the Whitworth University Weyerhaeuser Center. Several archives and archivists have provided valuable support while visiting their collections, including the Archives des la Société des Auxilliares des Mission; the Archivio Storico di Propaganda Fide; the Archivio Segreto Vaticano; and the Congrégation de la Mission Archives Historiques. The individuals who have enriched my research are numerous, and this list cannot adequately mention all to whom I am indebted. In particular I render my profound appreciation to students, friends, and v

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

colleagues who have been both helpful assistants and congenial interlocutors, Eric Cunningham, Jeff Kersh, Gary Zagelow, Jonathan Hammerstrom, Rachel Murray, Anthony and Veronica Fok, Dale Soden, Corliss Slack, Elise Leal, James Fox, Cassie Schmitt, Tanya Parlet, Bruce Tabb, Nancy Bunker, Wang Renfang, Shen Shuyin, Ming Yuqing, Wu Xiaoxin, Nailene Chou Wiest, Jean-Paul Wiest, Shan Yanrong, Fr. Robert Carbonneau, CP, Fr. Claude Lautissier, CM, Fr. Edward Udovic, CM, Fr. Augustine DeNoble, OSB, Fr. Thierry Meynard, SJ, Br. Daniel Peterson, SJ, Fr. Robert Danieluk, SJ, Fr. Brian Mac Cuarta, SJ, Fr. Antoni Ucerler, SJ, Fr. Elias Cerezo, SJ, Fr. Michael Maher, SJ, and Fr. Robert Bonfils, SJ. The editor of the Palgrave Macmillan book series, “Christianity in Modern China,” Cindy Yik-yi Chu, has been a generous and supportive advisor through the process of bringing this book to print, as has Connie Li, also from Palgrave Macmillan. I am always indebted to Amanda C. R. Clark for her constant encouragement and scholarly help, especially here in compiling and editing the essays included in this volume. Finally, special appreciation is must be rendered to Carl Olson for his continuing friendship and support of my work on the history of China’s Catholics. Over the decades he has made Ignatius Insight and Catholic World Report an active venue for news and reflections (some my own) on Catholicism in China. To Carl Olson this book is dedicated.

Timeline of Christianity in China

635

1294

1368

1582

1685

According to a stone monument erected around Xi’an in AD 781, the Syrian missionary Alopen (b. 600) was the first Christian to arrive in China in AD 635; he was a monk of the Church of the East (Nestorian).1 These Eastern monks were later the competitors with Catholics in the field of Christian evangelization. The first Catholic Church is established in China by the Italian Franciscan friar Giovanni da Montecorvino (1247–1328). Montecorvino was China’s first Catholic bishop, who built his cathedral in 1299 in Khanbaliq, known today as Beijing.2 The Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) collapses and Catholicism is forbidden in China. Thus, the Catholic Church disappears in East Asia. China’s most famous missionary, Matteo Ricci, inaugurates the Jesuit mission during the end of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Ricci wrote several popular Chinese books to promote Catholicism in China, the most famous of which was his Tianzhu shiyi, or the “True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven,” which he published in 1603. The first Chinese priest, a Dominican friar, Gregory Luo Wenzao (1616–1691), is consecrated a Roman

vii

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TIMELINE OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA

1692

1706–1723

1898–1900

1926

1949

1950-1955

Catholic bishop in China. It was not until 1926 that other Chinese priests were consecrated bishops. The Kangxi Emperor (1654–1722) publishes an edict that expresses toleration of Christianity in China. The edict stated that “all temples dedicated to the Lord of Heaven, in whatever place they may be found, ought to be preserved, and that it may be permitted to all who wish to worship this God to enter these temples, offer him incense, and perform the ceremonies practiced according to ancient custom by the Christians. Therefore, let no one henceforth offer them any opposition.”3 The Kangxi Emperor retracts his support of Catholicism because of the Catholic debates over whether the traditional Chinese rites may be allowed for Christians. Most Roman Catholic missionaries are expelled from China. Approximately 30,000 Christians are massacred during an uprising against foreigners and Chinese converts to Christianity called the “Boxer Uprising.” The most intense area of anti-Christian persecution occurred in Shanxi province under the orders of the local governor, Yuxian (1842–1901).4 As China’s missionary bishops would not agree to consecrate Chinese bishops, Pope Pius XI (1867–1939) invites six Chinese priests to Rome and ordains them himself in St. Peter’s Basilica.5 Additional vicariates were then created in China that were administered by these Chinese bishops and Chinese clergy. Chairman Mao Zedong (1893–1976) announces the founding of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949 before a massive crowd assembled at Tiananmen. There are approximately three million Chinese Catholics and one million Protestants who live in China during this transition. All foreign missionaries and non-Chinese Christian teachers are systematically exiled from China. Roman Catholic nuns and priests are forced to leave China, while many are arrested as “ideological saboteurs.”

TIMELINE OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA

1954

1955

1957

1966–1976

1981

1982

ix

138 Chinese Protestant leaders issue a document entitled “The Christian Manifesto,” which inaugurated the “Three-Self Patriotic Movement” (TSPM). This established the so-called “Three-Selfs” model for Chinese Christians: self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation. One of the founders of this movement was Pastor Y. T. Wu (Wu Yaozong, 1893–1979), who sought to harmonize Christianity with “Mao Zedong thought” and the communist party. The bishop of Shanghai, Ignatius Gong Pinmei (1901– 2000), is arrested along with the bishops of Taizhou, Hankou, Guangzhou, and Baoding, and more than a thousand Catholics. They were imprisoned for long terms—Bishop Gong was imprisoned for 30 years— because of loyalty to the pope.6 The People’s Republic of China establishes the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) along similar contours as the Protestant-founded TSPM. In response, Pope Pius XII (1876–1958) issued his encyclical, Ad Apostolorum Principis, on 29 July 1958, in which he condemned the activities of the CCPA and declared bishops who participated in consecrating new bishops selected by the CCPA to be excommunicated. The Cultural Revolution begins, and Catholic priests, nuns, faithful, and churches are attacked by radical communist youth called “Red Guards.” Churches are gutted of their religious objects, seized by the government, and refurbished for secular uses. Unknown thousands of Catholics are imprisoned, executed, or sent to labor camps. China’s officials remove the requirement for Chinese Catholics to swear independence from Rome and the Holy See, though the pope is only allowed to be viewed by Chinese Catholics as a “spiritual leader” who has no administrative authority over the Chinese Church. Including the pope’s name in the Canon of Holy Mass is allowed after decades of being illegal in China. Until this year Chinese priests normally mentioned the pope’s name silently, as they offered Mass according to the

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1994

2000

2014

1962 missal and intoned the Canon silently while facing liturgical east.7 The state passes the “Regulations Concerning Places of Religious Worship,” which requires all places of worship to be registered with the government. Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) canonizes 120 martyrs of China, including 87 who were ethnically Chinese. The Chinese government responded by publishing virulent criticisms of the Vatican’s “interference” with Chinese affairs, and accused several of the canonized missionaries of sexual impropriety.8 Local Chinese party officials in several provinces order the removal of crosses from Christian churches, and some are completely demolished. The party’s explanation is that these Christian churches are “unregistered” or “unruly.”

Notes 1. See Matteo Nicolini-Zani, Christian Monks on Chinese Soil: A History of Monastic Missions to China (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2016), 48–50. 2. For a general history of the Franciscan mission to China see, Arnulf Camps and Pat McCloskey, The Friars Minor in China (1294–1955) (Rome: General Curia, Order of Friars Minor, 1995). 3. Quoted in Don Alvin Pittman, Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu’s Reforms (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), 35–36. 4. See Anthony E. Clark, Heaven in Conflict: Franciscans and the Boxer Uprising in China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015). 5. See Pasquale M. d’Elia, Catholic Native Episcopacy in China: Being an Outline of the Formation and Growth of the Chinese Catholic Clergy, 1300–1926 (Shanghai: Tusewei Printing Press, 1927). 6. See Paul P. Mariani, Church Militant: Bishop Kung and Catholic Resistance in Communist Shanghai (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011). 7. Anthony E. Clark meeting with Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian, Shanghai, 12 July 2010. 8. See Anthony E. Clark, China’s Saints: Catholic Martyrdom During the Qing (1644–1911) (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2013).

Contents

1

Introduction

2

Getting Oriented, 2005–2010 2.1 Essay 2.1 Missionaries, Martyrs, and a Narrative of Anguish (December 2005) 2.2 Essay 2.2 China’s Church(es): An Interview with Father Daniel Cerezo (June 2006) 2.3 Essay 2.3 China’s Catholics in the Shadow of the Olympics (August 2008) 2.4 Essay 2.4 Beijing’s Catholics in the Shadow of the Party (September 2008) 2.5 Essay 2.5 Guizhou’s Three Bishops and the Church “Underground” (October 2008) 2.6 Essay 2.6 Suffering, Survival, and a Communion of Complexity (December 2008) 2.7 Essay 2.7 Reflections on Resolve: China’s Catholics Through Eras of Change (March 2009) 2.8 Essay 2.8 Matteo Ricci and His Legacy of China-West Dialogue (May 2009) 2.9 Essay 2.9 China’s Largest Catholic Village (July 2010) 2.10 Essay 2.10 No Easy Answers: A Discussion with Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian (July 2010)

1 11 11 17 22 24 29 36 42 50 57 61

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CONTENTS

Making Friends and Mourning Losses, 2011–2013 3.1 Essay 3.1 Hard Answers: A Discussion with Cardinal Joseph Zen (May 2011) 3.2 Essay 3.2 Ambiguous Lines: “Underground” and “Aboveground” (May 2011) 3.3 Essay 3.3 Divided We Fall; United We Endure (June 2011) 3.4 Essay 3.4 9 July 1900: China’s Franciscan Martyrs (July 2011) 3.5 Essay 3.5 Between Communism and Catholicism: Six Decades (December 2011) 3.6 Essay 3.6 Between Communism and Catholicism: A Bishop (December 2011) 3.7 Essay 3.7 In the Footsteps of Jesuits: Two Chinese Catholic Villages (January 2012) 3.8 Essay 3.8 “Eating Bitterness” and the Hope for Freedom (February 2012) 3.9 Essay 3.9 China’s Catholics in Confusing Times (April 2012) 3.10 Essay 3.10 A Small Note on a Large Number of Baptisms (April 2012) 3.11 Essay 3.11 The Solemnity of Christ the King in China (November 2012) 3.12 Essay 3.12 Beijing’s “Benedictine” Age (December 2012) 3.13 Essay 3.13 Father Charles McCarthy: China’s California Jesuit (December 2012) 3.14 Essay 3.14 Beijing Lent (February 2013) 3.15 Essay 3.15 China’s Church and the Pope’s Resignation (February 2013) 3.16 Essay 3.16 Pope Francis’ Installation, and the Advent of a New Era (March 2013) 3.17 Essay 3.17 The Death of Shanghai’s Bishop Jin Luxian (April 2013) 3.18 Essay 3.18 China, the Vatican, and an Enduring Culture of Disagreement (May 2013)

69 69 75 84 91 94 99 100 106 110 114 115 116 120 128 129 130 131 134

CONTENTS

3.19 3.20

4

Essay 3.19 China’s Modern Martyrs from Mao to Now: Part 1 (June 2013) Essay 3.20 China’s Modern Martyrs from Mao to Now: Part 2 (September 2013)

Bishops, Priests, and Echoes from the Pews, 2014–2019 4.1 Essay 4.1 China’s Modern Martyrs from Mao to Now: Part 3 (March 2014) 4.2 Essay 4.2 Shanghai’s Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang Dies (March 2014) 4.3 Essay 4.3 Beijing’s “Bulldozer Diplomacy” with China’s Christians (March 2014) 4.4 Essay 4.4 Beijing Seminarians Boycott Graduation Seminary (July 2014) 4.5 Essay 4.5 China’s Modern Martyrs from Mao to Now: Part 4 (September 2014) 4.6 Essay 4.6 Church Demolitions, Cross Removals, and a Clandestine Bishop (February 2015) 4.7 Essay 4.7 Bishop Joseph Zhang Yinlin: Pope Francis’ First Chinese Bishop (August 2015) 4.8 Essay 4.8 Partakers in the Suffering: Recent Events in Catholic China (January 2016) 4.9 Essay 4.9 A Preliminary Agreement on the Election of Bishops (August 2016) 4.10 Essay 4.10 Understanding the China–Vatican Agreement (November 2016) 4.11 Essay 4.11 China’s Catholics Crave a New Era (May 2017) 4.12 Essay 4.12 Perseverance Under Peter: China and the Papacy (June 2017) 4.13 Essay 4.13 Remembering China’s Eminent Catholics (January 2018) 4.14 Essay 4.14 This Is Not a Movie Theater! A View from the Pews in China (January 2018) 4.15 Essay 4.15 China’s Catholics: Context and the Current Situation (March 2018)

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135 143 157 157 166 168 170 171 180 181 183 188 192 195 197 204 212 215

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CONTENTS

4.16 4.17

Essay 4.16 Cardinal Joseph Zen and China’s Catholic Condition (March 2018) Essay 4.17 Retrospective on the 2018 China–Vatican Agreement (November 2019)

220 223

Conclusion

245

Archives Consulted

253

Bibliography

255

Index

267

5

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1

Fig. 1.2

Fig. 2.1

Fig. 2.2

Fig. 2.3

Fig. 2.4

Fig. 2.5

Fig. 3.1

Father Paul L. M. Surruys (front) and Stephen W. Durrant (back) at the University of Washington in the 1970s (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection) Father Teilhard de Chardin (seventh from the left, standing) in a group photo at the Institute of Higher Studies, Tianjin, 1935 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection) Anthony E. Clark with Bishop Wang Chongyi at the Guiyang Cathedral, 2008 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection) Anthony E. Clark with Bishop Hu Daguo at the Guiyang Cathedral, 2008 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection) Anthony E. Clark with “underground” Chinese Catholics at the tomb of Matteo Ricci, Beijing, 2008 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection) Bishop Jin Luxian (center) at an ordination in the Shanghai Cathedral, 1985 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection) Anthony E. Clark with Bishop Jin Luxian at the Shanghai Roman Catholic chancery, 2010 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection) Anthony E. Clark with Joseph Cardinal Zen at his Salesian residence in Hong Kong, 2010 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)

7

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33

51

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 3.2

Fig. 3.3

Fig. 3.4

Fig. 3.5

Fig. 3.6

Fig. 4.1

Fig. 4.2

Fig. 4.3

Fig. 4.4

Fig. 4.5

Fig. 4.6

Fig. 4.7

Anthony E. Clark (right) and Mrs. Lucia Zhu (center), the descendant of St. Mary Zhu, at Zhujiahe Village, 2011 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection) Bishop Li Shan incensing the altar during an outdoor Mass in Beijing, 2011 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection) Fr. Charles McCarthy at the Jesuit language school in Beijing, Maison Chabanel, ca. 1941 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection) Trappist survivors of the 1947 anti-Catholic death march led by the Peoples Liberation Army, Beijing, 1947 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection) Anthony E. Clark with the last remaining survivor of the 1947 Trappist death march at Yangjiaping Abbey, Brother Marcel Zhang, Beijing, 2011 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection) Image of Our Lady of Donglü by Chinese Catholic artist, Luke Chen, produced at the Catholic University of Peking, ca. 1937 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection) The pope’s first official apostolic delegate to China, Bishop Celso Costantini, in Beijing, ca. 1924 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection) The first six Chinese bishops ordained in Rome by Pope Pius XI, 1926 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection) Bishop Ma Daqin meeting the faithful outside the Shanghai cathedral, 2014 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection) The Lazarist missionary, Vincent Lebbe (center wearing a white and black habit), with another Belgian missionary, Paul Gilson, and Chinese Catholics, in Beijing, 1936 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection) Father Ma Xiangbo (second row, far right, with beard) with Shanghai Catholics, 1935 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection) Abbot Lu Zhengxiang (wearing a dragon-covered chasuble), titular abbot of St. Peter Abbey in Ghent, Sint-Andries in Bruges, Belgium, 1946 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 4.8

Fig. 4.9

Dr. John C. H. Wu (left) with Bishop Yu Bin (center) at the Vatican as China’s ambassador to the Holy See, 1947 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection) The first consecration of bishops in China without papal approval in the Wuhan cathedral, 1956 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

When I landed in Beijing in the 1990s to study modern and classical Chinese at the Central University for Nationalities (Zhongyang minzu daxue), the streets were crowded with rusty black Flying Pidgeon bicycles, men in blue Mao jackets, and mule carts brimming with cabbage from nearby villages, hot peppers from Sichuan, and old newspapers. People were still discussing the Tian’anmen incident of 1989 in hushed tones and my dorm room was in a derelict building designed by the famous Chinese architect, Liang Sicheng (1901–1972). Motorcades of motorcycle police and black cars ushered Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) through the main avenues surrounding the Forbidden City. Now in the twentyfirst century, Mercedes and BMWs have replaced the bicycles and mule carts, Mao jackets are only seen in old films, the Liang Sicheng buildings at the Central University for Nationalities are replaced by towering, modern classrooms and administrative offices, and Deng Xiaoping is consigned to history books, described as the “father of China’s economic miracle.” China as it appears today would have been unimaginable to me when I arrived in Beijing for the first time. An industry of memoirs by academics, journalists, and former Maoists has burgeoned in recent decades; those who “were in China when …” have written much to describe the contours of China’s “vanished past.” One can easily find traditional histories of China’s former eras, but as the Victorian English

© The Author(s) 2020 A. E. Clark, China’s Catholics in an Era of Transformation, Christianity in Modern China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6182-5_1

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ANTHONY E. CLARK

novelist George Meredith (1828–1909) once wrote, “Memoirs are the backstairs of history.”1 The bookshelves near my desk contain a large number of memoirs, such as the delightful reminiscences of the eccentric American ex-patriot, George N. Kates (1895–1990), who lived in the previous wax storehouse near the Forbidden City where imperial eunuchs had managed the candles for the emperor’s palace. Kates occupied China’s capital while its imperial eon was issuing its last breath; I first occupied that city when the last vestiges of the “Long March cadres” were finishing their final years. I have not penned here a memoir such as George Kates’ hallowed, The Years That Were Fat: The Last of Old China, or John J. Espey’s (1913–2000) recollections of an upbringing in a Presbyterian missionary household in a long-extinct Shanghai, Minor Heresies: Reminiscences of a Shanghai Childhood.2 This book consists, rather, of a number of essays— many were penned as research notes—written while traveling through China’s remote Catholic villages, meeting with bishops and clergy who are either quite elderly or have now passed to eternity. These writings were sometimes inspired after receiving news from a Chinese source regarding an extraordinary event related to the contemporary history of Catholicism in China as it passes again into a period quite unlike the previous era. Some of the following short compositions in this compilation of essays related to my research on Sino-mission history were drafted after conducting research in one of the many Roman Catholic archives I have inhabited while preparing manuscripts that later became published books, though some of these essays were later rewritten for publication in popular media venues such as the London-based Catholic Herald and Catholic World Report. For several years now, colleagues, students, and academic publishers have recommended that I compile these essays that span several decades of Catholic history in China into a single volume. With the support of several research assistants who have gathered and transcribed my essays—of various levels of scholarly and literary quality—such a collection is finally assembled into a single work. The scholarly value of this collection of essays lies in the fact that so many of the places, events, and people discussed have either greatly changed under the weight of China’s economic and cultural transformation, or have disappeared altogether from neglect and old age. Among the people discussed in this collection are three bishops of Guiyang, two of whom have died and all of whom have lived through and witnessed

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INTRODUCTION

3

sweeping upheavals in the modern history of China’s Catholic community. In 2008 I met with and interviewed the “underground” bishop, Hu Daguo (1921–2011), who had suffered persecution and an imprisonment during the Maoist era (1949–1976), the “aboveground” bishop Wang Chongyi (1919–2017), who had also been imprisoned, and the recently appointed bishop of Guiyang, Xiao Zejiang, who still serves as the state-sanctioned leader of the diocese. The mainstay of the historian’s craft is typically the institutional archive, but to confine one’s sources only to what is held in repositories is imprudently myopic; the memories of such ecclesiastics as Hu, Wang, and Xiao provide important information and insight into the historical landscape of China’s post-1949 Catholic Church. To cite one example: when I asked, Bishop Wang about the history of Roman Catholics who lived during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), he responded, “China has many, many martyr saints who died for Christ during the Maoist era, but they are now forgotten to the world because there are no records of their lives.” Given the growing interest in China’s post-1949 religious history, these essays serve to fill in some of the lacunae that only oral interviews can mend, even if the details recast in such interviews can sometimes be imperfect or interlarded with pious expressions uncommon in most scholarly studies. Several interviews with Shanghai’s famous state-friendly bishop, Jin Luxian (1916–2013), especially a meeting I had with him in 2010, will be of interest to present and later generations of scholars who research and write about the religious history of Shanghai during the 1950s through the 1990s. Jin Luxian was a masterful interlocutor, perhaps due to his classical Jesuit training in Shanghai and Rome, and unlike Bishop Wang, who shortly before his passing told me that now is the time to recount the turbulent history of Catholic suffering during the Cultural Revolution, Bishop Jin admitted that while, “During the Cultural Revolution many, many holy men and women suffered and were killed, … [now] is not a prudent time to discuss these things.” Both men had been imprisoned for being Catholic “ideological saboteurs” during the Maoist era, but they had learned to navigate the murky waters of political survival in different ways; Wang was willing to talk of government persecution, and Jin was more content to discuss the “benefits of government collaboration.” But the following essays are more diverse than recounting discussions with important figures in the modern history of Catholicism in China; a number of essays represent my own musings over the legacy of earlier persons and events such as the Jesuit polymath, Matteo Ricci

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ANTHONY E. CLARK

(1552–1610), the life of China’s great diplomat who became the first ethnically Chinese Benedictine abbot, Lu Zhengxiang (1871–1941), and the dramatic accounts of Catholic martyrdom, such as the 1900 massacre of Franciscans at Taiyuan and the 1947 massacre of Trappist monks at Yangjiaping. While this book is not a memoir, it is nonetheless a collection of essays by a scholar of China’s intellectual and religious history, and I have made little effort to couch the essays in the “objective and distant prose” of pure scholarly analysis. Neither is this a monograph or typical edited volume, as my other works have been, largely because these essays were written in China while on trains, or staying in villages, or cities near to Roman Catholic cathedrals, or other important historical sites. The vicissitudes of human living accompanied me while these essays were prepared. During my visit with the three bishops of Guiyang I contracted H1N1, the swine flu, perhaps one of the most miserable times of my life. While the unvarying bustle of Guiyang traffic and its crowded sidewalks eddied outside my window, the hotel manager made regular visits to my room to make sure his “foreign guest” was still alive. Readers of academic studies rarely imagine the real lives of academics as they produced those studies; much happens on the “backstairs” when research and writing occur, to borrow again from the words of George Meredith. Memoirs were often nearby as I drafted these essays: Theophane Maguire’s Hunan Harvest, about his life as a Passionist missionary in Hunan; Joseph Henkel’s My China Memoirs (1928–1951), which outlines his experiences as an American priest in China during the Japanese invasion and civil war between the Nationalists and communists; and Nicholas Maestrini’s My Twenty Years with the Chinese, an Italian missionary who observed the turbulent events of mainland China mostly from the island of Hong Kong where he lived.3 Exposure to the diurnal recollections of Catholic missionaries who witnessed firsthand the uneasy transition of China’s imperial culture to its communist state tempered my impulses to record my own scholarly observations without the unavoidable human responses to what those memoirs reveal of the human condition during an era of severe change. I have entitled this collection “Observations of an ‘Outsider’” because throughout my decades of visiting and living in China I have heard few words more consistently than waiguoren, which is usually translated as “foreigner,” but actually means “outsider.” There is no getting around the obvious fact that a hazel-eyed Caucasian American is not Chinese, despite speaking the language—though very imperfectly—and having a

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Ph.D. in Chinese language, literature, and history. I nonetheless placed quotation marks around the word outsider because I have never fully felt like one while in China, and in many ways I have felt more at home in China than in my native US; it is where many of my thoughts begin, where my intellectual meanderings most often land. In T. S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” he wrote that “Home is where one starts from.”4 I suppose that the fact that I am now quoting from T. S. Eliot indeed suggests I am an “outsider” in China, for I know few Chinese who would know of Eliot’s “Four Quartets.” But still, that I know of He Zhizhang’s (659– 744) great Tang dynasty (618–907) poem about returning home justifies the quotation marks around “outsider.” Each time I return “home” to China and am older than I was the last time I was there, and each time I return again to my “home” in America I am again older and more transformed by my life in the Middle Kingdom. A line from He Zhizhang’s poetry conjures the feeling evoked during all of my returns: “I left home young, now old, I return care free; My tongue unchanged, my hair now thinner be.” Another dimension of my own academic training and experiences explain why I have included the word outsider in the title of this collection of essays on the modern Catholic history of China; my intellectual lineage is connected to a line of prominent sinologists, many of whom were Roman Catholic priests, and all but one of whom were European and American in origin. The notion of intellectual lineage is embedded in Chinese academic culture, and it is not uncommon for sinologists to inquire about who one studied under when first meeting each other. Arguably, the entire field of sinology has grown from the roots of the Jesuit mission to China that commenced during the late sixteenth century when Matteo Ricci and his confrere, Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607), compiled the first European dictionary of the Chinese language. In his study of “the origins of sinology,” David Mungello calls the early Jesuit study of China “proto-sinology,” and he notes that their sinological research and publications “made the Jesuits the primary suppliers of information about China to Europe in the seventeenth century.”5 My own intellectual lineage derives from this history, and among my sinological forebears is the famous Jesuit paleontologist, philosopher, geologist, and theologian, Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955). Given my abiding interest in the literary and historical legacies of the Zhou (1045–221 BC) through Han (206 BC–AD 220) dynasties,

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I was privileged to have studied under Stephen W. Durrant, whose celebrated work on the historian Sima Qian (145–86 BC) located me in a congenial setting to complete a dissertation and book on Sima Qian’s successor, Ban Gu (32–92).6 Durrant had been mentored at the University of Washington under the Belgian Scheut Father and China missionary, Paul Leo-Mary Serruys (1912–1999), a grammarian of Classical Chinese with special interest in oracle bones and the Han dialects. Serruys was ordained a priest in 1936, and by 1937 he had arrived at Tianjin, where he was then sent to serve as a missionary in a small village in Shanxi. While in China, Father Serruys became acquainted with Chardin, who was his sinological and spiritual tutor. He also studied under the specialist in Chinese linguistics, and “father of Belgium’s first sinological library,” Father Jozef Mullie (1886–1976), a fellow Scheut missionary in northwest China. Serruys left China in 1949 and entered the University of California, Berkeley, in 1950, where he studied under some of the most famous sinologists of the twentieth century, including Peter Boodberg (1903–1972) and Zhao Yuanren (1892–1982). In his homage to several pioneering sinologists, David B. Honey, wrote of Boodberg: “Each of Boodberg’s works in his small oeuvre breaths brilliance.”7 From Chardin, Mullie, Boodberg, Zhao, Serruys, and Durrant to myself, my sinological lineage includes three Roman Catholic priests, and so my scholarly interest in Sino-Catholic history was fixed in the DNA of my intellectual inheritance long before I read my first work from China’s ancient past. I descend from a long history of Western scholars, “outsiders,” who grew to understand and appreciate China from the inside (Figs. 1.1 and 1.2). The scope, contents, and organization of this compendium of essays generally revolves around research trips to China that began in 2005, during the early stages of research in preparation of my monograph, China’s Saints: Catholic Martyrdom During the Qing (1644–1911), published in 2011.8 One will recognize that my understanding of Catholicism in China evolves from the first entry until the final two essays in 2019; the penultimate was an interview I conducted with the retired Bishop of Hong Kong, Joseph Cardinal Zen, and whose remarks represent a renewed era of angst regarding the tripartite relationship between the Vatican, China’s local Catholic hierarchy, and Beijing’s party officials. In 2005, I was still a relatively inexperienced scholar of Sino-Missionary history and had not yet met most of the influential churchmen that appear throughout subsequent essays. Rather than revise the earlier essays to represent my present understanding of China’s Catholic history, I have

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Fig. 1.1 Father Paul L. M. Surruys (front) and Stephen W. Durrant (back) at the University of Washington in the 1970s (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)

allowed these entries to remain in their original form. For those who more commonly read more polished scholarly monographs that narrowly focus on a central argument, these essays may appear somewhat fractured. They were drafted in disparate contexts and in response to different events, such as a year of an exceptionally large number of Catholic baptisms in

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Fig. 1.2 Father Teilhard de Chardin (seventh from the left, standing) in a group photo at the Institute of Higher Studies, Tianjin, 1935 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)

China (2012) or the death of Shanghai’s “underground” bishop, Fan Zhongliang (1918–2014). Thus, the contents do not conform to a deliberate theme or topic. But even so, they will be useful to scholars who wish to better understand the complex topography of Catholic history in China, the lines of which have undergone severe alterations with each dynastic, political, and ecclesial transition. There are far too many excellent books on Sino-Catholic history to enumerate here, but a few select works might serve to contextualize the essays contained in this volume. Perhaps the two most influential works by Chinese Catholics are Dom Pierre-Célesin Lou Tseng-Tsiang’s (Lu Zhengxiang) elegant memoir, Souvenirs et pensées, and John C. H. Wu’s (1899–1986) popular spiritual autobiography, Beyond East and West.9 These two books continue to remain near my desk as I write anything related to Sino-Western or Sino-Catholic history. Two works are especially useful in describing the general arch of Catholic history in China: Liam Brockey’s Journey to the East reviews the Jesuit enterprise, and

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Jean-Pierre Charbonnier’s Histoire des chrétiens de chine provides a useful précis of Christianity as it entered and flourished after the Tang dynasty.10 And two additional works offer insight into the developments of China’s Catholics during and after the Maoist era: Paul Mariani’s Church Militant, and Joseph Cardinal Zen’s more recently published series of talks collected in For Love of My People.11 Naturally, the reader may also wish to consult the sources cited in the notes for further reading about the persons and topics discussed in the following essays. In his journals written while living in China, Matteo Ricci commended the value of preserving and promulgating ideas and history in books; he himself was dedicated to publishing works of his own. He wrote that the people he met in China were “attracted by books,” and that they “spread about the ideas they find in them, in their private conversations.”12 While he was in fact praising the utility of publishing books in China to serve their ambition to convert the Chinese to the Christian religion, he perhaps did not anticipate that later scholars would read his private letters and his journal with as much attention as they dedicate to his more formal works. Perhaps the information found in these essays will serve to highlight and better explain the intricate lives and shapes of Catholic persons and events that marked one of the most significant dimensions of China’s long history of friendship, conflict, and exchange with the West.

Notes 1. George Meredith, The Works of George Meredith (London: Constable, 1914), 277. 2. See George N. Kates, The Years That Were Fat: The Last of Old China (Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press, 1952); John J. Espey, Minor Heresies: Reminiscences of a Shanghai Childhood (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949). 3. See Theophane Maguire, Hunan Harvest (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1946); Joseph Henkels, My China Memoirs (1928–1951) (Techny, IL: Society of the Divine Word, 1988); and Nicholas Maestrini, My Twenty Years with the Chinese: Laughter and Tears, 1931–1951 (Avon, NJ: Magnificat Press, 1990). 4. T. S. Eliot, T. S. Eliot: The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909–1950 (New York: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1967), 129. 5. David E. Mungello, Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985), 13–14.

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6. See Stephen W. Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995); Anthony E. Clark, Ban Gu’s History of Early China (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2008). 7. David B. Honey, Incense at the Altar: Pioneering Sinologists and the Development of Classical Chinese Philology (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 2001), xvi. 8. Anthony E. Clark, China’s Saints: Catholic Martyrdom During the Qing (1644–1911) (Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 2011). 9. Dom Pierre-Célesin Lou Tseng-Tsiang, Souvenir et pensées (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1945); John C. H. Wu, Beyond East and West (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1951). 10. Liam Matthew Brockey, Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579–1724 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); Jean-Pierre Charbonnier, Histoire des chrétiens de chine (Paris: Desclée, 1992). 11. Paul Mariani, Church Militant: Bishop Kung and Catholic Resistance in Communist Shanghai (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011); Joseph Cardinal Zen, For Love of My People I Will Not Remain Silent, trans. Pierre G. Rossi (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2019). 12. Matteo Ricci, China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matthew Ricci: 1583–1610, trans. Louis J. Gallagher (New York: Random House, 1953), 446.

CHAPTER 2

Getting Oriented, 2005–2010

It is not fair to Christianity to call it ‘Western.’ Christianity is universal. Wu Jingxiong (John C. H. Wu)

2.1 Essay 2.1 Missionaries, Martyrs, and a Narrative of Anguish (December 2005) The Christian Church is built, Tertullian (155–240) argued, on the blood of the martyrs. Nowhere is this more evident than in Rome, the Eternal City, with its Coliseum marked by the blood of the early Christians. Rome represents the historical record of men and women who have died for their religious faith and the witness of its teachings. The image of the first pope, Peter—being crucified upside down—appears on the front door of the basilica named after him, affirming the significance of the efficacy of martyrdom in the establishment of the Christian community. Not far from St. Peter’s is the famous Jesuit church, Saint Ignazio di Loyola, where honor is given to those Christians who died as martyrs far from Rome. Andrea Pozzo’s (1642–1709) dramatic ceiling fresco depicts the spiritual descendants of St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) who dispatched his early followers to transmit Christianity to distant lands. China is perhaps the most famous of those missionary lands, and its soil, like Rome’s, is “crowned with the blood” of Christian martyrs, many of whom faced harrowing deaths intoning the Te Deum (“We praise thee, O © The Author(s) 2020 A. E. Clark, China’s Catholics in an Era of Transformation, Christianity in Modern China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6182-5_2

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God: We acknowledge thee to be the Lord”). China’s Catholics are quick to repeat that their country, too, has given witness to the Catholic faith; China, also, has laid the foundation upon which the Church was built. The history of Christianity in China is protracted, beginning in the seventh century with the Nestorian (Church of the East) missionary Alopen, a Syrian follower of the bishop, Nestorius (386–451), who was enmeshed in early Christological debates regarding the nature of Christ. Alopen was quite successful in disseminating the Christian faith— although in contested terms—to many of China’s elite. Chinese Nestorianism, though, was suppressed in 845 by the Tang (618–906) emperor, Wuzong (814–846), who believed that the foreign religions of Christianity and Buddhism had corrupted the purity of China’s Confucian culture, and infringed upon the authority and wealth of the Tang court.1 Unlike the Catholic missionaries who arrived in China centuries later, the Nestorians were not commonly arrested or executed for their Christian beliefs, but their monasteries were closed and the Syrian clergy were expelled from China. During the Tang dynasty China had several thousand Nestorian monasteries. Other than the very limited successes of the Franciscan missionaries of the thirteenth century, it was not until the sixteenth century that Catholic missionaries successfully planted the seeds of Christianity in East Asia. 2.1.1

The Missionary Martyrs

An estimated 30,000 Christians were killed during China’s Boxer Uprising in 1900. On 1 October 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized 120 of them, eighty-seven Chinese and thirty-three foreign missionaries.2 They included six bishops, twenty-three priests, one brother, seven sisters, seven seminarians, and seventy-six laypersons. Perhaps the best way to communicate the spirit of China’s missionary saints is simply to recount one of the many stories. St. Gregory Grassi (1833–1900) was born in Castellazzo, Italy, and was raised by Catholic parents who imparted to him a fervent devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He was ordained a Franciscan priest in 1858 and set out to China in late 1860. Grassi was assigned to Shanxi province and moved to Taiyuan, where a large number of Christians would later be persecuted by the authorities. After being ordained a bishop in 1876, Grassi traveled the remote areas of China by donkey and on foot to

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reach the Chinese faithful under his pastoral care. He rebuilt the Portiuncula Shrine for Mary, worked diligently to look after orphaned children, and had a rest home built for ill and elderly missionaries. According to Curial records, Grassi devoted the predominance of his time to hearing confessions and teaching the catechism to the local Chinese. St. Francis Fogolla (1839–1900) was also an Italian Franciscan. He also took the habit in 1858 and was ordained a priest in 1863, and joined Grassi in China in 1866 to begin his missionary work. After he was consecrated a bishop, Fogolla set out to visit the parishes under his care to administer the sacraments and disseminate better understanding of Christianity both to Catholics and non-Catholics. Believing that the best way to check heterodox practices and increase the number of faithful in his flock was to rid the churches of habitual abuses and educate them in the doctrines of the Catholic faith, Fogolla worked to provide his mission area with a clear catechetical understanding. Fogolla studied the Chinese classics assiduously to establish credibility among the local Chinese gentry, which after some years gained him considerable respect among the local magistrates. 2.1.2

Unrighteous Disharmony

Seven European sisters of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary joined the Franciscan, and were determined to die as martyrs for their Catholic faith even after Grassi, their bishop, encouraged them to leave China as the rising storm of persecution grew in Shanxi at the close of the nineteenth century. Among the seven sisters who lived in Taiyuan was St. Marie Hermine (1867–1900), the mother superior. A studious girl born in Beaume, France, Hermine desired from an early age to be a nun and serve as a missionary, but her parents would not agree. By 1894, however, she persuaded them to allow her to enter religious life as a celibate. After being assigned to Taiyuan, she labored to propagate an appreciation of Christianity in Shanxi. She wrote that “adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is half of my life. The other half consists in making Jesus known and in gaining souls for him.” After Grassi exhorted her and her sisters to leave China, Hermine told him, “For the love of God, do not stop us from dying with you … We came here out of love, and now we are willing to go as far as shedding our blood.”3 By June 1900, the Chinese Boxers (commonly called the “Fists of Righteous Harmony”) were gathering into large paramilitary units. They

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were motivated by their disdain for foreign intrusion into China and their belief in Buddhist and Daoist deities such as the Jade Emperor, whom they thought would render them invincible against foreign bullets. While their complaints against the behavior of foreigners in China during that era were not entirely unwarranted, the Boxers directed the bulk of their aggression toward Christian missionaries and converts. Early in their history they formed societies such as the Big Sword Society, which were intent on ridding the Middle Kingdom of foreign culture and religion. In early June, the seven sisters, two priests, two bishops, a small group of seminarians, and several lay converts were taken into custody by the governor of Shanxi, Yuxian, to be tried in the local court. They were detained in a makeshift jail for several days and summoned to appear before a tribunal. On the way there, they were bound and the bishops were repeatedly struck on the head. Witnesses of their march to martyrdom recalled that the sisters calmly sang the Te Deum. Once the trial began, the governor approached Fogolla, struck his chest, and yelled “Sha! Sha!” or “Kill! Kill!” One account recalls that the Boxers, numbering around 3000, rushed forward and hacked randomly at the twenty-nine Catholics, cutting off arms and legs before finally decapitating them. One of the nuns, St. Marie de Sainte Nathalie (1864–1900), is said to have exclaimed, “I am happy to suffer, because suffering detaches me from the world. By it, God wants me to prove that I love him above all things.”4 2.1.3

Sacrilege and Martyrdom

Near the end of the nineteenth century, popular ditties were promulgated throughout northern China, exhorting Chinese Christians to liberate themselves from the foreign religion by drawing a cross on the ground with “the demon that hangs on it” and defecating on it. Anti-Christian tracts were redistributed with images depicting Jesuit priests removing the fetuses of pregnant Chinese women to make the medicines they administered at mission dispensaries, Catholic priests removing the eyeballs of Chinese converts in dubious rituals, and woodblock images of Boxers setting fire to Christian churches to retaliate against such Christian atrocities. Chinese converts were considered traitors to their culture and their families. It required a strongly countercultural act of religious conviction

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to remain a Catholic during that time, and one account in particular illustrates well the extent of the challenges confronted by the Chinese faithful and missionaries. As it became clear that the Boxers and imperial forces intended to eliminate all Christians in China, around 3000 faithful from small villages and homes moved into a small town named Zhujiahe in Hebei province to seek refuge, as it was a regional cultural center of Catholicism. Knowing that the Boxers would eventually arrive at the village, two Jesuit priests began to prepare the faithful for probable martyrdom, tirelessly encouraging their faith and hearing confessions. As they had expected, the Boxers began to make scattered attacks on the village on 15 July 1900. Responding to an imperial command to exterminate the Christians in Zhujiahe, General Chen Zelin (n.d.) mobilized 10,000 troops and Boxers to go to the village. After three days of siege at Zhujiahe, on 20 July 1900, the soldiers broke through the defenses and entered the village gates. Inside the church, the two priests put on their liturgical vestments and directed about 1000 gathered faithful in prayer. After cutting down the Christians attempting to defend the church on the outside, the Boxers and imperial troops entered the crowded building. As the soldiers entered the church and began shooting its occupants, the priests knelt down in front of the congregation and began reciting the Confiteor, a prayer that all recognized and then recited together: “Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, Beatae Mariae, semper Virgini … orare pro me ad Dominum Deum Nostrum (I confess to almighty God, to Blessed Mary, ever Virgin … to pray to the Lord our God for me).” Only a few escaped the massacre. 2.1.4

“Every Drop of My Blood”

Archival and hagiographical accounts of the Chinese martyrs who died for their faith are quite chilling. St. Xi Zhuzi (1882–1900) began receiving catechism instruction when he was seventeen after witnessing the piety and charitable behavior of the Catholics in his village. When the Boxer Uprising grew alarmingly serious, his non-Christian parents objected to his continued attendance at Mass. During the Chinese New Year, Xi refused to worship the clan images displayed in his family estate and as a result was exiled from his household, and found shelter with the Catholics of his parish.

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Once the Boxers began more violent persecution of the Catholics in his area, Xi’s parents ordered him to return home so they could watch over him themselves, but on his way home he was intercepted by Boxers who commanded him to worship the idols in a nearby temple to demonstrate his apostasy. The young man announced that he was a Catholic and refused to kneel before the popular effigies. Only eighteen at the time, he cried out to those who were cutting off his arm and were about to flay him alive: “Every piece of my flesh, every drop of my blood, will tell you that I am Christian.”5 Villagers who witnessed his gruesome execution ran to notify his parents, who made no appeals to save him out of fear. Soon after his death, his family, too, became Christians. But here a brief disclaimer is in order: The richness and benevolence of traditional Chinese culture is remarkable, and it should be remembered that the intensity of this short period of Christian persecution was rather exceptional. Many of the hostilities that the Chinese felt toward foreigners is perhaps understandable. Britain, for example, had addicted tens of thousands of Chinese to opium for profit and then militarily defeated them when the Chinese imperial court protested. The British government added further insult by requiring the Chinese government to repay Britain’s war expenses. But although China had cause for some antiforeign sentiment, the imperial aggression against Christians in 1900 was by all assessments excessive, and the anti-Christian propaganda produced by the Boxers resulted in the vicious slaughter of tens of thousands of men, women, and children who had done little more than commit themselves to a Christian life. Chinese Christians agree with Tertullian’s assertion that the Church is built upon the blood of the martyrs, and they continue to commemorate and honor those whose blood was shed for China’s Christian faith. During his homily on the Catholic martyrs of China in 2000, John Paul II said: “Today, with this solemn proclamation of holiness, the Church intends merely to recognize that those martyrs are an example of courage and consistency to us all, and that they honor the noble Chinese people.”6 And later, in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a prayer for the Church in China directed to Our Lady of Sheshan, in which he acknowledged the sacrifices of the Chinese faithful who died as martyrs.

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Essay 2.2 China’s Church(es): An Interview with Father Daniel Cerezo (June 2006)

On a typically hot and humid summer afternoon I walked through the crowded streets of Taipei to a small Catholic chapel under the care of an order of missionaries not known by most Americans. I was welcomed at the front door by the Italian pastor of Renai Catholic Church, Father Consonni Paulo, and directed to the fourth floor where the four priests in residence live in modest rooms. Once there, Father Daniel Cerezo, from Spain, offered me a cup of coffee and a biscuit, then showed me to his office. A poster of the saints of China hung behind him and an article about a recently deceased bishop in mainland China was on his desk. The bishop, one in the “open Church” was his friend. The four missionary priests were invited by the bishop in Taipei several years ago to run a small church in the busy Renai area of Taipei. They are Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, an order founded by St. Daniel Comboni (1831– 1881), a zealous laborer in the missionary vineyard in Africa. Asia is a long way from Africa, but the sons of St. Comboni are now among the few congregations that still actively serve as Catholic pastors and teachers in Taiwan and mainland China. Father Cerezo is in an uncommon position; he associates with Catholic bishops, clergy, and faithful in both state-registered and unregistered communities and he is well acquainted with the situation of the Church in China. He speaks warmly of their devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Our Lady, and St. Joseph. I was indeed grateful that he was agreeable to chatting with me about his impressions of what is happening among the Catholic community in mainland China, still largely struggling to widen its roots in the People’s Republic of China. 2.2.1

Two Chinese Churches?

The first question I asked Father Cerezo was concerning nomenclature. I asked him if it is correct to refer to “two Churches” in China, one that is “underground” and another that is state-sponsored, often called the “open,” or “sanctioned,” Church. He said that this is an inappropriate distinction, noting that despite their differences, both are persecuted parts of one Chinese Church. Rather, it is better to refer to these two parts as “communities,” one that is registered with the state and one that is not.

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As simple as this answer seems, it is much more complex than it initially sounds. In 1949, all of China effectively came under communist control. From 1949 to 1976, when the Cultural Revolution ended, the Catholic Church underwent its worst challenges in China. Catholic dispensaries, schools, hospitals, and orphanages were taken over by the state, and several churches and cathedrals were leveled. Seeking to remove the Catholic faithful from the aegis of the pope; the government created the “Patriotic Association” in 1957. Since that time most world media, including the Chinese media, has referred to “two Churches” in China—the “underground” Church and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA), or the “open” Church. The “open” Church is overseen by the Religious Affairs Bureau and is ostensibly independent from outside political influences. This situation became even more complex when Pope Pius XII excommunicated any bishop who registered with the state. Most of the bishops, therefore, went “underground,” choosing to preserve their explicit loyalty to Rome and the pope. Father Cerezo says that the line between these two communities has grown increasingly vague in recent years. In fact, neither John Paul II nor Benedict XVI has ever referred to the “two Churches” in China, but have instead spoken of the Chinese Church in the singular. It is better, says Cerezo, to refer to China as “one divided Church with two communities” that still have differences. We may accurately distinguish the two communities, he suggests, as “registered” or “statesanctioned,” and “unregistered,” or operating outside of the CCPA. The relationship between the two communities is strained in some provinces, such as Hebei, Fujian, Zhejiang, Heilongjiang, and Jiangxi. In these areas there are unregistered Catholics who understandably feel that they have suffered for the Church by refusing any affiliation with the communistrun state. But there is a growing distinction in China between the government and the party, and Father Cerezo notes that there are no Catholic bishops in either the registered or unregistered communities who are members of the communist party, since one cannot be a Catholic Christian and be a member of the party. Both communities are aware of this complicated situation. But there are, unfortunately, a few registered bishops who are intimately involved with China’s government. At this point of our conversation Father Cerezo leaned back in his chair and said, “Look, the younger priests and bishops in both communities are less and less interested in the politics between the two communities, and

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more motivated to simply teach the faith.” He recalled that there are cases where clergy from the registered community actually share a residence with clergy from the unregistered community. The government’s reaction to the existence of unregistered Catholic gatherings is varied. There are some areas where, if an illegal (unregistered) Catholic church is established, the local officials immediately destroy the building and disband the community. In other areas, however, there are prominent unregistered Catholic churches that are simply ignored by officials and are allowed to exist as a parish without interference. While there is room for optimism about the lessening tension in China between Catholics of the registered and unregistered communities, there remain several disheartening challenges facing China’s Catholics. Father Cerezo notes that the Chinese Church “is still persecuted by the government.” Being Catholic in China is to accept certain discrimination; all Chinese Catholics “are martyrs to some degree.” In extreme cases, there are still imprisonments in China. Despite the Chinese government’s slowly growing religious leniency, open loyalty to the pope remains largely unacceptable and is seen as a threat to China’s political hegemony. 2.2.2

Following Catholic Morality in a Communist Context

While world media appears to be occupied mostly with the state of the unregistered and registered Church in China, there are larger issues that are often ignored. The Church is ultimately not a political institution; it is a religious one, which proclaims its greatest fidelity to its divine founder and his teachings. When the Chinese Church is viewed this way, the two communities seem to melt together into one tragically marginalized community of faithful who must struggle to maintain even the most basic Catholic moral teachings in a society that is categorically opposed to the Church’s traditional religious views. I asked Father Cerezo how Chinese Catholics maintain their fidelity to Church moral teachings in a country that has illegalized having more than one child and enforces this law with harsh penalties. Refusing to use birth control is itself a punishable offense, but becoming pregnant when one already has a child can result in more serious punishments—having one’s electricity turned off, losing one’s salary, being placed in confinement, or being seized and forced to have an abortion. To violate China’s one-child policy is to jeopardize one’s own safety and the safety of one’s family. This, says Father Cerezo, is “one of the most painful aspects of being Catholic

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in China today, regardless of whether one attends Mass at a registered or unregistered church.” There are areas in China, however, where the local government overlooks its one-child law and allows Catholics to have several children. Father Cerezo informed me of an almost entirely Catholic village that is committed to all dimensions of the faith and teachings of the Catholic Church. For example, bells projected on loud speakers inform the local inhabitants when Mass is being said. In this village Catholic parents have several children, as many as six, unbothered by the local authorities. While such situations are rare, there are villages in mainland China that are still able to openly follow the moral teachings of the Church. In more urban settings, however, the Chinese government is less willing to tolerate religious activity that openly contradicts party lines, and Catholics who move to or live in large cities cannot adhere to the Church’s moral teachings concerning birth control and abortion without danger of legal punishment. It is simply untrue that Catholics who attend registered churches are unaware or unwilling to follow moral teachings, but, as Father Cerezo insists, officially registered Catholic clergy must walk a narrow and dangerous path regarding how they teach and enforce the Church’s moral views. Their homilies must not openly contradict the state. 2.2.3

Catholicism in China’s Urban Centers

One of Father Cerezo’s concerns is for those Chinese faithful who move away from small Catholic villages to large urban settings, where, as he puts it, the three greatest pressures are joining the party, finding lucrative employment, and meeting a good boyfriend or girlfriend who can become a spouse. It is difficult for these Catholics to remain connected to a spiritual system that causes tension and conflict with the social expectations of the majority of his or her countrymen. In addition, moving out of the routine of a Catholic-centered village lifestyle into the economically burgeoning materialistic culture of modern China is a shock that many young Catholics cannot endure without serious hardship, sometimes even loss of faith. China’s recent economic successes have not come without a growing turn toward of materialism. When I was last in Beijing I made a habit of asking people what they believed in, and the most common answer was, “Wo xin wo, wo xin qian” (I believe in myself and I believe in money). Yet even in China’s materialistic urban centers, such a Beijing

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and Shanghai, deeply devoted Catholics fill churches and cathedrals every Sunday. Father Cerezo described the inspiring spiritual lives of most Chinese Catholics, who pass their lives with traditional devotions despite the ideological and economic pressures they face every day. He recounted that the three most popular devotions in mainland China are to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Our Lady, and St. Joseph. These hallowed Roman Catholic devotions are part of the core identity of Chinese Catholics, and in addition to these, Father Cerezo notes that most Chinese Catholics pray the rosary daily. I mentioned to him that recent surveys revealed that a large number of American Catholics expressed their disbelief in the Real Presence of the Holy Eucharist, and Father Cerezo responded that this is almost unheard of in the Chinese Church. Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is particularly strong in China, and children are raised to display their adoration for God in the Eucharist during Mass. Another aspect of Father Cerezo’s experience of Christianity in China is how native Chinese sometimes respond when first hearing the message of the bible. One early missionary method was to approach catechesis similarly to how it has been handled in Western countries—with a book that begins with an explanation of the Blessed Trinity. Such an abstract approach, according to Father Cerezo, is not a particularly effective way to catechize the Chinese. Rather, in his order, missionaries begin by teaching the Gospels, focusing specifically on Jesus’ parables. He told me of one instance when a woman began to weep while reading the words of Jesus, and when asked why she was crying she simply responded that she had never heard of such charity and compassion before. Such catechetics have effectively spread Christian charity and forgiveness to new Chinese members of the Church in China. 2.2.4

China’s Future Catholics?

Finally, I asked Father Cerezo where the Chinese Church is headed, a question I knew would be difficult to answer. To this question he reminded me that the Chinese Church is becoming less divided, and that using divisive terms such as “underground” or “aboveground” do not help the situation. It does not help to suggest that non-Chinese Catholics should take sides, choosing either the “underground,” or “faithful”

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Church, and the “aboveground,” or “communist” Church. Both communities include the pope in their prayers during Holy Mass and both communities are cherished by the Vatican. This is not to say, however, that there are no longer conflicts between the registered (CCPA) community and Rome; there is often serious tension, to be sure. But the majority of China’s registered bishops, according to reliable sources, have either the explicit or implicit support of the Vatican. This was not the case just a decade ago. The Vatican’s approval of registered bishops is not at all a “betrayal” of the unregistered bishops who have suffered, and continue to suffer persecution, under China’s current government. Rather, the lines between the two communities are growing increasingly unclear as they more and more collaborate to strengthen China’s Catholic Church. “Both communities are persecuted,” as Cerezo asserts. Both seek religious freedom in a hostile environment. Both, with a few exceptions in the registered Church, seek explicit ties with the See of St. Peter. As I finished my cup of coffee in Father Cerezo’s Taipei office, he leaned forward in his chair, and said that the goal of the Chinese Church, beyond its dissolving divisions, is to narrate the story of the compassionate Jesus—to love the poor and be a beacon of Christ’s message in a country desperately in need of the Christian gospel. It is time to stop speaking of “two Churches in China,” Father Cerezo suggests, and “begin acknowledging that there is really only one suffering Church, struggling to bring God into a land that seems more and more distracted by its pursuit of material success.”

2.3 Essay 2.3 China’s Catholics in the Shadow of the Olympics (August 2008) While the world is focused on the Olympics here in China’s capital, the faithful still gather in impressively large numbers to attend Mass at one of Beijing’s most beautiful churches, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, popularly called Nantang (South Church). In his letter to Chinese Catholics (27 May 2007), Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged the remaining “tensions and divisions” within the Church in China, but he also noted that the so-called “Catholic Patriotic Association” bishops are nearly all in normal communion with the Holy See.

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While problems persist, it is quite evident that China’s Catholic community is thriving, and that the faithful are presently able to practice their Christian faith openly and piously. The first Sunday Mass at the South Cathedral begins at the early hour of 6:00 a.m.; it is celebrated according to the Extraordinary Rite and burgeons with attendees who chant melodic Chinese responses to the priest, as Chinese Catholics have done for centuries. Another Mass follows at 7:00 a.m., celebrated in Chinese according to the Ordinary Rite, and then two Masses are offered in English. Each of these Masses was filled with attendees, both young and old. Chinese Catholics at South Cathedral have their own distinctive devotions, centered on the Blessed Virgin Mary, who figures prominently above the lavishly decorated high altar, and devotions are additionally directed toward the great Jesuit missionary, Matteo Ricci, who established the first Catholic church at this location. There are three statues within the courtyard of the Cathedral, one of Matteo Ricci, one of Mary, and another of St. Francis Xavier (1506–1552). As the faithful approach the church for Mass they first bow to Ricci, and then stop to pray in front of the popular statue of Our Lady, nestled in a grotto fashioned after the French pilgrimage site at Lourdes behind a streaming fountain. Finally, the faithful are greeted by a virtual army of volunteers in brightly colored t-shirts who welcome each person with a smile. This is Beijing’s oldest Catholic Church, first established in 1605 by Matteo Ricci, and the principle courtyard contains two imperial steles bestowed upon the Jesuit Fathers of the church by an emperor. The first emperor of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Shunzhi (1638–1661) retained a close relationship with the priests at the church, visiting more than twenty-four times during his reign. When the church was damaged by fire in 1775, Emperor Qianlong (1711–1799) donated 10,000 taels of silver to pay for its reconstruction.7 After the Opium Wars during the middle of the nineteenth century, the building was confiscated by the imperial government, but was restored to Christian use in 1890. Boxers burned the South Church to the ground in 1900 at the height of the Boxer Uprising, but by 1904 the church was rebuilt. Today, this Baroque-style cathedral can barely accommodate the large crowds that worship on this site of Matteo Ricci’s small chapel, built over four centuries ago. After Mass, I spoke with Father Liu, a warm and welcoming young priest assigned to the cathedral, who announced casually that the former

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restrictions concerning the Chinese Church’s ties with the Vatican are happily consigned to the past, though I suspect that his remarks were overly optimistic given the atypical religious freedoms granted during the Olympic games in Beijing. The religious articles store that opens after Mass sells books and images of the Holy Father, and business is thriving. Person after person welcomed me to the church after Mass, and then I departed to the sound of the cathedral bells pealing from the monumental façade. Despite the advances and relative freedom that Chinese Catholics enjoy today, as China basks in world attention during the Olympics, there remain uncomfortable signs of New China’s rejection of religion under its official communist structure. As I attempted to hail a cab to go to Mass at 5:30 a.m. on another occasion, drivers repeatedly told me that they did not know the address or place of the church, despite the fact that it is located in one of Beijing’s most famous districts (Xuanwu), and just down the street from Tiananmen. They were actually unwilling to drive a foreign passenger to a religious location still considered “politically sensitive” by the state authorities. At last a rather eccentric taxi driver drove me to the church, being sure to tell me along the way, “Chinese people no longer believe in religion.” Most of the other drivers simply refused to drive to a Christian church. And in addition, as I sit in my Beijing apartment to write this report, all links from the Vatican’s web page are blocked by the “Great Firewall of China.” I am quite free to go to Mass along with large crowds of other believers—that is, if I can find a cab. And I am free to mention and discuss the pope with Catholics here in China—but I cannot access the Vatican website and Benedict XVI’s letter to the Chinese Church. So, there are still serious challenges, but during Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, those problems disappear for a while as the timeless rites of Catholic Christianity are celebrated in the capital of China.

2.4 Essay 2.4 Beijing’s Catholics in the Shadow of the Party (September 2008) In my previous observations of China’s harried capital I described the vibrant parish life in Beijing’s South Cathedral; but the Olympics are now over, the smog has returned, and the more challenging aspects of practicing the faith in China are more evident. While optimism is appropriately

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in order, there remain obstacles that limit the free and unlimited expression of Catholic life in China. Beijing’s four major Catholic churches, each named after one of the four cardinal directions, continue to fill to overflowing, and the expansive and popular 798 Art District was recently able to host an artistic photography exhibit of Catholic life in rural China without government intervention; however, it is still true that to openly practice Catholicism is to limit one’s social opportunities. Two things are required to advance in “New China’s” political and educational system: a college degree, which only a small minority of Chinese are able to earn; and membership in the communist party, which is not open to Christians. Nor would Christians wish to join the party, which is atheistic and has openly articulated its official goal to eradicate religion. Just as the so-called “Patriotic” church was openly celebrating Mass around the time of the 2008 Olympics closing ceremonies, an “underground” bishop was arrested by Chinese authorities. Official tolerance of sanctioned religious practice is balanced by official intolerance of anyone outside of the state-sanctioned community. In these observations, I shall describe some of Beijing’s other churches, and consider a few of the enduring difficulties of being Catholic in China’s modernizing capital. Besides the South Cathedral, Beijing has other major Catholic parishes, such as Dongjiaominxiang Church, Wangfujing Church, and Xishiku Church. Nestled almost invisibly in Beijing’s old foreign Legation Quarter is the towering Dongjiaominxiang Church, also called St. Michael’s Church. Facing the former Belgian embassy, St. Michael’s is a Gothic Revival building that has endured a remarkably turbulent history. The Diocese of Beijing’s official record of this church notes that during Chairman Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward (1958–1961) and Cultural Revolution, the church was confiscated by Chinese officials and “occupied by the Dongjiaominxiang Primary School and Hong He Lou Restaurant.” During Mao’s rule all religious buildings were taken by the authorities and reassigned to secular uses. St. Michael’s was not restored to the Catholic community for liturgical services until 23 December 1989. Presently, St. Michael’s church hosts both a Chinese and Korean community, and it claims a strong tradition of Eucharistic adoration. The most visible and active Catholic church in Beijing is the Wangfujing Church, or East Church, dedicated in the seventeenth century to St. Joseph. The original church was destroyed by an earthquake in 1702, and rebuilt the following year; the famous Jesuit painter, Giuseppe

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Castiglione (1688–1766), produced paintings for its interior spaces. The East Church was confiscated by the Qing court during anti-Catholic persecutions in the mid-eighteenth century and demolished. It was rebuilt in 1884 in the Romanesque style, but was destroyed again by Boxers during the Boxer Uprising of 1900. It was rebuilt in 1905 in magnificent style, and became a flourishing Catholic parish until Chairman Mao’s era, when the building was transformed into a warehouse. This splendid Romanesque Revival church fell into serious disrepair until it was returned to the Catholic community and restored in 2000. I attended a standing-room-only Sunday Mass at this church, and the celebrant invited new Catholics to recount their conversion stories. Their stories were summoning accounts of how God gave them “a peace and sense of truth that they had never known.” They also described their sense of fulfillment gained by entering the Catholic Church. I could not help but reflect on the painful realities they inevitably face by identifying themselves with Christianity in a largely anti-Christian culture. As I stood waiting for a bus near a Korean Protestant church in Beijing, I overheard a Chinese discussion about how embarrassing and ignorant Christians were to China and their fellow Chinese; the anti-Christian rhetoric of the Maoist era (1949–1976) still carries powerful social currency in China today. The largest Catholic building in Beijing is Xishiku Church, popularly called North Church. This church was the bishops’ See from 1860 to 1958, when China’s government confiscated it during Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward campaign. This is the only church that survived the violence of the Boxer Uprising, which is surprising given the numbers of Boxers who besieged it. Joseph Esherick recounts that “the Boxers concentrated most of their energy on the siege of the Catholics’ Northern Cathedral. This was the last remaining church in the city, and some 10,000 Boxers joined in the siege of over 3,000 Christians and 40 French and Italian marines.”8 The bishop of the church at that time, PierreMarie-Alphonse Favier, C.M. (1837–1905), kept a journal during the siege that movingly describes in great detail the drama of the attacks on the church. According to Mei Qianli (Father Thierry Meynard), the Boxers assaulted the church for sixty-two days, and the siege was not stopped until foreign armies marched into Beijing in August 1900.9 The Catholics in Beijing almost unanimously refer to the North Church as the capital’s most beautiful Christian building, and it is indeed a stunning mix of Western and Chinese architecture. The North Church today boasts the city’s largest and perhaps the most active Catholic community, and like all

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Catholic churches in China, it is comprised of almost entirely Chinese parishioners. Since citizenship is presently denied to non-Chinese, the only non-Chinese persons attending Mass are “foreign guests.” Despite, or perhaps because of, the cultural homogeny in Beijing’s churches, guests are warmly, if not exuberantly, welcomed. Lay Catholics are stationed throughout each church to assist and greet visitors. I have recently read some Western news accounts of “Patriotic” Catholic churches with communist overseers placed in the back of each Mass to observe Catholic activities. This is probably romantic contrivance; the people with official badges in the rear of Catholic churches in China are in fact lay volunteers who watch the church facilities during Masses and other parish activities. In fact, if you speak Chinese and can speak with these “overseers,” they are a valuable source of information regarding popular devotions in China. Lest my account appear blindly buoyant I should note some of the persisting problems with the Patriotic Association in China presently. While the devotional life of China’s Catholics is indeed pious and active, priests of the Patriotic Association are required to avoid aspects of Catholic teaching that contradict the country’s national policies. Abortion and contraception, for example, are not topics one will commonly hear addressed in a Patriotic Catholic church. While generalization can often be unfair and misrepresentative, it is, perhaps, accurate to note that there is a general sense of disconnectedness with the pope among Catholics who attend services that are closely monitored by the Patriotic Association; other than a very few token images of Pope John Paul II, I have only seen a single image of Pope Benedict XVI in any Beijing church under the watchful eyes of state officials. The pope is certainly mentioned in all Masses in China, and there is a general sense of his pastoral leadership, but awareness of his day-to-day teachings and news regarding events and trends in the Vatican are nearly non-existent on a popular level. Priests are additionally not allowed to consult China’s national archives, so they are restricted from researching the Catholic history of their own country. As one bishop informed me, the official history disseminated by state agencies about the Church in China is often plagued with errors and misrepresentation. One peculiar reality about the Catholic Church in China is that while it is incorporated into the Universal Church, it is nonetheless not racially and culturally “universal.” While the hierarchy of Church in China before the communist era began in 1949 was largely comprised of Western

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missionaries, it is now entirely run by native Chinese. On the one hand it is important to have a native clergy and hierarchy, while on the other, such racial and cultural homogeny creates an atmosphere of closed-ness and excessive independence. If I may render a polite criticism of the priests of the “Patriotic” Catholic community: they tend to speak in an overly Nationalistic tenor: bishops are referred to as the “people’s bishops”; that is, they are “selected by the people.” In fact, during a meeting with an auxiliary bishop I was directed to refer to him as “Father” rather than “Bishop,” since he was “selected by the people,” and is thus “one of the people.” While all are ultimately equal in the view of Christianity, their respective positions are not. Also, despite the fact that members of the sanctioned Catholic community are by and large in open communion with the Roman Pontiff, the bishops of the Patriotic Association are, at least in public discourse, “selected by the people,” rather than the pope, to whom, as Catholics believe, God has given charge of this responsibility. That said, as I met with the bishop, who I uncomfortably called “Father,” we discussed one of his prized possessions, a large photo of him and Pope John Paul II in a warm embrace. Despite the circumstances of his election and consecration to the episcopate, he was notably and emotionally attached to the “God-appointed pastor of the Catholic Church.” China’s Church is complexly awkward, but it is also devoted to the faith it preaches. Finally, I should say something of the emerging group of young Chinese Catholics, who display a refreshing zeal and optimism for the future of their Christian beliefs. I conclude this report just after returning from Mass at one of Beijing’s lesser-known churches, the Xizhimen, or Xitang, church, dedicated to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. It is at this church that an image of Pope Benedict XVI appears on the bulletin board near the church’s entrance. Before and after Mass I was approached by several college-age Catholics who had earned degrees abroad, and had returned to China with an understanding of the rest of the Catholic world. Mass was more international at Xizhimen church, though it was an admixture of awkwardly stitched together liturgical traditions and languages. The music was largely in English, Mass was in Chinese, and the prayers after Mass were intoned following the musical patterns of Buddhist chanting. Receiving Holy Communion on the hands is relatively new to China, and to assure proper reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, hand sanitizer swabs were distributed to each communicant before receiving the Host. After Mass, I briefly met with the parish priest, who warmly welcomed me to his

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church, and the young organist—a graduate of a Canadian university— agreed to have lunch with me to discuss Catholic life in China today. The young men and women of China seem optimistically dismissive (or naïve) of China’s political turbulence over the past several decades, looking ahead to a Church that is more free from state control, and a Christian life that accepts the challenges of the world with “joyful expectation.” The Beijing diocese today has over 100,000 Catholics, fifty-five priests, fifty nuns, and around twenty seminarians. No one understands the persistent antagonisms between the Church in China and the government in China better than the Chinese Catholics themselves, who serve and attend Mass each Sunday; but as the bishop of Beijing, Li Shan, asserts, quoting St. Paul, China’s Catholics proclaim: “I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”10

2.5 Essay 2.5 Guizhou’s Three Bishops and the Church “Underground” (October 2008) In the nineteenth century several intrepid French missionary priests from the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP) traveled to China’s southern Guizhou province, where many Chinese Catholics later died as martyrs rather than apostatize. Just one hour outside of Guizhou’s capital city, Guiyang, rests the grave of four Chinese martyrs who were beheaded in 1861 when a Qing dynasty official led a persecution against Catholic believers. Despite repeated challenges, the Church has continued in Guizhou ever since these missionaries established Christian communities there nearly two centuries ago. The Catholic faithful in Guizhou have a turbulent history, but in spite of two hundred years of conflict and accommodation the Catholics there now boast several flourishing communities. I was recently granted audiences with the three bishops of Guizhou during a three-day visit to the cathedral in Guiyang, a city that has grown into a hub of industry and tourism over the past few decades. I was first granted an audience with the ninety-year-old principle bishop of Guiyang, His Excellency Wang Chongyi. Second, I was granted a private interview with the eighty-year-old “underground” bishop, his Excellency Hu Daguo. And finally, I had a brief interview with the young, recently consecrated bishop, His Excellency Xiao Zejiang. The situation in Guizhou with the bishops is complex, but the devotional life of the faithful is

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impressive as one observes the frequent and massive Catholic processions that wind through many provincial cities and villages on major feast days. When most Catholics outside of China envision the sanctioned community under the watchful eyes of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association they imagine clergy and faithful largely independent of Rome’s direction. And when they imagine the “underground” community, they conjure a vision of Catholic clergy and faithful dodging Chinese authorities, practicing their faith in obscure locations. Despite this image, both the sanctioned and “underground” Catholic communities are in many cases only slightly distinguishable, and sometimes they coexist and collaborate with harmonious zeal. In Guiyang, the “underground” bishop actually lives at the cathedral residence along with the two bishops recognized by the Catholic Patriotic Association. Which bishops are in communion with the pope is common knowledge among the Chinese faithful, and if a bishop is in open communion with the Holy Father it matters little with which community he affiliates. Conditions are not perfect, however, and the authorities commonly harass members of the “underground” clergy; the more publicly active, unsanctioned bishops are sometimes arrested and mistreated. The “underground” bishop who lives at the Guiyang cathedral must maintain a low profile to avoid being hassled by the local police. Although Bishop Hu lives at the cathedral with the other two bishops, he is nonetheless forced to carry his episcopal ring, given to him by Pope John Paul II, in his pocket rather than wear it on his finger. My first audience was with Bishop Wang Chongyi, a warm and welcoming man who was ordained a priest in 1949. We spoke candidly in a closed room, and Bishop Wang gave me an account of how the Chinese had suffered through the first few decades of the People’s Republic of China, founded in the year of his ordination. The new communist government viewed all religion as superstitious, and thus attempted to eradicate it in China; this was an era of extreme danger and suffering for Catholics, Bishop Wang confided as he leaned into my ear to “avoid being overheard by government bugs” implanted in his office that bishops and priests were forced to laicize, and during the Cultural Revolution clergy and religiously professed women were apprehended, ordered to apostatize, and often beaten by Chairman Mao’s Red Guards or party officials (Fig. 2.1). Bishop Wang, then a priest, was personally “struggled against” and ordered to renounce his faith. Refusing to do so, the communist authorities condemned him to hard labor at a government camp. He described

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Fig. 2.1 Anthony E. Clark with Bishop Wang Chongyi at the Guiyang Cathedral, 2008 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)

that time as “a period of extreme hardship,” and he informed me that he personally knew many priests “who were tortured and murdered by the authorities” for refusing to apostatize. “China has many, many martyr saints who died for Christ during the Maoist era,” he said, “but they are now forgotten in the world because there are no records of their lives.” Practicing Catholicism openly during Mao’s rule was precarious, and as Bishop Wang stated: “No matter where you looked or how hard you searched, you could not see a Catholic anywhere; the faith was in their hearts, invisible to the outside.” For decades there was not a Mass or sacrament offered openly in China. Bishop Wang continued: “If you were a Catholic you thought that the Church was over in China; there was no more Catholicism here.” Catholic churches and properties were all seized by the government and either destroyed or reassigned to non-religious functions, such as schools, factories, restaurants, or communist party halls. The historic Chinese-style cathedral in Guiyang was terribly damaged during the Cultural Revolution; the top section of its tall clock tower was destroyed and was not repaired until 1982. “Things for the Church

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here got much better starting in 1979, when Deng Xiaoping (19041997) gained control,” asserted Bishop Wang. He stated that Deng openly promoted religious tolerance, though this did not entail complete freedom for Chinese Catholics. Catholics were allowed to openly worship in the 1980s, and the cathedral in Guiyang was restored in 1982. Despite the growing freedom in the Chinese Church, however, the authoritative rule of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association still looms over its clergy. The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association was founded to keep the Church in China disconnected from the pope’s leadership in Rome, and priests were officially forbidden from mentioning the pope’s name during the canon of Mass, or in any other context for that matter. Bishops were also to be elected “by the people,” which meant in reality that they were to be elected by representative officials of the party. “Even though we were shut off from the Holy Father by the government,” Bishop Wang stated, “we remained loyal and connected to him in our hearts, and through our prayers.” He also said, “If we were heard mentioning the pope’s name in Mass we were arrested by the police and put into jail, so when we got to the part in Mass where we were supposed to mention the pope’s name, we mentioned him in our hearts. We remained faithful to the pope.” Before China’s bishops adopted the post-Vatican II liturgy of Mass, they were safer to include the pope’s name in the canon since it was said silently and facing the alter, away from view of the gathered faithful in the church. Regarding episcopal elections, Bishop Wang Chongyi informed me that: “In most cases when the Patriotic Association approaches a priest who it has chosen to be consecrated a bishop, the priest first finds out through various means if the pope approves of his election. If Rome approves, the priest accepts his election, but if Rome does not approve, he declines the election and remains a priest.” There have been a few who have accepted their election without Rome’s approval; however, implicit and explicit communion with the pope is requisite for acceptance of any bishop by the faithful in China. Beyond the complexities of exercising pastoral responsibilities in communist China, Bishop Wang assured me that the spiritual life of Chinese Catholics is vibrant and increasingly free from government intervention. At the end of our meeting, he gave me a private message he wished me to convey to the Holy Father in writing, and then he gave me his apostolic blessing. After our open discussion of the state of the Church in China, I realized that all the while the director of the Guizhou

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Catholic Patriotic Association, Father Ma, was sitting in the next room. There is more freedom in the Chinese Church than previously, but in the end the government’s tendrils remain firmly entrenched in Church affairs. The following day I was taken by Father Liu, a priest at the cathedral, to meet one of the most genteel people I have ever encountered, “underground” Bishop Hu Daguo. When first seeing Bishop Hu, one notices that his small, frail body is stooped over, and his legs are clearly unable to walk comfortably. I later learned that these health problems resulted from his many years of torture and imprisonment by the communist authorities. Bishop Hu is commonly called “the third bishop of Guiyang,” because while he is a consecrated bishop he is only listed on the official Guizhou records as a priest (Fig. 2.2). When I arrived at Bishop Hu’s small and humble room he sat in an old and tattered chair, and the first words he said to me were “Thanks be to God.” His manner was peaceful and cheerful, and he punctuated his speech with two phrases: “Thanks be to God” and “I am deeply

Fig. 2.2 Anthony E. Clark with Bishop Hu Daguo at the Guiyang Cathedral, 2008 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)

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grateful for God’s help.” I asked Bishop Hu about his personal experiences as a priest in the “underground” Catholic community, and even while discussing his time in prison and the tortures he endured, he smiled, laughed, and thanked God for his blessings and help. Bishop Hu recalled that he began his seminary training in the 1940s and was ordained in 1950. He recounted that during the Cultural Revolution he was arrested by a group of 300 Red Guards and placed in the middle of a large crowd. After being restrained, a tall white dunce hat was placed on his head to humiliate him while he was denounced and physically beaten. They demanded that he apostatize, but he refused. Bishop Hu was imprisoned because he would not denounce his faith and leave active ministry as a priest. Without a sign of despair or regret, Bishop Hu described his long and harrowing ordeal in prison. He was imprisoned for more than twenty years, denied the sacraments and any object related to his religious beliefs. Thus, he was denied Holy Communion or confession for over two decades. He used his fingers to pray his daily rosary and he remained loyal to the pope in spite of constant pressure to be loyal only to China’s state authorities. Bishop Hu described four methods employed by officials to bring him to disengage from his Catholic beliefs. First, he had to endure constant lessons on Marxist thought. He said that “They used this method to try and brainwash me.” Second, the Chinese authorities enlisted an attractive woman and tried to force Bishop Hu Daguo to marry her. Third, the communist authorities offered him an extremely high-salaried job, hoping to entice him with wealth. Fourth, Bishop Hu was physically beaten, which has left his legs mostly crippled and his body is permanently stooped over. None of these methods were effective. I told Bishop Hu that I admired him for his courage, but he insisted I should “admire God” instead of him. After discussing Bishop Hu’s experiences during the Cultural Revolution and his twenty-year imprisonment, we briefly discussed his situation as an “underground bishop.” I learned that if more than only a small number of people visit him, or if he attracts public attention, he is visited by the police and scolded. In fact, Father Liu recalled several incidents when Chinese authorities sent police to visit Bishop Hu. Bishop Hu’s final comments were on communism; he noted that “the party is evil,” and he suggested “there is no room for optimism regarding communism’s place vis-à-vis the Church.” It was clear that his comments were

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meant to imply that any influence communism has on the Church’s work in China are laden with difficulties; this final comment was directed at “the corrupting role the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association has on the Chinese Church.” He has experienced first-hand how the post1949 Chinese officials have treated, and continue to treat, clergy who openly reject or denounce the government’s enforced divisions between the Chinese Church and the Catholic leadership in Rome. At the end of our meeting, Bishop Hu asked for his old and faded stole, which he kissed and placed over his shoulders. Father Liu and I knelt before the frail bishop while he prayed for us and imparted his blessing. After blessing us, Bishop Hu asked Father Liu for his blessing, and the crippled bishop knelt humbly before the young priest to receive his blessing in turn. During my final day at the Guiyang cathedral I was given a brief audience with the recently consecrated Bishop Xiao Zejiang, a youthful forty-one-year-old man who received his theological training in part from an American Jesuit teaching at Shanghai’s Sheshan Seminary. We openly discussed the very few bishops who are not presently sanctioned by Rome. Bishop Xiao himself was, as he stated, selected by the pope, and his episcopal ring was sent to him by Benedict XVI. There are, nonetheless, some remaining bishops who have been consecrated without Rome’s approval, and their position in the Catholic community remains strained. One large problem is that some priests are pressured by the authorities to accept consecration, and these pressures are sometimes quite serious. Certainly, they are validly ordained bishops, but their standing with Rome is uncomfortable. In many cases the Chinese authorities ask priests who are too young and inexperienced to be bishops, perhaps mostly because they feel that they will be more easily influenced by party representatives. Bishop Xiao assured me candidly, however, that such bishops “are in fact committed to the Church’s teachings and to spreading the gospel.” Present circumstances in China remain problematic for the clergy, and until the Chinese Church is given unqualified freedom from government involvement, the state authorities will continue to influence episcopal ordinations. Bishop Xiao imparted his apostolic blessing to me before I departed, and Father Liu hailed a cab to take me back to my hotel. There are still many Catholics who venerate the grave of the four Qing dynasty martyr saints of Guizhou, despite the government’s prohibition against visiting the site. Chinese Catholics often state that the martyrs

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remain “powerful examples of Christian sacrifice in a world hostile to the Church and the message it conveys.” The Catholics in Guizhou have endured many hardships over the past few centuries, but their Catholic beliefs have remained despite their suffering. During a walk through Guiyang, Father Kui and I discussed the particularly strong Chinese Catholic devotion to Mary, and it was clear that in China that devotion is growing. In the cathedral there is a banner that proclaims, “Our Lady of China, cause of our joy, pray for us!” And after every Mass the faithful remain in their pews to offer thanksgiving to God and to honor Mary through beautifully sung songs and chanted litanies. One of the Catholic faithful said to me “We Catholics are all one family, no matter what country we are from.” Perhaps the most important thing I learned during my stay in Guizhou was that Chinese Catholics have remained firm in their loyalty to the Church, and whatever hardships and complications they are forced to confront, they insist that their religious faith will remain the center of their lives.

2.6 Essay 2.6 Suffering, Survival, and a Communion of Complexity (December 2008) During my final weeks in China, after three months of exhausting travels and research in various Catholic areas, I had the most intense encounters of my entire visit. These experiences were at Hunan and Shanxi provinces, where I met many bishops, priests, nuns, and faithful, some of whom are in China surreptitiously. The clergy in China, Chinese, and foreign, is as disparate as China’s many dialects, which are at times mutually unintelligible. I shall begin with an account of my first evening in Hubei’s capital, Wuhan. After an afternoon meeting with the priest in charge of the cathedral, St. Joseph’s, I received an evening phone call from another priest at the cathedral: “I’m calling you from a public phone because the church lines and my personal cell are all tapped by the government. Can you meet me at the main gate of Binjiang Park?” I found him there and we walked into a dark side path to discuss the challenges of the Catholic community in Wuhan. He informed me that the Catholic Patriotic Association was particularly severe there, and that two of the priests are intimately involved with the communist authorities in Hunan, and further that they are suspicious of visitors from the outside. I was an outsider, and as one

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who has researched at the Vatican, I was not really welcome by the priests in charge. As much as the situation for Christians has improved in some parts of China, there remain areas such as Wuhan where the Vatican is best left unmentioned, the faith is best diluted to make it palatable to the government, and the priests who attest any loyalty to Rome are persecuted—not only by the authorities, but also by some of their fellow priests who are content with the status quo. Priests who cooperate are richly rewarded; one of the priests at the cathedral sent me away with his private car (black with darkly tinted windows) and driver to conduct my research while being chaperoned in a luxury sedan. As I walked with this priest through the dimly lit park trail it became clear to me that he would have been elected to be Wuhan’s next bishop, but his loyalties to the pope had resulted in an official party refusal to allow his consecration. So far, Wuhan has no bishop because the Vatican and the local communist cadres cannot agree upon who should be chosen. Tapped phones, clergy who collaborate with the communist authorities, wealthy priests who are taken care of by the party, and pulpits that disseminate a diluted and censored version of Catholic dogma and moral teaching: this is the unfortunate condition of some Catholic dioceses in China. But despite the corruption of some of China’s clergy, there remains a robust community of Catholics who are led by many good priests, some “underground” and some “aboveground.” While many may insist, quite understandably, that the Catholic Church in the United States is divided, the Chinese Church has much worse divisions. These divisions are exacerbated by constant pressures and persecutions exerted by a government officially opposed to religion, and which tolerates it only inasmuch as it facilitates its material goals. Doing business with other countries necessitates a modicum of religious tolerance to maintain good relations, as largely Christian countries frown on the totalitarian tactics more openly employed in China’s recent past. Hidden below the surface of Wuhan’s political complexities is a community of believers who remain devoted to their faith and two notable Christian martyrs who were canonized in 2000 by Pope John Paul II. Across the Yangze River from the cathedral is Wuchang district, where two French Vincentian priests were executed during the Qing dynasty. This was why I had traveled there, to locate the precise spot where they had been tortured and killed for disseminating “heterodox doctrines.” I had previously met with three Vincentians who had attempted to find

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the site several years ago but were chased away by the paranoid Wuhan authorities. St. Francis Regis Clet (1748–1820) arrived in China in 1791 and worked there for twenty-seven years until he was detained during one of China’s many anti-Catholic persecutions. His church and school were destroyed, and he was subjected to weeks of torture for refusing to deny his religious beliefs. In the end, he was condemned to death on 18 February 1820; he was taken to the official execution ground at Wuchang and tied to a wooden frame in the shape of a cross. He was slowly strangled by a rope, and his remains were retrieved by local Catholics. The execution of his confrere, St. John Gabriel Perboyre (1802–1840) was held on the very same spot twenty years later. The young Vincentian, John Gabriel, was dispatched to China, in 1835, and by 1839 a new persecution broke out in the area of his mission. He was betrayed by one of his catechumens for a sum of money and was stripped of his garments, bound in chains, and transferred from one tribunal to another. He endured appalling torments. On 11 September 1840, his afflictions ended where Clet’s had; he was, like Clet, tied to a wooden cross and slowly strangled to death. Wuhan’s older Catholics keep Clet and Perboyre alive in their memories and prayers, though the younger generation is rarely taught of their history in China. The official Qing execution ground in Wuchang is well known to elderly residents who grew up there, and I was directed to the precise spot by 89-year-old Ms. Gan Yulan, who walked slowly on feet that were bound when she was a young girl. Tucked inconspicuously behind a new high-rise apartment building is the area where Sts. Clet and Perboyre suffered their final agonies, a spot held sacred by the Catholic faithful of Wuhan. Their remains were eventually removed to the Vincentian Motherhouse in Paris, where they are kept today in the chapel tomb of St. Vincent de Paul (1588–1660). Their gravestones were hidden by Catholics during the Cultural Revolution to avoid destruction and reside today in the seminary courtyard at Huayuanshan in Wuchang. I asked a young seminarian there about the gravestones of Sts. Clet and Perboyre in the courtyard just a few feet away, and he looked puzzled: “What gravestones?” An old woman who was listening to our conversation walked closer to tell him the story of the martyrs who had died in Wuchang. There is a chasm between the older generation of Catholics who were raised to remember and honor local saints, and the younger Catholics at Wuhan who are “protected” from the

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history of “foreign priests who invaded China.” During a second meeting with the priest who had called me secretly the night before, he informed me that it was one of his goals to “fill in the gaps” missing from the memories of today’s generation, and one of his first aims is to teach the young about Wuchang’s martyrs, though he knows acutely that praising the actions of foreign “invaders” is precarious. In almost every way Shanxi is the opposite of Wuhan (both geographically and socially); such extreme polarity is not uncommon in China, and the Chinese Church is typical of Chinese culture. When I arrived at Shanxi, I was warmly greeted by a man in a Roman collar. Father Zhang Jingqing smilingly welcomed us to Shanxi, and ushered us off to breakfast at a local-style restaurant and a long drive into the outskirts of Taiyuan, Shanxi’s capital city. I was quite astonished to observe that as we drove we passed church after church; steeples surmounted by high crosses dotted the landscape. We passed a massive church under construction, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was five minutes from another church dedicated to St. Anthony, and then another dedicated to St. Mary. Father Zhang informed me that at one church there are up to twenty Masses celebrated on Sunday to accommodate the large numbers of the Catholics. We were making our way to a Marian pilgrimage site at a place called Banquan Mountain. This is where China’s Catholics honor a location believed to be where Mary appeared to a humble village girl. France has “Our Lady of Lourdes and China has Our Lady of Banquan,” Father Zhang exclaimed. It is distressing, he added, that the Chinese Church is so disconnected from Rome that this site remains uninvestigated by Vatican officials. As the popular account recalls, near the end of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) a young girl from a Catholic village was watching sheep for her family when the Virgin Mary appeared to her and asked that a church be built. She returned home and told the local villagers that Mary had asked for a church to be constructed. The villagers did not believe her, however, because “she was ugly,” and they refused to build the church. She was again greeted by an apparition of the Virgin, whom she told the villagers’ response. Our Lady commanded her to wash her face in a nearby spring (Banquan), and she was made beautiful at once. The villagers recognized it as a miracle and set out to build the church, gathering materials and placing them at the area they intended to begin construction. The following day the materials had all disappeared, but were later discovered where Mary had again appeared to the girl. They knew this as

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an order from the preternatural vision to build the church in the intended location. Immediately before and during the Cultural Revolution, Mary continued to appear at Banquan Mountain to Catholics to comfort them through their suffering. Father Zhang noted that 60–70% of Taiyuan’s faithful claim to have seen Mary at Banquan Mountain, including himself. Each May around 120,000 pilgrims travel to Banquan Mountain, where ten to twelve Masses are offered daily for the large crowds. We visited several other churches, including an abandoned Franciscan residence and seminary on the slope of Dongergou Village, where many martyrs prayed, studied, and celebrated Mass together over a century ago. In 1902, a Shanxi Confucian named Liu Dapeng (1857–1942), wrote in his diary of the Franciscan residence at Dongergou: The villagers all follow the foreign religion. The village lies at the foot of the hills, with the church standing on the slope of the hill, surrounded by a wall. There are many buildings within the wall. The site is impressive and the buildings are all in the foreign style.

After photographing these crumbling structures and walking through the former residence of Blessed Mary Assunta (1878–1905) near the abandoned residence, I met with the two bishops at the imposing Italianate Taiyuan cathedral. We discussed the strength of the Catholic Church in Shanxi and, among other things, we conferred about where, in 1900, several Franciscan bishops, priests, and nuns, were killed by the local magistrate. On 9 July 1900, during the height of the Boxer Uprising, the anti-Christian Magistrate, Yuxian, ordered his lictors and local Boxers to seize Bishops Gregory Grassi, Francis Fogolla, and their companions, to be bound, stripped of their upper garments, and paraded down Pig-head Alley to the gate of his yamen. St. Grassi and companions were “held on trial” at the magistrate’s gate before being beheaded. Louis Nazaire Cardinal Bégin (1840–1925) recorded the account of a witness at the massacre: ‘Kill them, kill them!’ roared the crowd. Yu-Hsien striking with his own sword cried: ‘Kill them!’ At this sight the soldiers began the slaughter, dealing bows right and left, cruelly injuring their victims before giving the final stoke. Father Elie, aged sixty-one years, received more than one hundred sword cuts and at each lifted his eyes to heaven saying: ‘I go to heaven.’ During the scene the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary were spectators, for their executioners hoped the sight of the martyred

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priests would make their own death more horrible. They knelt in prayer with eyes lifted to heaven, praying for the martyrs, for the conversion of their persecutors and for the perseverance of the Christians… The nuns embraced each other, intoned the Te Deum, and presented their heads to the executioners—a stroke of the sword and all was over!11

I rehearsed this description to Father Zhang and others as we stood on the very spot where they rendered their lives for their religious convictions. In fact, we visited many such places in Shanxi, where Catholics had been killed for refusing to apostatize. Juxtaposing the different situations of the Church in Wuhan with the thriving Catholic community in Shanxi underscores the disparities between China’s more than thirty provinces. China’s 1.3 billion people are difficult to homogenize, despite the government’s attempt to do so. It remains certain that religious freedom as it is understood in the United States is an unwelcome principle in communist China, which officially holds that religion is merely an adolescent stage in human evolution, and a hindrance to the social Shangri-La possible only through Marxism. As I spoke with Catholics in large cities and remote villages all over China I heard stories of parents and grandparents who had suffered imprisonment and mistreatment for stubbornly retaining their faith. I met some who were only just released from internment. Being Catholic in China today is easier than it was twenty or thirty years ago, perhaps, but as “underground” bishop, Hu Daguo, told me, “As long as communism is the thriving ideology of China, the Church will be hated and persecuted.” The Catholic Church today is still monitored by a suspicious government, just as it was during the Ming and Qing dynasties, but as the reach of world media expands, China can less easily persecute Catholics without global attention. I have seen much of the Chinese Church, and what strikes me most is how misunderstood it is by the outside. It is indeed repressed by a government that has not yet entirely shed its old Maoist paranoia. It is still largely cut off from the rest of the world; its bishops and priests cannot openly communicate with Rome. One priest at Beijing’s major seminary informed me that Vatican communication had been for the most part absent for the past several years. The Chinese Catholic community is quite isolated. But hackneyed scholarly and popular assertions that only the “underground Church” is the real Church in China are patently incorrect, hurtful, and insensitive to the reality that both the “underground” and

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“aboveground” communities suffer from the same challenges, frequently collaborating rather than bickering. “Underground” and “aboveground” bishops often live under the same roof, and many Chinese Catholics navigate fluidly between “underground” and “aboveground” chapels. On my final day in China I met Brother Marcel Zhang (b. 1924), perhaps the last living survivor of the 1947 massacre of monks who lived at the Trappist Abbey at Yangjiaping. Brother Marcel recounted how the People’s Liberation Army had ransacked his monastery; accused the monks of being “foreign spies,” forced them on a death march, and had stoned many to death. After surviving the violence, he became an “underground” Catholic, living as a dairy farmer and cheese seller during the Maoist era. Today he is active in the choir at Beijing’s North Church, where other “underground” Catholics attend Masses celebrated by priests who are registered with Catholic Patriotic Association. The priest of the West Church in Beijing, Father Pang Wenxian, told me at lunch about the “underground” Catholics near his church; in fact, you might find them at his Mass on Sundays. The situation of Catholicism in China is complex, and convenient categories are not useful. Father Pang has a large photo of Pope Benedict XVI hanging above his desk, and openly acclaims his personal loyalty to Rome, despite the cameras outside the church gate that monitor who enters and leaves throughout the day. Father Pang is like most priests in China, whether in the “underground” or “aboveground” in their ministries, shaking their heads that the outside world does not better understand the nuances of their situation.

2.7 Essay 2.7 Reflections on Resolve: China’s Catholics Through Eras of Change (March 2009) On Tuesday, 31 July 1900, a large militia of Manchu soldiers, Boxers, and Tibetan monks in yellow robes besieged the North Cathedral in Beijing and launched a volley of arrows with an attached message. They had begun their attack a month earlier with the cry, “Sha, Sha, Kill! Kill! Shao, Shao, Burn! Burn!”12 The message to the Chinese converts inside the church was dreadful: You, Christians, shut up in the North Cathedral, reduced to the greatest misery … We have leveled cannon and set mines against you, and you will be destroyed in a short time … deliver up Bishop Favier and the others

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[i.e., European missionaries] and you will have saved your lives. … If you do not do so, you, your wives and children, will all be cut to pieces.13

The threat was not idle; while most of the 3200 Chinese and European Catholics inside the mission complex survived this siege, tens of thousands of Catholics elsewhere were indeed “cut to pieces” during the violence of the Boxer Uprising in 1900. For China’s Christians this event is an example of a long historical timeline of antagonism and conflict within the larger society. On 9 July 1947, during the war between the communist and Nationalist armies, communist troops overwhelmed Our Lady of Consolation Monastery at Yangjiaping and seized the community of Trappist monks. They were forced on a long death march, during which many perished from mistreatment. In the end, as Father M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. (1931–2005) recounts, some of the remaining monks were “stretched out on flat rocks and had their heads broke open with jagged stones.”14 On 28 February 1951, communist forces invaded another Chinese Cistercian abbey, Our Lady of Joy; the monks there also were tortured and killed. To understand the Church in China one must know its history because Chinese Catholics often invoke events such as these to exhort their fellow Christians to endure hardships through waves of struggle. 2.7.1

The Arrival of Catholicism

The first Catholic missionary to China was the Franciscan friar, Bl. John of Montecorvino, O.F.M., who arrived at Beijing (then Khanbaliq) in 1293. The Mongol Khan welcomed him warmly, and the Italian friar was able to establish a flourishing Catholic community in China’s capital. John was consecrated the first Catholic bishop in China and built a church beside the Khan’s imperial palace. He trained young Chinese boys to chant in Greek and Latin, and in a letter to Europe he boasted that “the Lord Emperor [Khan] takes much delight in their singing. And I ring the bells for all the Hours and sing the divine office with a choir of ‘sucklings and infants.’”15 John died in 1328, and without his energy and charisma the Catholic Church in China faded; it had completely vanished by 1368 and was not fully rekindled until the arrival of the Jesuits in the late Ming. The most famous Catholic to live in China was the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who brought both Christianity and science to the Middle Kingdom; China’s government today celebrates only the latter. Ricci’s

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exceptional brilliance and mastery of the Chinese language set a high standard for the Jesuit confreres who followed him. Some of China’s most famous mathematicians, astronomers, and cartographers are European Jesuits who replaced Ricci’s hallowed reputation in Beijing’s Forbidden City. Beijing’s South Cathedral is now located on the site of Ricci’s former residence, and as Chinese Catholics enter its courtyard they bow reverently in front of his statue. Ricci’s tomb, ironically located on the campus of Beijing’s Communist Party School, is visited by a stream of Chinese and foreign dignitaries who admire his legacy of cultural friendship. On my last visit I met several members of the “underground” community praying there for his intercession. Ricci’s tomb is paradoxically revered both by non-believers as a site of China’s scientific advancement and by Catholics as a pilgrimage site. The Jesuits were later joined by other missionaries such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, Lazarists, Benedictines, Foreign Missionaries of Paris, and the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions missionaries. All suffered tragic setbacks in 1900 during the Boxer Uprising, an anti-Christian, antiforeign movement that resulted in the death of some 30,000 Christians and the wholesale destruction of Catholic churches, seminaries, hospitals, and orphanages. Ricci’s tomb and 200 other Catholic graves in Beijing were desecrated in 1900, and the Catholic community of the church beside it was slaughtered and buried in the ground near Ricci’s grave. The years from 1898 to 1900 were filled with political and religious conflict in China, but order was restored in late 1900 when churches were refurbished, and the Church again flourished. 2.7.2

The Rise of Communism

Catholics enjoyed a few decades of relative peace after 1900. Beijing alone had more than 40 churches by the 1930s; today there are only six left. With the rise of communism, antagonism between the state and Church resumed. In 1946 the Vatican sent Archbishop Antonio Riberi (1897–1967) to China, and in 1947 Riberi forbade all Catholics in China from any involvement in any communist organization. The communist party’s reaction was fierce, and as Richard Madsen recounts, “An explicit proclamation of anti-communism was an invitation to martyrdom.”16 Catholic missionaries were expelled from China, and by 1955 thousands of Catholics had been arrested, including China’s most powerful prelate, the bishop of Shanghai, Gong Pinmei (Cardinal Kung). Kung

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spent 30 years in communist prisons for refusing to sever his ties with the Vatican. The communist government established the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association in 1957, which remains the only Catholic community officially allowed to exist in China’s borders. The sanctioned Catholic community under the auspices of the Catholic Patriotic Association is compelled to elect bishops without the pope’s official approval. As a result, there is now both a sanctioned “aboveground Church” and an unsanctioned “underground Church.” While the relationship between these two communities has recently improved, divisions still remain intense. 2.7.3

We Know Who You Are

During the Cultural Revolution all Catholics, no matter which community they were in, were forced into hiding. As Bishop Wang Chongyi told me during a long discussion in his office, during the Cultural Revolution, “No matter where you looked or how hard you searched, you could not see a Catholic anywhere; the faith was in their hearts, invisible to the outside.” Catholics in China recall that it was not until around 1989 that the Church began to recover. In an interview with the choir director from North Church in Beijing, Mr. Ma Fangji (“Francis”), I was told that there were mixed feelings when the churches were reopened. Chinese officials stood at the doors to take names and request everyone who entered to demonstrate the sign of the cross; those who could not were assumed not to be Catholic and were not admitted. The message was clear: The government was allowing Mass to be offered, but it was also keeping a record of who attended, and non-Catholics were to stay away. For those who had lived through the previous decades, the idea of rendering their names to the authorities was frightening. While meeting the two bishops in Guiyang, who recounted their experiences through China’s Maoist era, Bishop Wang Chongyi, a Vaticanapproved bishop in the “aboveground” community, and Bishop Hu Daguo, a bishop in the “underground,” bishop Wang noted that during the 1960s, bishops, priests, and nuns were forced to laicize and ordered to apostatize. Red Guards or party officials would regularly beat them; Wang was himself “struggled against” and ordered to abandon his Catholic faith. Since he refused to apostatize, the communist authorities

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condemned him to hard labor, which he described as a time of terrible hardship. Bishop Wang knew other priests who were tortured; some were buried alive while avowing their religious faith. 2.7.4

Conflicting Loyalties

After Mao’s death in 1976, the situation for Catholics improved somewhat, but the Catholic Patriotic Association still loomed over the clergy who still were not allowed to mention the pope’s name during Mass; the Chinese Church was to remain separate from Rome. Bishop Wang stated that “If we mentioned the pope’s name in Mass we were arrested by the police and put into jail, but when we got to the part in Mass where we were supposed to mention the pope’s name out loud, we mentioned him in our hearts. We remained faithful to the pope.” Not all bishops remained loyal to Rome, however, and some used that time as an opportunity to gain political favor. Some priests ingratiated themselves to local government officials by disconnecting themselves with Rome, and a few even married to underscore their rejection of the pope. But this group was the exception; most of the priests and bishops who operated in the sanctioned community did so to, as they insist, “preserve the faith in China.” Other clergy, like Bishop Hu Daguo, chose to remain “underground” to preserve the faith without what they viewed as inappropriate state interference. His is a particularly stirring account of struggle through the vicissitudes of state oppression. During the Cultural Revolution Hu Daguo was a young and dutiful priest. His first words to me as I entered his small, crowded room were “Ganxie Tianzhu! (Thanks be to God).” In fact, as we spoke he punctuated his speech with two phrases: “Thanks be to God” and “I am deeply grateful for God’s help.” During the Cultural Revolution, around 300 Red Guards arrested Hu, bound him in tight chords, placed a tall white dunce cap on his head, and presented him to a crowd for humiliation. He was denounced and physically abused. The mob demanded that he renounce his beliefs, and he was imprisoned for more than 20 years for refusing. In prison, Hu was not allowed to practice any aspect of his faith, so for more than two decades he could not receive Communion or go to confession. He used his fingers to pray his rosary and, as he exclaimed, he “remained loyal to the pope, despite constant pressure to be loyal only to ‘the homeland.’” Like many Chinese priests

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who refused to apostatize during the Cultural Revolution, Hu was made to endure compulsory “re-education,” which had no effect. 2.7.5

History Is Off-Limits

While “underground” bishops are still sometimes arrested and kept under surveillance, and “aboveground” clergy remain closely manipulated by government officials, the official rhetoric of the Catholic Patriotic Association is that the Church has improved since its “independence” from Rome. The pro-government China Intercontinental Press recently published a book about Catholicism in China, which states that the Chinese Church “holds to independence in accordance with the Chinese situation …”17 The new era described by the Catholic Patriotic Association is not only one in which the Chinese Catholics can now love “both the Church and the Nation”,18 but the book insists that it has never seen better times. What the Catholic Patriotic Association does not publicize is that the state’s official policy is eventually to eliminate religion, and that at present Chinese clergy and faithful are forbidden from viewing materials related to China’s Catholic history held in official archives and libraries. Historical materials that were not destroyed during the Cultural Revolution are off-limits to Chinese Catholics; anything they are told about the Church in China is disseminated through authorized channels. Despite obstacles, Chinese Catholics continue to practice their religious faith with unusual piety. During the 2008 Requiem Mass for the Holy Souls offered by Bishop Li Shan at Beijing’s Catholic cemetery, the first two prayers of the faithful were for the Church and its leader, Pope Benedict XVI. A decade ago such a public sign of connection to Rome would have brought the unwanted attention of the government; today the pope’s photograph and name are more openly displayed. This being so, state officials remain adamant that the Vatican is an imperialist threat to Chinese sovereignty, a belief to which Pope Benedict XVI responded in his 2007 letter to the Church of China: …the solution to existing problems cannot be pursued via an ongoing conflict with the legitimate civil authorities; at the same time, though, compliance with those authorities is not acceptable when they interfere unduly in matters regarding the faith and discipline of the Church. The civil authorities are well aware that the Church in her teaching invites the faithful to be good citizens, respectful and active contributors to the

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common good in their country, but it is likewise clear that she asks the State to guarantee to those same Catholic citizens the full exercise of their faith, with respect for authentic religious freedom.19

The pope reiterates the Church’s teaching that Catholics must be good citizens, but this responsibility is to be balanced with religious freedom, which China’s government only partially allows. 2.7.6

Beholden to the Party

In fact, despite the growing number of priests enlisted into the Catholic Patriotic Association (which some view positively since it affords clergy a stronger voice in Church administration) the Association is still beholden to the communist party. Benedict recognizes in his letter that some “persons who are not ‘ordained,’ and sometimes not even baptized, control and make decisions concerning important ecclesial questions, including the appointment of bishops, in the name of various state agencies.”20 The Catholic Patriotic Association is overseen by the party’s Religious Affairs Bureau, which means that the government ultimately decides who is consecrated a bishop; those selected “by the people” are generally chosen for their compliance with the “party line.” Bishop Ma Yinglin’s 2006 government election to the episcopacy caused several renewed divisions in China’s Catholic community; the “aboveground” community must choose whether to follow a bishop who is not yet approved by the pope, or to join the “underground” community which does not support bishops not in regular communion with the Vatican. Official sources recognize about five million Catholics in China, but unofficial sources estimate an additional eight million faithful who remain “underground.” The state of the Chinese Church today is complex and murky. It is compelled to live a spiritual life awkwardly both connected and disconnected from Rome. It bears the signs of the party’s presence in its administration, religious practice, and even on the walls of its churches. Government regulations for religious activities are posted in church foyers, and on the outside wall of Beijing’s West Church remains a large, faded, quote from Chairman Mao, painted there during the Cultural Revolution. Churchgoers are greeted by the slogan: “Chairman Mao said: ‘The central strength of our enterprise in China is communism, and the guiding principle foundation of our ideology is Marxism and

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Leninism.’” So, while the Christian bible is read inside the West Church, Mao’s invocation to follow Marx and Lenin is painted beside the church’s main entrance. While the Chinese clergy argue that there is no place for communist ideology in the Catholic Church, such slogans are part of the Church’s turbulent history and its uncomfortable present. 2.7.7

Perseverance

When Pope John Paul II canonized 120 Catholic martyrs of China, he recalled the words of Tertullian: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” The pope’s message was clear; the foundation of the Church in China, like ancient Rome, was built on struggle and persecution, persecution that China’s Christians insist persists today. Times are perhaps better for Catholics in China today, but the Chinese authorities still monitor the doors of churches with surveillance cameras, the Chinese “aboveground” clergy must still report to the communistmanaged Catholic Patriotic Association, and the pope is still officially “forbidden” from selecting bishops or regulating Church activities. In China, the pope has a doctrinal, but not freely pastoral, voice in the dayto-day lives of Chinese Catholics. Catholics in more tolerant countries perhaps take their religious faith for granted; I have rarely witnessed piety equal to China’s struggling Catholics. When one gets to know Chinese Catholics one inevitably hears stories of family members who were either killed or mistreated in the Boxer Uprising of 1900 or during the Maoist era of the twentieth century. Suffering is part of being Catholic in China. As I walked near Ricci’s tomb in Beijing, an “underground” Catholic women who grew up in that neighborhood told me, “We who were raised here know that Boxers buried Catholic children in this spot.” How has this history affected China’s Catholics? I have seen elderly women who can barely walk kneel piously in brick courtyards to pray; I have seen crowds of men and women praying in a cemetery for the holy souls in purgatory; and I have seen countless Chinese Catholics pray worn rosary beads before Mass. China’s Church, as it always has, transforms struggle into pious conviction.

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2.8

Essay 2.8 Matteo Ricci and His Legacy of China-West Dialogue (May 2009)

After two years of frenzied media interest in Beijing’s 2008 Olympics and China’s meteoric economic growth, the Catholic Church will turn its attention next year, 2010, to the most famous Westerner who has lived inside the Great Wall, the Jesuit missionary and polymath, Matteo Ricci. Father Paul Serruys, the Belgian Scheut priest who taught at the University of Washington, lived as a missionary in China and studied under the famed Jesuit intellectual, Father Teilhard de Chardin. Serruys used to wonder: “I’m not sure if Ricci made the Chinese Catholic, or if the Chinese made Ricci more Chinese.” I once attended a theological forum in Beijing where one speaker praised Ricci because he “lived as a Chinese, not trying to change China’s culture or force the Chinese to follow Christ.” Ricci’s legacy remains complex and his motives are still debated in academic circles.21 Pope Benedict XVI has asked the bishop of Macerata, Italy, Claudio Giuliordi, to prepare for a Jubilee Year in honor of the four-hundredyear anniversary of Ricci’s death; Ricci died on 11 May 1610 at his small church in Beijing’s busy Xuanwu district. His impact on China was so great that after his death the Ming ruler, Emperor Wanli (r. 1563–1620), gave imperial land in Beijing to the Jesuits for his burial. Father Ricci was the first non-Chinese ever allowed to be interred inside the Middle Kingdom. His tomb at the Zhalan Cemetery, located today in the campus of the Beijing Communist Administrative College, is an actively visited sight in China’s capital, and when Chinese Catholics pass by his statue at the main entrance of Beijing’s South Cathedral, they bow and offer him a short prayer of intercession (Fig. 2.3).22 In China, Matteo Ricci is hailed as the Western world’s most renowned “foreign guest” to China for his contributions to Chinese science, cartography, calendrics, mathematics, and philosophy. While China’s list of accolades does not generally include an appreciation for Ricci’s religious beliefs, the Church remembers him as the “father”’ of the China mission, one of the founders of Catholic apologetics, a controversial accommodationist, and one of history’s most brilliant thinkers. The eminent sinologist, Joseph Needham (1900–1995), praised Ricci as, “one of the most remarkable and brilliant men in history.”23 One thing is certain, in the fields of sinology, map making, mission history, Sino-Western

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Fig. 2.3 Anthony E. Clark with “underground” Chinese Catholics at the tomb of Matteo Ricci, Beijing, 2008 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)

relations, linguistics, and Chinese history, among the first and most significant names conjured will be Matteo Ricci; his legacy in world history is enormous, even if too often overlooked or underappreciated. 2.8.1

The Missionary

Matteo Ricci began his missionary work in 1582 at Macau, a Portuguese trading colony in southern China, where he began his studies in Mandarin Chinese. Unlike the missionary methods of other orders such as the Dominicans and Franciscans, Ricci endeavored to introduce Christianity to China delicately, choosing to graft the faith more organically onto China’s existing culture rather than Christianizing it by first Westernizing the Middle Kingdom’s ancient traditions. Ricci was one of the first Chinese missionaries to master the official guanhua dialect of Chinese, the language of the literati elite, the Confucian magistrates who held

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the administrative reigns of the empire. While other missionaries struggled with the basics of southern China’s Cantonese dialect, Ricci was the first to navigate through the entire empire without a translator; he was a linguistic genius. Unlike the missionaries from other Roman Catholic orders, Matteo Ricci understood that learning China’s native language was the best, if not the only way to access China’s people and culture. Having mastered the Middle Kingdom’s difficult spoken and written language, and memorized the Confucian classics (a lifetime commitment for other mortals), Ricci apprehended China’s cultural mores better than his confreres in East Asia. He knew that there were cultural aversions to certain images—such as those depicting Christ’s passion—and he understood that the only way to effectively introduce Christ to China would be to withhold some aspects of Christianity until native Chinese were better prepared to tolerate or accept. In a 1596 letter to the Jesuit Superior, Ricci wrote, “We only venture to move forward very slowly… it is true that up till now we have not explained the mysteries of our holy faith, but we are nonetheless making progress by laying the principle foundations.”24 In his journals, Ricci often wrote of his desire to bring the tenets and beliefs of his religious enterprise to China; in fact, his Christian mission figured foremost in his writings. Father Ricci wished to highlight Western knowledge and Western ways of learning; this, he felt, would eventually bring the Chinese to the religion of the West, and thus to Christianity. While in Nanchang he held public debates with Chinese scholars on science and theology, and the local Confucian officials often marveled at Ricci’s precocity. During these disputations, he memorized and recalled a long series of Chinese characters after merely glancing at them. In a letter to Rome, Ricci wrote: … in order to increase their wonder, [I] began to recite [the characters] all by memory backwards in the same manner, beginning with the very last until reaching the first. By which they all became utterly astounded and as if beside themselves.25

To bring Christianity to China Ricci had first brought Western learning and techniques for memorization, and in order to make his religious message more accessible to the Middle Kingdom he had made himself more accessible to China by becoming more Chinese himself. When the educated Chinese literatus, Qu Rukui (1549–1611), wrote of Matteo

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Ricci, he described him as a Chinese gentleman. “Duke Li [Ricci] cites the texts of the sages, abides by the kingdom’s regulations, displays the cap and belt [of the scholar], performs the sacrifices at spring and autumn, [and] respects and executes heaven’s charges [thus] promoting orthodoxy.”26 Not only did Father Ricci set in place the Jesuit tradition of mastering the Chinese language and hallowed Confucian classics, but he also initiated the practice of piquing Chinese interest in Christianity by first intriguing them with Western curiosities. At his first mission in Zhaoqing, he enticed local elites in 1584 with his mappus mundi, the first Chinese language, European-style map of the entire world. It was the first time that Chinese had seen a map drawn to scale, more or less, illustrating China in comparison to the rest of the globe. Not only did Ricci’s map interest Chinese locals, but it also challenged previous assumptions that China occupied most of the world’s land mass. While some accuse Ricci of focusing too exclusively on courting the Chinese with Western curiosities such as maps, clocks, and clavichords, he did bring many Chinese into the Church. Three Chinese converts during Ricci’s mission are known today as “the three great pillars of Chinese Catholicism,” the first of whom is widely known in both Catholic and Protestant circles as the most influential and powerful Chinese Christian to have lived, Paul Xu Guangqi (1562–1633). Paul Xu, named after St. Paul the Evangelist, held China’s highest degree, the jinshi, and was thus a statesman in constant contact with the emperor’s court in Beijing. Xu’s conversion was largely facilitated by Matteo Ricci’s Chinese catechism, the Tianzhu shiyi (The True Meaning of the Lord Heaven), in which a Chinese scholar (zhongshi) is pitted against a Western one (xishi), and using Aristotelian logic the Chinese interlocutor is convinced of the West’s intellectual acumen and the truth of the “Lord of Heaven.”27 The other two “pillars” were Li Zhizao (1565–1630), also a jinshi, and Yang Tingyun (1562–1627). Chinese Catholics generally hold that Ricci and the “three pillars” are the bedrock of China’s Catholic Church, and the method Ricci used to promote the faith is known in China as the “Ricci method.” In many ways, we can say that Matteo Ricci was one of the most effective and influential Christian apologists; several of his written works were intended to teach and defend the faith in a culture often suspicious of foreigners and foreign religion.

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2.8.2

The Apologist

Ricci’s approach to introducing Catholicism to China was based on the idea that in order to convert China the educated elite must first be convinced of the rational underpinnings of Christianity, and this meant that his missionary method had to formulate an intellectually rigorous system of presenting and defending Catholic belief. He also understood that in an intrinsically hierarchical society, the best way to convert Chinese to Christianity would be to first convert the emperor himself. As JeanPierre Charbonnier writes, “The Jesuits… dreamed of a new Constantine for China.”28 One of Ricci’s approaches to Christian apologetics was to explain how Christianity was in fact already latent in Chinese culture, and even more, he set himself to accommodating Catholic liturgical and devotional life to extant Chinese rituals and sensibilities. In effect, the Ricci method is best described in the words of the historian and founder of the field of missiology, Josef Schmidlin (1876–1944), who wrote that, according to Ricci, a missionary must: … fight and eliminate all those elements in the concepts and customs of the people which originate from the paganism proper and are in direct opposition to Christianity, but with as much moderation and wise timing as possible under the consideration of the permissible usage of the people in the greatest extent.29

Matteo Ricci hoped to not only demonstrate that Christianity was logically convincing, but that it was inherent in the traditional works of ancient China. He was, perhaps, the principle founder of the Jesuit school in China known as the Figurists, and his Figurist assertions and those of his successors precipitated a storm of controversy, not only among the intellectuals of China, but also the theologians in Rome.30 2.8.3

The Controversy

Some have argued that Matteo Ricci’s eagerness to bring China to the Catholic religion led him to several problematic assumptions. Ricci proposed that ancient Chinese religion held evidence of God, and he came to three conclusions about China’s relationship with the Christian God that formed the basis of the Jesuit Figurists. His first assertion was related to historical chronology; he suggested that China’s antediluvian history was shared with China’s history, that Eastern and Western history

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was the same before the Great Flood described in the Hebrew bible. Second, the Figurists believed that Noah’s son, Shem, moved to China, bringing with him the knowledge of Adam when he was originally sinless. And third, Ricci’s method believed that the “sages” (shengren) mentioned in China’s ancient classics actually prefigured and alluded to Christ, the Messiah.31 In reality, these assertions were unable to endure scholarly historical scrutiny; they were little more than hopeful intellectual propositions that highlight Ricci’s concern for China’s spiritual welfare more than his historical understanding of China’s past and its Confucian tenets. What eventually happened was that local Chinese literati were annoyed that a foreigner took such exegetical liberties with the revered history and beliefs of their own traditions. Ricci’s accommodationist method led many Confucians to view the Jesuits as deceitful and misinformed. Sadly, while Ricci’s wish to integrate Confucianism into Christianity instead of rejecting China’s indigenous culture is admirable, his Figurist contentions produced more problems than good results. But in the end, Matteo Ricci is little remembered for his theological and historical creativity; he is more often remembered today for his contributions to, and influence on, Chinese society, a legacy few foreigners can claim. 2.8.4

The Legacy

Jean Lacouture, in his book about the great men of the Jesuit order, wrote: Matteo Ricci was the perfect man of culture, a polymath versed in all things, mathematics and literature, philosophy and poetry, mechanics and astronomy. Not for nothing was he the pupil of Christophonus Clavius, Roberto Bellarmino, and Luis de Molina. But he denied that he was a theologian, although others say that he was. And… in his hands the exact sciences as well as morals and logic would be turned into the weapons of apologetics.32

Few people have ever mastered, no less written on, such a wide array of topics: philosophy, astronomy, theology, friendship, cartography, catechetics, apologetics, mathematics, and so forth. In 1983 the Republic of China (Taiwan) celebrated Ricci’s contribution to Chinese society by issuing a special commemorative stamp in his

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honor. He appears on the stamp as an august “foreign” man with a full white beard, while the Great Wall of China undulates behind him. In China he is cultural ambassador Ricci, scientist Ricci, Confucian Ricci, but he is seldom mentioned there as Father Ricci, a Roman Catholic priest and apologist for Christianity. His tomb is the site of many visitors—scientists, historians, sinologists, and Jesuits who honor his legacy as a great man of their order. As I passed through the imposing gates of the Beijing Communist Party School of China—which now surrounds his tomb—I expected to find his tomb surrounded by tourists. And, yes, there were a few European tourists at his tomb discussing Ricci’s role as a “cultural ambassador” of the West in China. But after the tourists had left, a small group of Chinese gathered beside me, intoned the sign of the cross (Yin fu ji zi ji shengshen zhi ming ), and prayed the Hail Mary (Wanfu Maliya …). In China there are two groups of people who honor Ricci, those who value his maps, clocks, and Western novelties, and those who know him as an apologist and progeniture of Christianity in Asia. I introduced myself to the Chinese Christians praying beside me, and they told me of how China’s Catholics are grateful to Father Ricci for bringing them the Eucharist, churches, theology, Christian morality, and most of all, inner solitude in an increasingly materialistic society. China now has more than twenty million Catholics, and each of them owes some debt to the efforts of Ricci. At the end of his book, Tianzhu shiyi, a work that has influenced so many Chinese intellectuals, Father Ricci wrote: “The holy Church therefore has sacred water which it uses on those who enter its gates. Everyone who wants to follow this Way, who deeply repents his past wrongdoings, and who sincerely wants to turn away from his transgressions to do good and receive this sacred water, will receive love of the Lord of Heaven, and will have all his former evil forgiven. He will be like a newborn Child.”33 This is a rather radical announcement to broadcast during the late Ming dynasty, and it still is. Ricci filled many roles, and China and the world can rightly appreciate his ability to build cultural, scientific, and technological bridges between two very different cultures. But in his private journals, letters, and scores of Latin, Italian, and Chinese books, Ricci reveals himself to be an apologist for dialogue, a dialogue that above all leads others to intercultural friendship and religious conversion.

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2.9 Essay 2.9 China’s Largest Catholic Village (July 2010) Traveling through China’s poorer provinces one often sees blue coal trucks, mule-driven carts brimming with freshly harvested vegetables, squatting peasants smoking long-stemmed pipes, or dilapidated roadside hovels with exposed light bulbs hanging precariously from crumbling ceilings. Occasional pavilions or temples might be seen, though these were largely destroyed during the stormy decade of the Cultural Revolution. Catholic churches suffered two major periods of destruction, the Boxer Uprising, and the Cultural Revolution. The anti-foreign Boxers, called the Fists of Righteous Harmony, swept through China’s northern provinces attacking churches and Christians, and when the Red Guards were told to destroy the “Four Olds”—old ideas, old customs, old habits, and old culture—they attacked not only anything that seemed traditional, but also anything that was foreign or religious. Being old, traditional, foreign, and religious, Catholic churches, orphanages, seminaries, and hospitals suffered widespread destruction through the Maoist era. Despite these two historical events Chinese Christianity has grown at a meteoric rate in recent decades, swelling from around four million faithful in 1949 to more than fifty million today. The current government has responded quite openly to this growth compared to its previous intolerance, though the situation in China remains unsteady, and present signs suggest increased control over Catholic activities by the central authorities. Surveillance cameras monitor church entrances and the Religious Affairs Bureau has become more rigid in its stance against Roman “interference” in Church affairs in China. Papal authority, abortion, and the election of bishops continue to be sensitive topics, though the level of intensity of these conflicts differs from province to province. One of the most astounding Catholic success stories in China is the village of Liuhecun, located an hour’s drive outside of the economically poor capital city of Shanxi, Taiyuan, the center of what is sometimes called China’s most Catholic diocese. Liuhecun is difficult to find without help, and it is best accessed through the introduction of one of the local priests. On the way to the village one of Shanxi’s largest secrets unfurls; the high steeples of church after church dot the landscape and crosses rise above small villages as they do in southern France. Passing through a narrow side road one arrives at Liuhecun and is welcomed by three great statues at the village entrance: St. Peter holding

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his keys, flanked by Saints Simon and Matthew. Thirty minutes before Mass begins the village loudspeakers, once airing the revolutionary voice of Mao and party slogans, now broadcast the rosary. Winding through the village, the large church with its imposing edifice and towering dome loom above, and once you arrive you are greeted by a curious admixture of Romanesque architecture, yellow plastic palm trees, and streaming colored banners. Shanxi has its own peculiar tastes, and almost every church contains two large grandfather clocks (no one could tell me the origin of this ubiquitous tradition) and lines of colored flags in and outside the sanctuary. Liuhecun is China’s largest Catholic village. Attending one of the church’s Sunday Masses, which draws around three thousand faithful, is dizzying. Before Mass the priests and faithful kneel to intone the rosary in an old Shanxi-style chant—it is a loud affair, broadcast over loudspeakers. In what is actually a very modest village by Chinese standards— around seven-to-nine-thousand people—more than ninety percent are Catholic. One of the reasons for its strong commitment to its religious faith, villagers say, is the village’s endurance through the two terrible anti-Catholic persecutions. Popular local stories circulate about how Liuhecun village survived the ravages of the Boxer Uprising. In a meeting with the church’s largebearded and lively pastor, Father Zhang Junhai, one of these stories was recounted. The residents say that as the Boxers approached the village during the summer of 1900, the Virgin Mary appeared above the church’s bell tower in flowing white robes; her hands were extended in prayer before her. They say an army of angels surrounded her as she prayed, and whichever direction she faced pointed toward the direction from which the Boxers were approaching. Thus, with Mary’s help the stronger men of the community were able to prepare in advance to ward off the Boxer attacks. Several times the Boxers approached, and each time Mary appeared above the church praying in the direction of their advance. The Catholics of the village also attribute to Mary’s assistance the fact that the Boxer cannons backfired on the attackers as they fired on the village. Today, the village’s devotion to Mary is tangible; traditionally each family prays an evening rosary and displays an image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in their home. Nearly seven decades after the violent Boxer Uprising, the Cultural Revolution disturbed the peaceful rhythms of the village. The church was stripped of its pews, the altar lay bare, and revolutionary slogans covered

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the walls and columns. Like all China at that time, Liuhecun’s church was closed and the faithful were compelled to either join the radical fervor of the Red Guards or suffer under the revolution for remaining Catholic. Some of the villagers erected tents for Mass, where the priest courageously and defiantly offered the liturgical rites on a makeshift altar. One elderly man, in his nineties quite openly recounted for us the arrest and beating of his Franciscan uncle during the turbulence of the Maoist era. The priest was “struggled against” several times, which included pulling his hair, physical beatings, and cruel forms of restraint. In the end, the priest suffered from a head injury and died. Stories of Mary’s assistance and the sacrifices of such people as the Franciscan who died in 1969, strengthen the resolve of the village to remain committed to its religious identity. Father Zhang informed me that his parish confronts new struggles today, less related to persecution than the burgeoning wave of materialism that prevails in modern China. While the youth are in the village they commonly attend catechism in addition to participating in a rich schedule of liturgical rites and parish events. Since nearly all of the villagers are active Catholics, those who remain in the community are little affected by the consumerism and secular views of China’s majority. Less than three percent of China is Christian, so there is scant spiritual support for those who leave the village for study or employment outside the community. The villagers can rely on each other for support and encouragement; they are willing to bear the monetary fines when having more than one child since their Catholic neighbors support and assist them. But it is more difficult to resist official policies and pressures when away from the community. Liuhecun remains China’s largest Catholic village largely because it has formulated strategies for having more children per family than allowed by state law. Attending Mass in the immense church, one is bewildered by the number of children whirling through the aisles before the service, a unique sight in one-child policy China. Just over two centuries ago, Liuhecun was little more than a sequence of agricultural fields; today it is a Catholic success story in a country with a protracted history of anti-Catholic persecution. When asked about the village’s dedication to the pope, Father Zhang noted its fierce loyalty to the Holy Father and its commitment to following his teachings. I noticed the proudly displayed papal blessing and photograph of Benedict XVI near Father Zhang’s desk as he answered this question. “We are a very traditional Catholic community,” he said, “not like in other countries.” I could not help but think that despite the irregularity of the Chinese

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Church’s relationship with Rome, in many ways it retains a stronger Catholic identity and commitment than many other countries. Liuhecun is an extraordinary Catholic village, and it enjoys comparative freedom from governmental interference, perhaps due to its remote location. It is also extremely poor, and the lure of material comforts continues to draw villagers away. Not all of those who leave the village strain to retain their faith, however. Liuhecun is one of the principal springs from which vocations emerge in all of China. It seems that in almost every diocese one encounters a young priest who tells you he is from Liuhecun, and there can be little doubt that most of China’s Catholics have heard of this wellspring of Catholic faith and vocations. The religious convictions of China’s largest Catholic village is passionate, for the very name of their small village alludes to God’s role in synchronizing all existence. From ancient times China has believed in the harmonious relationship between the “five directions,” north, south, east, west, middle, known as the “Five Harmonies” (Wuhe). Not long after the Catholics of this region settled, they named their new village “Six Harmonies Village” (Liuhecun) because they believe there can be no harmony without God, the “sixth direction.” As I departed from Liuhecun after attending Mass, his assistant priest and the church manager stood near the gate waving goodbye. Hundreds of old men and women stood near the church door watching the foreign guests leaving the village. And it seemed like a thousand children ran past us laughing and playing with each other. I imagined that many of those young boys and girls someday will serve the Church as priests and nuns. I wondered also how many non-Chinese Catholics have heard of this village, tucked inconspicuously in the arid scenery of Shanxi province. Looking back at the enormous church I reflected on the catholicity of the Catholic Church; a Western-style church surrounded by Chinese-style houses and markets. Most Westerners would not recognize the tunes of the chanted prayers, or the language, or the way people interact. But most visitors to Liuhecun would admire the pious devotion to their religious beliefs exhibited by the several thousand who live their modest lives in Liuhecun, named for its dedication to the “six harmonies.” These are people who live according to a uniquely Chinese form of Catholic faith.

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2.10 Essay 2.10 No Easy Answers: A Discussion with Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian (July 2010) Towering above Shanghai’s St. Ignatius Cathedral is the recently built chancery of the diocese, and on the fourth floor of this imposing structure is the personal residence and greeting hall of China’s most powerful “aboveground” Roman Catholic bishop, the ninety-four-year-old Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian. While millions of tourists pour into the city’s World Expo each day to get a taste of the future, the elderly Bishop Jin sits above it all as a vestige of China’s complicated past, pre-and-post communism. Business people who occupy Shanghai’s swank new Pudong skyscrapers and the bustling young jetsetters on the Bund are largely unaware of, or do not really care about, the city’s Catholic scene; it is quite small in proportion to the rising megalopolis’ materialist crowd, little concerned with the vicissitudes of politics and religion. But on the landscape of world Christianity, Jin has become a towering figure, not unlike his new chancery, accessible only through layers of watchmen and coded locked doors. After passing through one of Shanghai’s hippest shopping centers and bastion of modern Chinese materialism, once the center of the city’s Catholic community, I was ushered into the private residence of Bishop Jin. He is surprisingly lucid and energetic for a man nearing a century old and suffering from diabetes. He is one of the Church’s most enigmatic persons, and one often wonders if what he is saying is a direct truth or a circuitous statement, a result of his years of dealing with communist officials who hold an ever-tighter grasp on his movements as China’s most public prelate. He has granted countless interviews in the past, but I met him only a week after researching in the China Province Jesuit Archives, where his name is woven through the history of the Society’s work in China. Bishop Jin was unusually candid with me, though I know from experience how vigilant one must be in mainland China when discussing the government’s role in religious matters. Shanghai’s Catholic churches are very different from those through the rest of China; they host more foreigners—and thus collect more foreign money—and are in much better condition than the more rural parishes elsewhere. Jin’s mark is indelibly seen on the Shanghai Church, for he has received more foreign monetary help than any other Chinese bishop, and has situated the diocese’s finances in such way that it is independently solvent. And he is quite proud of this success. Some wonder, however,

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how much government cooperation facilitated the impressive restoration of his diocese after the human purges and pillaging of church property during the Cultural Revolution. Whatever Jin did to make Shanghai China’s most powerful diocese, some suggest, is less important than the fact that he did it. For the less-powerful but fervent “underground” community in Shanghai, nothing less than unwavering obedience and support for the Vatican is acceptable, and Shanghai is today a penetrating example of how divided the Church in China can be. There is a little-known reality involving Shanghai: Bishop Aloysius Jin is not the main bishop of the diocese, and in a country that has illegalized Catholic orders, he is not China’s only Jesuit bishop. In fact, the principle bishop of Shanghai according to the Vatican is Fan Zhonglian, another Jesuit, and Jin is his coadjutor. This of course is not his official status according to China’s government officials; state documents only mention Bishop Jin as the Ordinary of the diocese. Whenever you ask a Chinese bishop or priest about the state of the Chinese Church you hear: “It’s complicated.” Bishop Jin is complicated, and he admits it. The nature of his own complexities, he says, is how he makes it all work. During the government’s attacks against the Shanghai Catholic community in the 1950s, both Father Jin Luxian and the then Bishop Gong Pinmei (Cardinal Kung) were arrested and placed into prison for refusing to follow the party line. Many Catholics now wonder how Bishop Jin, who spent decades suffering in a state prison for resisting party pressures, has been so successful in Shanghai in China if he hasn’t somehow changed his approach (Fig. 2.4). After presenting Bishop Jin with a few rare photographs of the Jesuit mission in the 1950s, we began to discuss the general setting of the Chinese Church today and how he has navigated through the intricacies of being a Catholic bishop in a communist country. “Yes, it is very complicated here, and I have had to be, how do you say, both a serpent and a dove. I am both a serpent and a dove. The government thinks I’m too close to the Vatican, and the Vatican thinks I’m too close to the government. I’m a slippery fish squashed between government control and Vatican demands. When I got out of prison the Church here was in ruins; after I replaced my predecessor [Bishop Aloysius Zhang Jiashu—consecrated illicitly.] I wrote hundreds of letters to Catholics all over the world asking for money to restore the Catholic community here in Shanghai. Most of my money came from Germany—some came from America and other European countries. I received nothing from the

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Fig. 2.4 Bishop Jin Luxian (center) at an ordination in the Shanghai Cathedral, 1985 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

Vatican. I tried to get the prayer for the pope restored in the Missale Romanum. At that time the government forbade us from two things: we could not implement the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council—this would have been viewed as capitulating to the Vatican— and we were forbidden from reciting the prayer for the pope during Mass. As far as the government was concerned the Church in China was entirely independent from Rome. I made ten trips to Beijing to ask the authorities to allow us to pray for the pope in Mass, but they were against it. So, since we had to use the old Mass I contacted a German friend and asked him to save as many volumes of the Missale Romanum as he could—this was after the Council and everyone was throwing them away. He sent me over 400 discarded books with the prayer for the pope in them, which I distributed. I also had new copies printed in Shanghai and sent them out for use elsewhere. I succeeded. This is when the pope’s name was openly mentioned again in the Mass”.

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Despite his often-valiant resistance to state control over the actions of the Church, I noted that he is still called China’s “patriotic bishop.” I asked for an example of how he has used his position to gain more freedom from the Patriotic Association for the Church in his diocese. “I’m not a ‘patriotic bishop’; I’m just a Catholic bishop. Look, I had a recent book published on the Diocese of Shanghai and the Patriotic Association does not appear in it once. In fact, when the Patriotic Association office moved temporarily away from the cathedral and chancery I quickly occupied the space for another use. So, when they wanted to move back there was no place for them—Shanghai thus does not have a Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.” Perhaps one of the most openly criticized of Bishop Jin’s positions is his view that the “underground” Church should converge with the state-sanctioned Church. Jin seems to advocate the complete dissolution of the “underground” community. Some analysts have suggested, including myself, that China’s “official” and “underground” Churches are becoming less distinct, an opinion that Jin adamantly disagrees with. He also renders some somewhat acrid criticisms of Cardinal Joseph Zen’s open recommendation that the “underground” Church remain “underground.” “No, it is not at all true in China right now that the line between us and the ‘underground’ is disappearing. In fact, the division is growing worse. Few people really understand that we in the sanctioned Church suffer more because we are completely in the open—subject to the government’s constant scrutiny. First, let me outline the situation in general terms. Some people think that the ‘underground’ Church is the true Catholic Church in China, and that they are the only ones truly loyal to the pope. They also state that they are more obedient than the sanctioned community. This is largely untrue—actually, the government knows where we are at all times—we live under enormous pressure to acquiesce to party demands. The ‘underground’ community is on the other hand free to move around at will. You know, according to canon law a priest must remain under the jurisdiction of the diocesan Ordinary, but the ‘underground’ clergy float around all over China at will with great freedom; is this obeying Church law? And, when the pope wrote his recent letter to China it was the official community that responded with careful obedience to the letter. The ‘underground’ has almost completely ignored it. Is this obedience to the pope? Also, when the pope called for the two Catholic communities in China to heal our differences and work

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as one Church, Cardinal Zen in Hong Kong encouraged the ‘underground’ Church to remain firm in their opposition to the sanctioned community. Is this what the pope wants?” In Bishop Jin’s view, the chasm between the two divided communities will remain firm until after the eras of Cardinal Zen and Mr. Liu Bainian, the chairman of the Patriotic Association, are over. “These two men are obstacles in the Chinese Church right now, and until they are gone we will still be unable to reconcile the line between the ‘underground’ and ‘aboveground’ communities. As long as Liu wants the Church here to be entirely independent some Chinese Catholics will remain ‘underground,’ and as long as Cardinal Zen tells the ‘underground’ to remain separate there will be no unity.” I redirected our discussion toward the suffering endured by Catholics in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution, and Bishop Jin’s expression became solemn as though this were a subject with raw emotional attachments. He simply remarked that “During the Cultural Revolution many, many holy men and women suffered and were killed, but this is a subject better left to a later time. Now is not a prudent time to discuss these things.” And finally, I asked if there might be something he wished could be conveyed to the pope. “I would first of all say, ‘Thank you. Thank you for understanding China’s Catholics, as you showed in your recent letter.’ The letter the pope wrote to the Church in China was beautiful. I would additionally tell him that we love him. We love him and pray for him. We have been praying for him especially through his recent difficulties; the Church in China is on his side. The Church in China prays for him, and the diocese of Shanghai prays for him. Finally, I would tell him that despite the little help we have received from Rome, I still serve the Vatican. I am still loyal to the Vatican. I am so happy with this pope; I think he deeply understands the Church in China. He should use more discretion, however, when listening to the advice of some outside bishops. The situation here is complex” (Fig. 2.5). He continued to offer some personal reflections on particular persons who figured in Shanghai’s painful Catholic history, touching affectionately on the former Cardinal Gong, who has become a banner of heroism within the “underground” Church. They had been old friends before their imprisonment; Gong sat beside Jin during their official “trial.” In the end, the predominant themes of Bishop Jin’s remarks in this interview centered on how much the Church has improved since his official

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Fig. 2.5 Anthony E. Clark with Bishop Jin Luxian at the Shanghai Roman Catholic chancery, 2010 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)

installment as Shanghai’s bishop and how he believes that the “underground” community should surface to join the recognized Church. This latter point Jin freely admits is contrary to the position of Cardinal Zen, who was also raised in the Shanghai diocese. The complexities surrounding Bishop Aloysius Jin must be viewed in light of the complexities of his life and context. It has not been easy for him; it was not easy for all Catholics who faced government persecutions after 1949. Thanks to Jin’s tireless efforts Shanghai currently boasts a vibrant Catholic community with a well-appointed and attended seminary, and large number of restored and dynamic churches.34 While some say this was all accomplished through compromise, others praise his shrewdness as beneficial to the Church. He is a warm and welcoming and affable man, uncommonly judicious, but one never quite knows if he is speaking as Bishop Jin the serpent or Bishop Jin the dove.

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Notes 1. For a history of Nestorian Christianity in China see, P. Y. Saeki, The Nestorian Monument in China (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1916). 2. See Zhonghua xundao shengren zhuan [Biographies of China’s Martyr Saints] (Taipei: Tianzhujiao jiaowu xie jinhui, 2000). 3. Archives of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, Rome, “Marie Hermine, FMM, Correspondence,” 1900. 4. Archives of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, Rome, “Marie de Sainte Nathalie, FMM, Correspondence,” 1900. 5. Quoted in George G. Christian, SS. Augustine Zhao Rong and Companions: Martyrs of China (New York: Dominican Friars, Province of St. Joseph, 2005), 69. 6. John Paul II, “Chinese Martyr Saint Canonization Homily,” 1 October 2000. 7. W. Devine, The Four Churches of Peking (Tianjin: The Tientsin Press/Burns, Oats & Washburne, 1930), 33. 8. Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 307. 9. Mei Qianli (Thierry Meynard), Beijing jiaotang [Beijing’s Churches] (Beijing: Shangzhi bianyi guan, 2007), 64. 10. 1 Cor 9:23, RSV. 11. Louis Nazaire Bégin, Life of Mother Marie-Hermine of Jesus: Massacred in Shan-si (China) July 9th, 1900 (Quebec: Archeveque de Quebec, 1910), 62–63. 12. Pierre-Marie-Alphonse Favier, C.M., The Heart of Pekin: Bishop A. Favier’s Diary of the Siege, May-August 1990, ed. J. Freri (Boston: Marlier & Company, Ltd., 1901), 24. 13. Favier, The Heart of Pekin, 48. 14. Basil M. Pennington, Twentieth Century Martyrs of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance (Spencer: St Joseph’s Abbey, 1997), 21. 15. Quoted in Christopher Dawson, The Mongol Mission: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York: AMS Press, 1980), 225. 16. Richard Madsen, China’s Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society, Comparative Studies in Religion and Society, Vol. 12 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 36. 17. Zhou Tailiang and Liu Hui, Catholic Church in China (Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, 2005), viii. 18. Zhou Tailiang, Catholic Church in China, 17. 19. Benedict XVI, Letter to the Catholic Church in China (Rome 2007), 4. 20. Benedict XVI, Letter to the Catholic Church in China, 8.

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21. Two recent works serve to outline the biographical contours of Ricci’s missionary life and intellectual legacy in China. R. Po-Chia Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci, 1552–1610 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); R. Po-Chia Hsia, Matteo Ricci & the Catholic Mission to China, 1583–1610: A Short History with Documents (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2016). 22. For Ricci’s chapel and the early Jesuit presence in Beijing see Anthony E. Clark, China Gothic: The Bishop of Beijing and His Cathedral (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019), especially Chapter 3. 23. Joseph Needham, Science & Civilization in China, Vol. 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 148. 24. Quoted by Joseph Shih in his introduction to Matteo Ricci and Nicolas Trigault: Histoire de l’expédition chrétienne au Royaume de la Chine, 1582–1610 (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1978), 38; Also see Jean-Pierre Charbonnier, Christians in China: A.D. 600 to 2000, trans. M. N. L. Couve de Murville (San Fransisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 153. 25. Jonathan D. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), 139. 26. Quoted in Lionel M. Jensen, Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions & Universal Civilization (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 93. 27. For a convenient bilingual edition of Ricci’s catechism, see Matteo Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (T’ien-chu Shih-i), trans. Douglas Lancashire. Hong Kong: Ricci Institute, 1985. 28. Charbonnier, Christians in China, 194. 29. Quoted in David Chung and Kang-nam Oh, Syncretism: The Religious Context of Christian Beginnings in Korea (Albany: SUNY Press, 2001), 58. 30. For a study of one of the most influential Figurist successors of Matteo Ricci, see Knud Lundbæk, Joseph De Prémare (1666–1736), S.J.: Chinese Philology and Figurism (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 1991). 31. For a description of the main Figurist conclusions, see Nicolas Standaert, The Interweaving of Historical Texts: Chinese and European Stories About Emperor Ku and His Concubines (Leiden: Brill, 2016), especially Chapter 4. 32. Jean Lacouture, Jesuits: A Multibiography, trans. Jeremy Leggatt (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 189. 33. Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, 455. 34. Since this interview was conducted in 2010, the Shanghai seminary has been closed by state officials and remains unused for priestly formation.

CHAPTER 3

Making Friends and Mourning Losses, 2011–2013

When God wishes to save a nation He does not spare it sufferings. Lu Zhengxiang (Dom Pierre-Célestin Lou Tseng-Tsiang)

3.1

Essay 3.1 Hard Answers: A Discussion with Cardinal Joseph Zen (May 2011)

Hong Kong remains Asia’s most modern city, bursting with people and rising materialism. Nestled within the island’s network of winding roads, steep escalators, and soaring skyscrapers is a small building that houses a community of modest Salesians who serve the poor and educate the young after the example of St. John Bosco (1815–1888). It is difficult to imagine when first arriving at this unassuming community that it is the home of China’s most prominent and outspoken Catholic prelate, Cardinal Joseph Zen, who was raised in Catholic Shanghai during China’s turbulent years of transition to a communist state. After being granted a private interview, a Jesuit friend I awaited His Eminence downstairs in his residence at the Salesian House of Studies. Cardinal Zen joined us, adjusted the air conditioning, and informed us that he was feeling “a bit unwell” that day. Despite his illness, he was generous with his time, and lived up to his reputation of honesty and candor regarding the situation of the Church in China.

© The Author(s) 2020 A. E. Clark, China’s Catholics in an Era of Transformation, Christianity in Modern China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6182-5_3

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Zen served as bishop of Hong Kong from 2002 to 2009, and was made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006. When asked in a previous interview whether he intended to rest in his retirement, he answered: “I am retiring, but I’m not going to stop working for the Chinese Church.” It is clear that Cardinal Zen is a deeply pious laborer for the Catholic Church and its religious mission, and that his heart is unflinchingly committed to improving the status of China’s long-suffering Christian community. He is perhaps the most informed man alive today regarding what transpires among the Catholics who live within the Great Wall. Our discussion began with a reflection on Tertullian’s statement that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. I asked Cardinal Zen why it is that China has produced a comparatively large number of Christian martyrs in its history, and why persecution against Catholics persists so strongly today (Fig. 3.1). He responded, “When we talk about the situation in China at present, we are talking about the persecution under the communist regime.” He noted that while communism is in

Fig. 3.1 Anthony E. Clark with Joseph Cardinal Zen at his Salesian residence in Hong Kong, 2010 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)

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principle the same everywhere, it has different characteristics depending on the country in which it exists. “China is fundamentally a place where Christians are the minority,” and in China the Christian mission “has been considered imperialist,” according to Zen. Thus, the communist persecution of Christians in China has been “cruel and pitiless.” Also, since “China’s communist regime is an ‘improved edition’ of communism,” control there over religion is particularly tight. I asked why it is that while the Chinese government wants the Catholic community to be indigenous, or as state officials put it, “Sinicized,” it nonetheless suppresses the veneration of the Chinese saints canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000. Zen noted that “you never know what’s in the mind of the communist government in China”; it is “very secretive” about its proceedings. But, he said, after the Vatican’s announcement that the canonizations would take place, the authorities asked Catholics “to sign a document against the pope.” He also recalled that the decision to hold the canonization ceremony on October 1, China’s national day, “was, of course, a big mistake.” Choosing the day that China celebrates the beginning of its communist government to canonize Catholic saints was viewed by the party as an intentional insult to China’s national sovereignty. And due to the government’s control over the Church’s activities, “very few Chinese Catholics are aware of the 120 canonized martyrs,” Zen stated. Another problem China’s Church faces is rising nationalism. Cardinal Zen insists that Chinese Catholics remain Chinese, “just like before.” The Church, he said, does not threaten Chinese identity. Regarding the mainland’s escalating nationalism, Zen maintains that the first thing to bear in mind is that Chinese and Western cultures are in fact quite different. “The missionary coming here brings his own nationality, and in spite of all the efforts he makes he is still a foreigner. You should not be scandalized by this.” Nonetheless, “The missionaries brought the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas with them when they came to China. What’s wrong with this? They brought the best of the Church with them.” While nationalism grows more extreme, the cardinal maintains that Westerners and Chinese are in the end different, and that both should honor each other’s gifts. When asked why the canonized Chinese martyr saints date only as recent as 1930, Cardinal Zen responded that perhaps the Vatican “did not want to irritate the communist government.” But Zen wondered, “Why should we not publicize all those martyrs who died under the communists?” And he added, “People here don’t dare to publish. They

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say, ‘We wait for better times.’ But I would say, ‘When would there be “better times”? Now is the better time.’” Zen calls on Catholics who suffered through the anti-Christian cruelties of the Cultural Revolution to recount their stories. And he also exhorts scholars to write histories of what happened during the Maoist era. Zen suggested that it is a pity that Catholics do not publish now, while persecution is still rampant in China; “now is when people need encouragement.” “Martyrdom means ‘witness’,” he said, and China’s martyrs—those who are canonized and those whose stories are not yet known—must be written about and discussed in order to strengthen the faith of those who suffer today under mistreatment. I asked Cardinal Zen about the current situation of the “underground” and “aboveground” Catholic communities; while some have said that the line between them is disappearing, many Chinese priests and bishops today assert the opposite—that the division between them is growing more intense. Zen said: Between 1989 and 1996 I was living in China six months a year teaching in the seminaries of the open Church, and my conclusion as I taught at the Shanghai seminary was that they are Catholics, just like the Catholics anywhere else in the world. And so I told people that they should not think that the “underground” is loyal and the open Patriotic Church has betrayed the faith. No, not at all. At a synod I told the bishops that there is only one Church in China, because in their hearts [Chinese Catholics] have the same faith. But if you look from the structural point of view, how they are run things, it is clear that you have two “separate Churches.” The “underground” Church is beyond the law. It has a kind of freedom, and it doesn’t accept the control of the government. But the “open” Church is still held tightly under the government’s power. So, surely you cannot say that the line is disappearing. Some people say that the “underground” should surface. That’s absolutely wrong. It’s not in the letter of the Holy Father [to the Catholics of China, published in 2007], and this view has been clarified in the footnotes of the [letter’s] compendium [published in 2009]. The Holy Father was talking about a reconciliation of hearts, not a merger into one system.

If the government’s control of the “open” Church is so imposing, Zen asked, “Why should the underground surrender to the open Church?” After all, he stated, “They have suffered for so long, and to suddenly surrender is not at all a fair expectation.”

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Cardinal Zen’s directness is often disparaged by journalists, other bishops, and scholars, but he says that he is not concerned with popularity; his advocates insist that he is, like Pope Benedict XVI, a man committed to the truth. “When in China, if anybody talks against the underground I will defend the underground, and if anybody talks against the open Church I will defend the open Church, because they are all under persecution.” Unfortunately, Zen suggested, “The Holy Father’s generosity in legitimizing the bishops of the open Church has not born the fruits it was supposed to produce.” “There was a compromise from both sides,” Zen explained. “The Holy Father recognized and approved [these government-selected bishops] without demanding any acts of rebellion against the government, and on the other hand, the government accepted this without punishing the bishops who were endorsed by the pope.” So, Zen asks, why do the two communities remain so divided? “A solution can be found…so it is really beyond my understanding why it is still the same. I blame those bishops in China who are not following the will of the Church’s leaders, but rather only wish to follow their own advantage.” Another problem is that many of those bishops approved by the pope are not strong and exhibit an interior duplicity. And, Zen states, “Even some who are in communion with Rome will say in their speeches, ‘I want an independent Church.’ How can they say they are in communion with the Holy Father? This is incredible.” Cardinal Zen, himself deeply committed to the Vatican, calls upon his fellow bishops in China to be undivided, to follow Rome without equivocation. This, he insists, is what it means to be an “authentic bishop in the Catholic Church.” I then asked Cardinal Zen whether he felt that the pope’s letter to China actually removed the “underground” Church’s raison d’être, in light of the pope’s suggestion that being “underground” is not the normal way the Church functions. Has the pope’s statement somehow created new confusions in the Chinese Church? Zen says no, asserting that in China, “Catholics are scandalized that official bishops who have been recognized by the pope are still on the side of the government.” He stated that the pope has not in fact asked the “underground” Church to surface and join the Patriotic Church, but rather has highlighted the extremity of China’s abnormal situation. The cardinal proposes that the “underground” community has good cause to be suspicious of the sanctioned Church, though this view has received some criticisms. To his critics he responds:

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People say, “Who are you, Cardinal Zen? You live in a peaceful environment and you push your brothers to martyrdom.” I don’t push anyone to martyrdom; martyrdom is a special grace from God. But I think that if you are a bishop you must be coherent with your faith. The most important thing to the communists is control, and they have found a way to control the Church in China through the Patriotic Association.

When asked to elaborate on how the Patriotic Church is controlled in China, Zen pointed to Liu Bainian, the current vice chairman of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. He affirms that Liu is perhaps one of the most significant factors in the government’s efforts to control China’s Catholics. “For many years [Liu] has been head of the whole Chinese Church, and the bishops are really just his slaves,” Zen explained. “At dinners with Mr. Liu and the bishops, Liu is the only one who talks. But when he goes away everyone can speak; this is very humiliating. Some, however, consider him a saint. What can we do? It’s amazing.” When asked about detractors who claim that Liu and Zen are two extremes who keep the Chinese Church divided, the cardinal remarked: They are not wrong. We really are two extremes. He [desires] the whole Chinese Church to remain in a state of separation from Rome; he has pushed for the illicit ordination of bishops, and he pushed for the 50year celebration of the Patriotic Association. We even have evidence that many things he does go beyond what the government orders. When the government calls for five bishops to attend a Chinese synod, Liu sends a sixth. The government cannot be happy about this.

Cardinal Zen stated that it would help the situation in China if the bishops would simply begin to honor the Holy Father’s recent letter to the Chinese Church. “I cannot understand how it is that so many people do not take his letter seriously; some even give the letter a distorted interpretation.” Despite the serious problems facing the Church in China, the number of Catholics continues to rise. One wonders what the Catholic community there is doing right. “It is no surprise,” Zen says, “that people find consolation in Christianity when China is in such a disordered state.” He also asks the world to bear in mind that “Chinese Christians are still a very small minority,” and that people “should not be overly demanding of the Chinese Church at this time.” He insists that “The Chinese Church today has to fight for survival, unlike the Church in other parts of the world.

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But despite its need to fight for survival it manages to evangelize and offer charitable services.” Finally, I asked Cardinal Zen what Catholics outside of China can do for the Chinese Church. His answer was quite simple: I think the first thing is to get to know the Church in China. The pity today is that there are many people who know about what is happening in China but do not talk, and many people who do talk about China’s Catholics do not really know anything. People must know the reality—the true reality of the situation. Today there’s too much confusion—too much confusion.

Cardinal Zen also noted, “The Holy Father today is very clear in his ideas regarding the Church in China, and we are lucky to have such a Pope.” As we completed our discussion we recalled again the words of Tertullian, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. We reflected on how China’s history of Sino-Missionary conflict and confluence continues to inspire Chinese Catholics toward deeper commitment to their religious faith. Cardinal Zen ended with a prayer to Our Lady, Help of Christians, “to bless all those who are suffering for their faith, and also the people who are trying to help them.” As I stood to leave, Cardinal Zen said, “Well, I need to rush off so I can offer my daily Mass.” He blessed a number of images of Our Lady of China and left the room. Zen is often called “a man of the Church,” profoundly concerned for the faith and freedom of his fellow Chinese. And it is clear that he will not rest until the communist government of China gives the Church complete independence from its oversight. As Zen said, “The final word should not be exclusively on the side of an atheistic government.” It appears that Cardinal Zen intends to get little respite in his retirement years, for he has set himself to no less a task than contending with a government that he describes as “cruel and pitiless.” Despite the challenges faced by China’s Catholics, Zen is a man of hope; as he has said, “Winter has passed and spring will come.”

3.2 Essay 3.2 Ambiguous Lines: “Underground” and “Aboveground” (May 2011) Since the founding of the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, Catholics there have navigated through tempestuous waters. Article 88 of the first constitution of the PRC, enacted on 20 September

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1952, acknowledged the freedom to hold religious beliefs, but this freedom was permitted only insofar as the faithful did not participate in counterrevolutionary activities. Mao Zedong declared in one of his early speeches as helmsman of the PRC: “Please make certain that you strike surely, accurately, and relentlessly in suppressing the counterrevolutionaries.”1 Thus, while religious tolerance was heralded during the PRC’s first decades, religious observance was in turns viewed as counterrevolutionary; in 1951, two years after the founding of the PRC, nearly all of China’s Catholic clergy and religious were expelled from China or arrested as counterrevolutionaries, identified in official state documents as “ideological saboteurs.” In an interview with Bishop Wang Chongyi of Guiyang, Wang sat beside me and emotionally recounted how during the first few decades of the PRC he witnessed personally the imprisonment, torture, and executions of several of his fellow priests. “There are martyrs who were buried alive, beaten, or starved to death under the communists— saints whose sufferings will remain forgotten. The Chinese authorities have erased them; only God knows the whole story. But I saw it.”2 Like the persecuted Christians of Christian history, Chinese Catholics went “underground” and formed surreptitious communities that prayed alone without the sacraments, and, as Bishop Wang said, “No one then really knew who was Catholic. After the churches reopened, we sometimes knew for the first time that our neighbors had all along been praying the rosary in the house next door.” During Mao’s Land Reform Law of 1951, Chinese authorities confiscated temples, monasteries, and churches. The Catholic churches in Beijing serve as an apt example of the period. West Church was used as a warehouse for Tongren Tang Herbs; St. Michael’s Church was made into a primary school and restaurant; and according to the Beijing diocese’s records, the famous Gothic Revival North Cathedral was used during the Cultural Revolution “for other purposes.”3 By the 1950s, several books were published exposing the persecution of Catholics in China.4 Churches were closed or confiscated, the Christian faithful were compelled to hide, and Chinese Catholics recall that China had become a new “coliseum of martyrs.” 3.2.1

The History of the “Underground”

On 13 December 1950, the Three-Self Movement was launched in China, which, as one Catholic priest expressed in a Chinese newspaper

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article, “determined to sever all relations to imperialism, to do all we can to reform ourselves, to establish a new Church that shall be independent in its administration, its resources, and its apostolate.”5 What this “independence” implied for Chinese Catholics was the forced rupture between themselves and the central authority of their faith. As Beatrice Leung and William Liu remark, “Independence from the Vatican for the faithful literally means a rejection of their faith.”6 This led to fevered antagonisms between China’s new government and the Vatican, and it led to conflicts within the Chinese Church regarding whether to follow the government “and survive” or “remain loyal to Rome” and go underground. Pope Pius XII responded to the Three-Self Movement with an encyclical Ad Sinarum Gentem (“To the People of China”), in which he affirmed with urgent prose: …it will be entirely essential that your Christian community, if it desires to form a part of our society divinely founded by Our Redeemer, be subject in all things to the sovereign pontiff, the vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, and that it must be most clearly united to Him as far as concerns religious faith.7

Chinese Catholics were placed in the difficult position of choosing between country and religious faith; most chose to retain their faith, though many felt compelled to do so in private, and without recourse to the sacraments since the majority of China’s clergy was imprisoned, exiled, executed, or in hiding. Knowing that Catholics needed a pope, but still not understanding its theological implications, the communist government approached the Vincentian prelate Archbishop Zhou Jishi (1892–1972) and asked him if he wanted to be the “Pope of China.” When a party official approached Bishop Zhou with the proposition, he responded, “I should prefer to be pope of the whole world,” demonstrating his understanding of the position, and his refusal to acquiesce.8 Zhou was then accused of opposing the “reform of the Church” and imprisoned. The most famous bishop to be arrested in China, however, is Cardinal Ignatius Gong Pinmei (Kung Pinmei), who spent 30 years in Shanghai’s notorious Tilanqiao Prison (also called Ward Road Jail) for his loyalty to the pope. The rupture between the Church in China and the Vatican deepened on 15 July 1957, when a party-sanctioned National Assembly of Chinese Catholics was established with 241 delegates, including bishops

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and priests. It was during this meeting that the Catholic Patriotic Association was created. Soon after this new association was established writings inside and outside of China began to refer to an “underground Church” in China, consisting of Catholics who refused to affiliate with the clergy and churches under the auspices of the Catholic Patriotic Association. Just as accounts of the Catholic martyrs of China sustained the faith of Catholics during the Maoist era, stories of the sufferings endured by native clergy who refused to affiliate with the “national Church” fortified the resolve of many Chinese who remained underground. I met with one “underground” bishop who recalled his own experiences as an “underground” priest during and after the Cultural Revolution.9 Bishop Hu Daguo was ordained a priest in 1950, only one year after the founding of the PRC, and like most priests of that time, he viewed communism as an impossible partner in the mission of the Church. He refused to cooperate or collaborate with the party, and continued his ministry outside of the officially sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Association. After the Cultural Revolution had been inaugurated by Chairman Mao in 1966, 300 of Mao’s Red Guards detained Father Hu, placed a white dunce cap on his head, and beat him while shouting denunciations. Still refusing to apostatize, Hu Daguo was arrested and placed in prison for “re-education.” Bishop Hu’s experiences in prison were characteristic of what other Catholic priests encountered who ignored or refused to comply with commands to apostatize or sever loyalties to Rome. During Hu’s twenty years in prison he was subjected to four methods of “persuasion.” Bishop Hu is mostly bedridden, and although he is no longer in prison, he is still monitored and sometimes harassed by local authorities. As we talked, he informed me that he was not afraid and that we could speak freely; he noted that he was “accustomed to persecution.” Bishop Hu is an “underground” prelate in the Roman Catholic Church; his episcopal ring was given to him by Pope John Paul II when he was ordained a bishop. His situation is typical of “underground” priests and bishops in China; he lives and celebrates Mass with his fellow bishops, that is, the “aboveground” bishops of Guiyang. Bishop Hu’s room is downstairs from the other bishops’ rooms, at the cathedral residence sanctioned by the government-approved Catholic Patriotic Association. He is an example of how complex the situation is within the Church in China; the line between the “underground” and “aboveground” communities in China is becoming less distinct as the two groups begin a process of reconciliation, though this process remains slow and painful.

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A Collaborative Relationship

As I walked along a remote village road in Guizhou province with the newly ordained Father Liu Xianjun, we discussed the state of the socalled “underground” and “aboveground” communities in China. We were walking to the tomb of several martyr saints who were beheaded in 1861, a site now forbidden to Catholics. We were just “on a casual walk.” Father Liu lamented the preponderance of books, articles, and web pages referring to the “two Churches” in China, one that is “in communion with Rome” and another that is “schismatic.” When people discuss the community that is “in communion” they most often only mean the “underground” community, and they assume that the “aboveground” community is “not Catholic” because of its affiliation with the Catholic Patriotic Association. Groups such as the Cardinal Kung Foundation and Free the Fathers have worked diligently and admirably to alert Catholics throughout the world about the complexities faced by Catholic Christians in China, and they have noted how the Patriotic Association has in the past asserted itself against the authority of the pope.10 Given the history of persecution suffered by those Catholics who remained “underground” to demonstrate their loyalty to the pope, it is understandable why organizations such as the Cardinal Kung Foundation and Free the Fathers continue to offer spiritual and financial support for the “underground.” The present situation has become quite complex, however, as “underground” and “aboveground” bishops, priests, and religious often live under the same roof, and maintain deeply collaborative alliances to further the Church’s status and freedom in China. Indeed, China’s clergy— “underground” and “aboveground”—are normally quite eager to make known the present state of the Church in China. The first issue that China’s clergy would like clarified is that the Catholic Patriotic Association is not a “parallel” or “puppet” Church; it is not a “church” at all, but an administrative association established by the Chinese government to oversee the management and movements of the Catholic community in China. In actuality it monitors both the “underground” and “aboveground” groups. The “open” churches in China today typically display photographs of the current pope, include the pope’s name in the canon of the Mass, and feature his teachings in their church bulletins.

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When I asked “open” priests whether they considered themselves to be in communion with the pope I unanimously heard that they were “wholeheartedly obedient to the Holy Father,” and that they bitterly resent the current constraints they are under. I asked several priests and bishops what they would convey to the pope if such a communication was possible, and they responded, to paraphrase, “We love him, we are in communion with him, and we remain united with him in prayer, even if we are cut off from being with him in person.” This is not to suggest that their status is today normalized, nor is it to say that there are no clergy in the Patriotic Association who remain obstinately independent of Rome, insisting that the Chinese Catholic Church is and should be entirely independent of the Roman papacy. As Leung and Liu have written, the clergy and faithful mentioned above are among those who have maintained their sense of loyalty to the Holy See, while ostensibly cooperating with the Catholic Patriotic Association in order to preserve church properties and provide the sacraments to a growing number of Catholic faithful.11 In China today, the “open” Catholic community views the Catholic Patriotic Association as an unwelcome overseer; its members appear determined to function as “authentic Catholics” from within the sanctioned community, and there are signs that the Patriotic Association is presently losing its influence in China. Two examples will illustrate the present waning authority of the Catholic Patriotic Association in China. When I first arrived at the cathedral at Guiyang, I was greeted by the rector, Father Ma Dejiang, who is also the current chairman of the Catholic Patriotic Association of Guizhou province. Father Ma, who also lives in the same building as “underground” Bishop Hu Daguo, is required to attend local party meetings and participate in promoting patriotism in the local Catholic community. Father Liu Xianjun later informed me that Father Ma had been installed in the post in order to regain some of the former freedom the Church enjoyed in China before the founding of the PRC. Essentially, Father Ma cooperates with the Catholic Patriotic Association to function as a cushion between the authorities and the bishops in charge of the diocese. Father Ma’s loyalty was unquestionably with Rome, a point conceded even by the local “underground” community. The situation in Kunming, Yunnan, is more complicated. I met there with Sr. Xian Yanxia, who lives in a community of nuns attached to the cathedral; the bishop, Ma Yinglin, was elected without the pope’s approval, and is one of the few bishops in China today without the full

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support of the Vatican. Sr. Xian told me that Bishop Ma is distressed by the fact that he is not yet in open communion with Pope Benedict XVI, and that he is actively seeking the pope’s support. This was evident, as I saw more photographs of the pope in his cathedral than any other I visited in China, and the weekly bulletin included essays discussing the Holy Father’s recent homilies on St. Paul. Beside the Kunming cathedral, seminary, and convent was a prominent door with a large white sign designating the main office for the Catholic Patriotic Association. Sr. Xian took me into the “office,” which consisted of an entirely empty room. The Catholic Patriotic Association in Yunnan province is little more than a façade. When I arrived at the cathedral in Wuhan, Hubei, I was informed that no one had been selected to replace the previous bishop, Dong Guangqing (1917–2007), who had recently died of cancer. The diocese was still awaiting an agreement between the Chinese authorities and the Vatican on a mutually agreeable candidate; the fact that the Chinese authorities are even consulting the Holy See is a rather recent development for local Catholics in that area. Bishop Dong was one of the first two priests to be consecrated bishop in 1958 without the pope’s approval, and he remained out of communion with the Vatican until he reconciled with Pope John Paul II in 1984. Father Peng Xin, one of the priests in residence at Wuhan’s restored cathedral, informed me that Bishop Dong actively collaborated with the “underground” community, and in fact shared his accommodations with “underground” clergy. Not only do the “underground” and “aboveground” communities collaborate in Hubei, but the chairman of the Catholic Patriotic Association is a priest who operates in the same capacity as Father Ma Dejiang of Guiyang. As priests rather than laypersons begin to oversee the “offices” of the Catholic Patriotic Association, the association loses much of its ideological influence over the Church in China. And as bishops are more and more in open communion with the Roman Pontiff, “underground” Catholics are seen more and more openly attending Mass at state-sanctioned churches. I routinely ask bishops whether they were in open communion with the pope, and all but one (Bishop Ma Yinglin) told me that the episcopal rings they were wearing were gifts from the pope. During an interview I had with Brother Marcel Zhang, the last Trappist survivor of the 1947 communist attack on his monastery north of Beijing, he noted that while he was previously a member of the “underground” community, he

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presently attends Masses at the state-sanctioned North Church (Beitang), not too far from the Forbidden City. Several parishioners at West Church, where I attended Mass while living in Beijing, navigate freely between the “underground” and “aboveground” communities. And some members of the “underground Church” I met while visiting Matteo Ricci’s tomb in Beijing, informed me that they attend Mass at an “open” church in Beijing. I later ran into the same people at a Mass for the dead celebrated by Bishop Li Shan, current bishop of the Diocese of Beijing. But even though the line between the “underground” and “aboveground” communities is obscured, divisions persist, and a realistic view of China’s Catholic community today is needed. 3.2.3

A Realistic Assessment

Despite the great strides recently made in the Church’s freedom in China, there remain repressive vestiges of the government’s less tolerant era. The most commonly sold book today on the Catholic Church in China is Yan Kejia’s Zhongguo Tianzhujiao (Chinese Catholicism), in which the author writes of China’s “liberation” from “imperialist” Rome, heralded as a positive step in the Church’s history: “When the People’s Republic of China was established on 1 October 1949, a new era of government was inaugurated. China finally rid itself of imperialist meddling and feudalist and capitalist oppression. For the first time since 1840 [the Opium War], China enjoyed peace.”12 Yan also accuses Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Ad Sinarum Gentem of “resisting socialist construction and land reform,” suggesting that Rome was the enemy of China’s material and political growth.13 The official rhetoric disseminated by the Catholic Patriotic Association headquarters in Beijing affirms this party line, that Rome is an imperialist, foreign power that cannot be allowed political sway over China’s Catholics. It is largely due to this view that the two communities in China have not entirely grown together. I am myself often suspicious of the optimistic reports one hears from the Patriotic Association; official documents in China regarding religious freedom are often notoriously contrived. While books such as Yan’s are still widely sold in China—his is the most read and sold Catholic work to date—an increasing number of devotional books and less biased academic studies are beginning to appear in bookstores. And while the Dalai Lama’s official web page is presently blocked

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in China, the pope’s recent “Letter to Chinese Catholics” is openly available. Father Pang Wenxian, pastor of Beijing’s West Church, informed me that contrary to what is believed outside of China, the pope’s letter was widely read by China’s clergy and faithful, both “underground” and “aboveground.” The pope’s letter is informed and candid regarding persistent problems, but it also communicates a message of optimism. The “Letter to Chinese Catholics” emphatically recounts the Church’s constant belief in the necessary communion of bishops with the Holy See in order to be authentically Catholic, but it also admits that there remain very few Chinese bishops left who are not under the papal mandate. 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 legitimation. 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.14 Those very few bishops still without the pope’s recognition do not, for the most part, enjoy the support of the local clergy and faithful within their respective dioceses. It will, perhaps, only take a single generation before all China’s priests and bishops are fully unified with the See of Peter. In a 1993 article, Father Jean Charbonnier, wrote that the “cleft” between the “underground” and “aboveground” communities “is a deep one,” and also states that “At certain points of especially acute antagonism, ‘underground’ and patriotic Catholics ostracize each other, even refusing to speak to or greet each other.”15 This situation is improving, though there are some areas wherein the antagonisms remain divisive. As I was about to leave Bishop Hu’s small room at Guiyang’s beautiful cathedral complex, he told me that as long as communism remains China’s official ideology the Church will suffer, but even he admitted that the situation in China’s Catholic Church has improved in recent years. Bishop Hu stood to bless Father Liu and me before we left. The crippled bishop kissed his tattered, purple stole, placed it around his neck, and blessed us as we knelt. When he was finished, Bishop Hu asked “aboveground” Father Liu to bless him. The old bishop knelt as Father Liu stood to administer his priestly blessing. They smiled, bid each other goodnight, and we departed.

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3.3 Essay 3.3 Divided We Fall; United We Endure (June 2011) China has an old adage: “The closer you are to the emperor, the closer you get to the dragon’s claws.” This is as true today in post-1949 China as it was in imperial China. In a 1724 imperial edict, Emperor Yongzheng stated, “The Catholic religion from the West is not to be regarded as orthodox…and our laws cannot tolerate it.”16 And 216 years later, Chairman Mao Zedong declared, “In the field of political action communists may form an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal united front with some idealists and even religious people, but we can never approve their idealism or religious doctrines.”17 Whenever Mao became displeased with China’s Catholic bishops, he labeled them “counter-revolutionaries,” which was convenient, for in 1951 he exclaimed, “Please make certain that you strike surely, accurately, and relentlessly in suppressing the counter-revolutionaries.”18 China’s rulers, throughout the Church’s long history in the Middle Kingdom, have often implemented anti-foreign and anti-Christian policies intended to control the Catholic faithful, though they have grown steadily since Matteo Ricci first founded his Chinese mission 400 years ago. The Church of the twenty-first century, now only a decade old, has encountered new challenges under China’s leadership, and recent months have ushered in renewed restrictions on this fragile Catholic community. Two bishops in particular have become the authoritative voices regarding the situation of the Church in China today—Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian and Cardinal Joseph Zen. I spoke some time ago with Bishop Aloysius Jin in Shanghai, the Catholic prelate who is perhaps the most intimately involved with China’s authorities, how someone in such close proximity to an officially anti-religious government manages to navigate. Bishop Jin smiled and quoted Matthew 10:16, wherein Jesus exhorts his disciples: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” “The government thinks I’m too close to the Vatican,” he said, “and the Vatican thinks I’m too close to the government.” Jin, who is now more than 95 years old, was consecrated a bishop in 1985 without the pope’s mandate; he has been called “the government’s bishop,” though since then the Vatican has recognized his return into full communion with Rome. He notes that the situation for Catholics in China has become increasingly divided, after the close of the more tolerant era of the 2008

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Beijing Olympics. Whereas in previous years the “underground” and official Catholic communities had begun to collaborate, Jin notes, “It is not at all true that the line between us [the sanctioned Catholic community] and the underground is disappearing. In fact, the division is now growing worse.” He continued to assert that since the official Catholic community is more visible, it is held under more intense scrutiny. “We live under enormous pressure to acquiesce to party demands,” Jin states. Among Bishop Jin’s principal complaints is that Cardinal Joseph Zen “encourages China’s underground Church to remain firm in its opposition to the sanctioned Church.” Not long after sitting in Jin’s Shanghai residence, I met with Cardinal Zen, who now resides at the Salesian House of Studies in Hong Kong.19 Zen is considered among the most informed persons alive today regarding what happens to Catholics within the Great Wall, and he is also known for his outspokenness concerning the government’s treatment of Christianity. Bishop Jin is correct about Cardinal Zen; he does advise the “underground” to remain separate from the “open” Church. “Why should the underground surrender to the open Church?” Zen asks, especially since the open community is already burdened under party control. The Catholic Patriotic Association is the mechanism the Chinese government employs to bridle the Church in that country, and Zen describes China’s sanctioned bishops as the “slaves” of Liu Bainian, the Association’s controversial chairman. Given the disagreements between these two prelates, Jin and Zen, it is a testament of Christian charity that these two men met with such equanimity when Cardinal Zen visited Shanghai last October. In an interview with the Catholic online news source Asia News, Cardinal Zen exclaimed that the “meeting of two brothers in the Lord after years was great joy,” though he also stated that it was “like being a fly in the ointment. We are great friends, but we knew that there were some words that couldn’t be said…as the ‘system’ doesn’t warrant it.” Under the current restrictions imposed on the Church in China, especially on members of the Patriotic Association such as Bishop Jin, the “system” that Cardinal Zen laments has become “a wall in people’s hearts and a lock in people’s mouths.” One rumor surrounding the cardinal’s visit to mainland China suggested that Bishop Jin’s spokesman denied media access to Jin without first attaining official permission from the Patriotic Association. As China’s most high-profile bishop, and one firmly attached to the Patriotic Association, Jin is understandably hesitant to tempt the dragon’s claws.

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3.3.1

China’s Rising Shortage of Clergy

While China’s bishops remain pressured under state restraints, and while the authorities devise methods of further deepening the divisions between the “underground” and “aboveground” communities, priests in the trenches are experiencing their own difficulties. Unlike the cathedral churches in large metropolitan cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Guiyang, which often have several priests in residence who offer Mass daily, rural churches more commonly see a priest only once a month, or sometimes once a year. In the bustling diocese of Taiyuan, for instance, priests are often assigned to the pastoral care of four, five, or six large churches, often hours apart by car. In this diocese, China’s most active Catholic community, priests hear several hours of confessions at each stop on their routes, as well as offer Masses, teach catechism courses, administer final sacraments to the ill and dying, witness marriages, and settle the inevitable disputes that arise in parishes without a permanent pastor. The number of Catholics in China has risen from three million at the time of the communist takeover in 1949 to around twenty million today, despite— or perhaps because of—unremitting challenges due to the vicissitudes of party policy changes. But vocations have not risen along with the number of faithful, and priests are greatly burdened by demanding schedules and the expectations of their flocks. In December 2010, I spoke with Father Zhang Jingfeng, a priest from China’s vast Inner Mongolian steppe, who informed me that within his diocese priests presently bear pressures from two main sources. First, they are overtaxed by the demands precipitated by the increasing shortage of clergy, and second they often endure extremely strained relationships with their bishops. Bishops of the sanctioned Church in China are themselves squeezed between governmental coercions and pastoral exigencies. The result is that bishops feel a need to manage their priests closely for fear of official harassment, and their priests in turn do not trust their bishops, sensing that they are political puppets. Father Zhang noted that the unfortunate consequence of these two factors is that many priests are tempted to leave the priesthood. Father Peng Xin, from the Catholic Diocese of Wuhan, has experienced this climate of distrust firsthand. He received his theological education in Paris, and thus China’s local authorities are hesitant to trust him; his phone, email, and room are all bugged, and his fellow priests are nervous about associating with him. His superior, who

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is particularly close to the Patriotic Association, also maintains a certain distance from him. It is precisely these kinds of pressures that lead Chinese clergy to disappear into secular life. China’s growing political control over the Church in that country has also resulted in tremendous uncertainty among the faithful. While visiting Kunming’s beautiful cathedral, I was struck by the unusual number of images of and quotations from Pope Benedict XVI; bulletin boards, cathedral columns, inside and outside walls all featured large posters of the pope and the Vatican. Interestingly, the local ordinary, Bishop Joseph Ma Yinglin, is one of the few prelates in China who still does not have the Vatican’s approval. When he was consecrated a bishop on 30 April 2006, the Vatican’s spokesperson, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, immediately announced Ma’s excommunication. Navarro-Valls reported, “The Holy Father has learned of the news with profound displeasure,” and he noted that Ma’s consecration “is a grave wound to the unity of the Church.”20 In fact, the Vatican describes such illicit ordinations of bishops as grave violations of religious liberty. The faithful are naturally confused to see their cathedral decorated with images of the pope, the very pope who has excommunicated their bishop; in this diocese the “underground” community has grown larger than the aboveground, causing deeper grievances between fellow Catholics. As of this writing, the Diocese of Kunming features a prominent image of Pope Benedict XVI on its official website. And some clergy who are loyal to Rome in this region feel compelled to at least temporarily leave the priesthood, thus leaving the faithful with few places to receive the sacraments necessary to Catholic life. 3.3.2

New Bishops and New Divisions

Despite ongoing disputes between the Vatican and China’s government regarding who has the right to select priests to be ordained bishops—a right the pope reserves exclusively to himself—China’s Catholic Patriotic Association persists in selecting and forcing the consecration of clergy it believes can be politically influenced by the state. In November 2010, Father Joseph Guo Jincai was ordained a bishop at Chengde without a papal mandate, and the Vatican responded precisely as it did when Ma Yinglin was similarly consecrated, with a firm criticism of China’s interference with religious freedom:

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This ordination not only does not contribute to the good of the Catholics of Chengde, but places them in a very delicate and difficult condition, also from the canonical point of view, and humiliates them, because the Chinese civil authorities wish to impose on them a pastor who is not in full communion, either with the Holy Father or with the other bishops throughout the world.21

Compounding the problem, eight other bishops, all in communion with Rome, were obliged to attend the ceremony and concelebrate, which Cardinal Zen described as “shameful” and “illegal.” For its part, China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs retaliated against Vatican complaints by asserting, “The Vatican’s position is well-known. It works to promote political ideas under the pretext of religious belief, which is very dangerous and will seriously harm the healthy development of Chinese Catholicism in China.”22 Most recently, Chinese state authorities have maneuvered Bishop Fang Xingyao, who does not have papal approval, into the driver’s seat of the Catholic Patriotic Association, further damaging Vatican–China relations. 3.3.3

Renewed Persecutions

It is no secret that Karl Marx (1818–1883) was opposed to institutional religion. In his 1843 study of the philosopher Hegel, Marx famously wrote: The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion…. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.23

In other words, religious attachment is, according to Marx, a method of escapism from real social injustices and suffering. While he indeed suggests that people should be called to give up the “illusion” of religion, Marx does not demand ruthless anti-religious persecutions that are advocated by some totalitarian governments. In the case of China, the Catholic Church is highly monitored and managed because of its religious nature, but even more acutely it is held under suspicion because of the state’s perception that Catholics are a threat to national control. Marx’s somewhat humanitarian, though not uncritically accepted, view

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that freeing people from religion clarifies their awareness of social injustice in the view of most Chinese Catholics is distorted in China’s official treatment of the Christian community. The government’s interpretation of Marx’s anti-religious views has resulted in the destruction or confiscation of Catholic property during the Maoist era and the loss of many Christian lives during especially the 1950s and 1960s. Shortly after 2011 had begun, the Catholics of Hebei, the province surrounding China’s capital, reported the sudden and unexplained arrest of Father Peter Zhang Guangjun. On January 13, public security officers knocked on the door of a Catholic household that Father Zhang was visiting, and abducted the priest; he had been offering pastoral care to “underground” Catholics in the area. Sources in Hebei have suggested that the government is cracking down on priests who do not carry “clergy identification cards,” in hopes of forcing more Catholic clergy to function under the observant auspices of the Patriotic Association. As of this writing Father Zhang’s whereabouts are still unknown. In addition, Chinese authorities arrested Bishop Joseph Li Liangui of Cangzhou (Xianxian) in December 2010 when he refused to attend the state-organized National Conference of Catholic Representatives. Bishop Li was forced to go to ideological “study sessions,” and was threatened with removal as Cangzhou’s bishop if he did not “repent.” The bishops who did attend the conference—all but Joseph Li—met with one of China’s senior party officials, Jia Qinglin, at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen. Jia reiterated the government’s resolve to prevent foreign influences (that is, papal influences) in China’s affairs, and some of the bishops attending the conference refused to raise their hands during voting. Their unraised hands were, however, counted as positive votes by the state officials present at the proceedings. Bishop Li has since been returned to his cathedral, but his recalcitrance has not gone unnoticed, and some expect him to be replaced once the government can locate an “acceptable” prelate to fill his chair. 3.3.4

Old Wounds and New Healing

Like Janus, a god in Greek mythology, China’s Catholic Church still has two faces; it appears that for every tragedy and incident of division there is also a victory and opportunity for healing. Even as China continues to defy Vatican pleas to stop forcing the ordination of Chinese

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bishops without papal agreement, and as priests and bishops have suffered from state persecutions, the government extended an olive branch to Catholic prelates of Taiwan. The secretary general of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Liu Yuanlong, led a mainland delegation in early January 2011 to discuss how to improve relations between China’s Catholics and those in Taiwan. Liu stated his purpose for visiting Taiwan was “to enhance understanding, harmony, and peace through these kinds of exchanges, and eventually move towards unification.”24 The representative of the Patriotic Association did not clarify whether the mainland’s desired “unification” involved China’s sanctioned Church and the Vatican, or simply the unity of the mainland’s Catholics with those of Taiwan. Whatever motivations bring China’s officials to Taiwan, some believe this could serve as a positive step toward normalizing the Church in China. While visiting Guiyang’s splendid Catholic cathedral, near the place where several martyrs are celebrated as local witnesses to the Catholic faith, I asked Father Liu Xianjun, a priest in the open Church, what China’s Catholics desired most. “We wish above all that the pope could be free to walk on Chinese soil,” he said. The history of the Church in China is not unlike the history of the Church in Rome. Like Roman Christians, China’s early Christians suffered persecution and martyrdom, and now China boasts its own canonized saints to remember at Mass. But one difference remains tragically persistent: not a single pope has visited the Middle Kingdom. The very center of Catholic unity has been barred from his flock in the world’s largest nation, and China’s present political climate, still under the shadow of Mao, shows no signs of opening the Great Wall to the bishop of Rome. Sino-Vatican tensions have in fact reached new heights, especially after Pope Benedict XVI prayed at the 2010 Midnight Mass that the spiritual message of Christmas will “strengthen the spirit of faith, patience, and courage of the faithful of the Church in mainland China,” sharply attacking China’s government for imposing limitations on “their freedom of religion and conscience.” The pope then called the Church of China to endure the “discrimination and persecution” imposed upon it. China responded by reaffirming old battle lines between it and the Vatican. A spokeswoman from the government’s foreign ministry stated: “We hope the Vatican side can face the facts of China’s freedom of religion and the development of Catholicism, and create favorable conditions for the improvement of China–Vatican relations through concrete actions.”

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While low-level accords have grown between the Patriotic Association and the Catholic bishops of Taiwan, high-level antagonism has also grown between China’s party and the Vatican. In his book about the Church under communism, James Meyers has stated that the fate of the Catholic Church in China since 1949 has been linked to the whims of China’s domestic politics.25 Today’s domestic politics have turned decidedly toward a new isolationism based on China’s quest for world economic dominance, built as it is on heightened nationalism. By defining itself distinctly against foreign nations—China against all others—even its religious groups must remain independent. Thus, Roman Catholicism is problematic in today’s China precisely because it is viewed as more “Roman” than “Chinese.” Some scholars of China’s modern Sino-Catholic history have suggested that China’s new “emperors” are as suspicious of foreign religion as its old emperors, and as long as the Church’s hierarchy is held so close to the dragon’s claws it will remain afraid to speak and function with freedom.

3.4 Essay 3.4 9 July 1900: China’s Franciscan Martyrs (July 2011) 9 July 1900, near the end of the Qing dynasty. After a long drought, a slight drizzle began to moisten the dry fields of Shanxi province. But it was too late. Local peasants had already spread rumors—the Christians were to blame for the long-term lack of rain. Banners had begun to appear throughout the region: “The skies won’t rain, the earth is scorched, all because the churches have blocked the heavens.”26 Two Franciscan bishops, two priests, a brother, and seven nuns had prayed for rain, but when it had finally arrived they knew it could not stop the tide of violence that had already swept across China’s northern plains. Chinese Christians all around them were already being captured, compelled to renounce their religious faith, and executed if they refused. By the summer of 1900 a group of anti-foreign and anti-Christian men and women had organized themselves into roaming bands of martial arts groups carrying long swords, spears, and halberds; they called themselves the Yihetuan, or the “Society of Righteous Harmony.” Their duty, they asserted, was to support the ruling court and “annihilate all foreigners.” Collected testimonies and historical records presently held in the Vatican’s archival repositories furnish the details of what transpired. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, on July 9, the Franciscan bishops, priests, and

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nuns were reciting the Divine Office together with Chinese faithful in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi, when they heard the clamor of weapons approaching their small room. Instinctively knowing that they would soon be executed, those present all knelt before Bishop Gregory Grassi, the ordinary of their remote Chinese diocese. Grassi apparently trembled with emotion as he said to his fellow Christians, “The hour of death has come, my children: kneel down and I will give you holy absolution.”27 Bishops Grassi and Francis Fogolla, Fathers Theodoric Balat (1858–1900) and Elias Facchini (1839–1900), Brother Andreus Bauer (1866–1900), seven nuns, fourteen Chinese Catholics, and a group of Protestants who had also been arrested, were each stripped to the waist, men and women, and tied together. On their way to the governor’s mansion, where their execution ground was being prepared, the Franciscans were derided and beaten both by their guards and the mob that lined the street. As they walked a soldier slashed at Bishop Fogolla’s leg twice with his sword, and Bishop Grassi was struck on his head and shoulder with a saber.28 Catholic hagiographies that describe their deaths call this moment their “Via Crucis.” Once they had arrived at Governor Yuxian’s official residence, the missionaries and native Catholics were ordered to kneel in the large courtyard. The governor struck Fogolla’s chest with his sword after the hapless bishop implored him to reconsider, and then directed the attendant Boxers and his troops to execute the assembled Christians. There was no trial. In Cardinal Louis Nazaire Bégin’s account of what happened next, we hear in quite histrionic prose of how they were martyred: ‘Kill them, kill them!’ roared the crowd. Yu-Hsien striking with his own sword cried: ‘Kill them!’ At this sight the soldiers began the slaughter, dealing blows right and left, cruelly injuring their victims before giving the final stroke. Father Elie, aged sixty-one years, received more than one hundred sword cuts and at each lifted his eyes to heaven saying: ‘I go to heaven.’ During the scene the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary were spectators, for their executioners hoped the sight of the martyred priests would make their own death more horrible. They knelt in prayer with eyes lifted to heaven, praying for the martyrs, for the conversion of their persecutors and for the perseverance of the Christians. … The nuns embraced each other, intoned the Te Deum, and presented their heads to the executioners—a stroke of the sword and all was over!29

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The Chinese Jesuit, Father Li Di (Also called Li Wenyu, 1840–1911), who collected testimonies of what happened from eyewitnesses, described the Taiyuan massacre: “In a moment the blood gathered into flowing channels and countless corpses lay prone throughout the courtyard.”30 The seven nuns, all members of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, who had just arrived in China that year, died in a particularly stirring manner. After seeing the atrocious deaths of the bishops and priests, the sisters embraced one another, knelt, and intoned the Te Deum Laudamus, the hymn of praise attributed to Saints Ambrose and Augustine.31 As each nun was beheaded, their small chorus was diminished by one voice, until the last Franciscan sister was killed. The bodies of these executed Christians were mutilated and deposited unceremoniously into a pit allotted to common criminals, and their heads were displayed above the north gate outside the city. Around the same time as the massacre at Taiyuan, Boxers searched nearby areas for native Catholics, who were seized and ordered to apostatize. Among those captured was the Franciscan priest, Andrew Wang (d. 1900), who tried to evade the Boxers by wearing secular garb and taking flight into Shanxi’s remote areas. Father Wang spent several days without food or shelter, and finally in a state of exhaustion, coughing blood, was discovered by his pursuers, who took him to the local magistrate for trial. During his investigation, he was told by the local official: “… if you renounce your religion you will receive clothes and money, and your life will be spared.” Father Wang calmly informed his judge that he was a priest, reasserted his Christian faith in God, and asked to be executed on the grounds of his church, which had just been destroyed by the Boxers. Followed by a large assembly of curious onlookers, Wang was taken to his ruined church, where a Boxer took “him by the hair of the head with his left hand, raised his sword aloft with his right and brought it down with a violent blow across his throat.”32 His body was then burned to ashes in a final act of disrespect. Father Andrew Wang’s death was only one of roughly 6000 such deaths of Catholics in Shanxi during the Boxer Uprising of 1900. After the summer of unremitting violence in northern China, peace was at last restored in August, and news of the deaths of Shanxi’s Franciscans spread quickly throughout Europe. When Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903) heard the news of the seven nuns, and how they died while singing the Te Deum, he asked his secretary, Msgr. Rinaldo Angeli (1851–1914), to write to the founder of their order. “His Holiness blesses with all his

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heart the Institute which has given these spotless victims. I rejoice with you in this new pledge of heavenly graces given to your society.”33 The Vatican immediately requested that information and testimonies be gathered regarding the martyrs attached to the Franciscan mission in Shanxi, China, in anticipation of a day when their names might be remembered as saints in Catholic Church. Today, after the canonizations of many of these martyrs, a large number of Franciscans, including those who were executed on 9 July 1900, are included in the Church’s long list of saints, who are piously invoked in the prayers of China’s Catholic community. The aftermath of the unrest ushered in an era of religious renewal in China. The Qing government assigned a new governor, Shen Dunhe (fl. 1900), to oversee Shanxi province, a governor who became a zealous supporter of the renewed Franciscan mission. Shen allowed the Franciscans to rebuild their cathedral that was destroyed by the Boxers, which now stands as a towering monument of Catholic faith and Italian victory in Taiyuan, and ordered that a memorial to the martyrs be constructed beside his official estate. He also returned many of the bodily remains of those killed to the Catholic faithful of Taiyuan. Shanxi’s Christian community grew with alacrity: the seminary filled with new candidates for the priesthood, new Franciscan nuns, Chinese and European, operated an orphanage and medical clinic, and new churches rose from the ashes of the Boxer Uprising. Today, Shanxi boasts a larger Catholic population, per capita, than perhaps any other province in China, and the faithful there live rather peacefully with the local government.

3.5 Essay 3.5 Between Communism and Catholicism: Six Decades (December 2011) Karl Marx once said that “History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their own ends.”34 Despite China’s rising materialism— something Marx would have disdained—its authorities appear to have listened well to this famous quote about the utility of history; history is often conveniently reinvented to support an official ideology. October 1st is National Day in China. It is the day on which Mao Zedong, the “Great Helmsman,” stood above the vast crowds at Tiananmen and proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. It commemorates the day that communism became the official ideological and political engine of Chinese society, and for Catholic Christians this also marks the beginning of decades of struggle to maintain their

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faith and identity as members of the world’s largest religious community. Indeed, there are roughly the same numbers of Catholics as there are Chinese. Just prior to the nation-wide celebration of the “birth of new China,” Beijing’s Catholic cathedral was ordered to celebrate the sixtyyear anniversary of the founding of China’s Catholic Patriotic Association, which is most curious as the nation-wide Patriotic Association was officially founded in 1957. In truth, Beijing’s Roman Catholics in the 1950s held meetings and orchestrated protests to resist the new ruling party. No matter, according to the Religious Affairs Bureau, China’s Catholics have “enjoyed the benefits of independence from Rome” since shortly after the country’s establishment, around sixty years ago. The reality is that in 1957 China’s Religious Affairs Bureau convened a large number of China’s Catholic hierarchy and officially established the Catholic Patriotic Association founded on the principle that China’s Church should not “obey a foreign influence,” which meant that from that day forward the hierarchy was expected to follow the Chinese Protestant system of “self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation.” China’s government even tried to pressure a Chinese bishop into claiming the title “pope.” When offered this position the shrewd bishop replied, “I’ll happily accept the position … as long as I am elected in Rome and live in the Vatican.” The existence of China’s Catholic Patriotic Association, which defines itself in opposition to Rome, has resulted in an awkward sense of ecclesial separation from the administrative authority of the pope, and to assert its self-governance the Patriotic Association has made a habit of selecting priests to be ordained bishops, often without the pope’s sanction or approval. In his recent letter to Chinese Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI noted that in China today, it is “persons who are not ordained, and sometimes not even baptized,” who “control and make decisions concerning important ecclesial questions, including the appointment of Bishops.”35 In spite of this present reality, it would be incorrect to assume that China’s Catholics and clergy have simply surrendered to state interference in matters of faith—China’s Church has never stopped resisting communist control and pressures, but its resistance is not often seen or heard of beyond the Great Wall. In recent weeks China has celebrated National Day with great fanfare, and even the Catholic community was called to applaud its “liberation from imperialist rule.” Thus, a few weeks before National Day Beijing’s churches announced a concert commemorating

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the sixtieth anniversary of the Patriotic Association; all of the capital’s churches were expected to send their choirs to the South Cathedral, where they would perform a selection of songs to celebrate the Association’s anniversary. It was announced as a grand occasion, and China’s highest profile bishop, Li Shan of Beijing, wrote the commemorative address for the official program. In his address, Bishop Li wrote: We join together, Catholics and the angels, under the guiding banners of patriotism and religion, holding firmly to the principals of an independent, self-governing, and self-propagating church, conforming to China’s special characteristics, serving the whole country and the capital, and serving society in a spirit of great felicity.36

He continues to affirm that “Under the Catholic Patriotic Association … our church has experienced good development … and we wish to join with the Patriotic Association, to add to the utility of its strength.” And in a highly nationalistic conclusion, Bishop Li exclaimed, “May God bless our church, and bless our motherland!”37 To be fair, I have heard Bishop Li’s preaching; he is a beautiful homilist, and it is difficult to know what pressures he is under to satisfy party demands in order to assure the successful continuation of his diocese, but China is perhaps among the few places on earth wherein Church authorities are thus compelled to mix extreme nationalism with the teachings of religious faith. Despite the rhetoric of Li’s address, and despite the pre-event propaganda, the actual celebration of the “sixtieth” anniversary of the Catholic Patriotic Association tells us much about China’s Catholics. The event was slated as a “Choral Celebration,” and when I arrived the cathedral sanctuary was festooned with flowers and banners, and video cameras were installed to record the occasion. A special table was installed near the church entrance with large piles of special programs, each one wrapped in a tidy yellow bow. Normally, at ecclesial functions in China, churches are filled, and people mill around the entrance searching for an empty place to stand. I went an hour early, fearing that I would not be able to procure a seat, but up until the moment the celebration began there were only a few people in the large church. The cathedral was mostly vacant, except for the Sisters of Saint Joseph (ordered to perform a song), the young men of the two local seminaries (also ordered to perform), the Vicar General (ordered to introduce the political representatives), a few priests

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(ordered to attend in their collars), and a handful of observers (perhaps family members of the choir members). It appeared that my wife and I were among the few people not ordered to be present, and I was not there to render my support of an Association that hinders the work of the local Catholic community. As I surveyed the church during one of the performances I saw that the singers were singing to a mostly empty space, and as I left I saw a table brimming over with programs that only a few attendees had taken. After Mass on Sunday I chatted with members of the church choir, and later with the assistant pastor, Father X, who, incidentally, had recently applied to visit Rome, but was encountering “visa complications.” Father X informed me that the priests of the diocese had been required to attend the celebration in their clerical collars as a sign of support, but in the end most of the diocesan priests were “called away” to other responsibilities. Curiously, even the bishop—who had written the commemorative address for the event program—was absent from the concert. Before Mass the following week I asked an elderly Catholic woman, “Why was no-one at the Association anniversary concert?” And rather than answer my question directly she removed from her bag a series of letters between the Catholic Patriotic Association and her, which demonstrated her rather unpleasant dispute with the Association authorities. “I support the pope,” she finally said. In the 1950s, Catholics resisted the state by filling the streets with banners; today they resist by emptying churches when state-sanctioned banners are displayed. There is a large difference between the Catholic resistance of the 1950s, when Mao’s iconic personality loomed dauntingly over the country, and resistance today, when large commercial advertisement billboards punctuate China’s modernizing landscape. In the 1950s, Catholic resistance resulted in mass arrests and ruthless treatment in prison camps. Now, Catholic resistance, which is admittedly less militant, is largely ignored by China’s authorities who are now swept away in a religious frenzy centered on the GDP. Nearly all of China’s Catholics are aware of the government’s new economic distractions, and they realize that they are enjoying a period of less persecution than during the Maoist era. The largest problems facing the Chinese church today are not the Patriotic Association’s day-to-day interference in Catholic affairs; they are the government’s increasing emphasis on Chinese nationalism and isolation from outside influence.

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If, as Chinese Catholics often say, “To be Catholic is to obey the pope,” then how, they ask, can they practice their faith if they are ordered to limit all administrative decisions to the local church? Catholics in China recognize and appreciate the government’s recent retrenching from its previous ideological hardline, and its recent financial generosity in restoring church property. But the Catholic Church is “universal”; it does not endorse nationalistic lines—all Christians share the same membership in the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. China remains the only country with only clergy from its own country, and it remains the only country that stubbornly refuses to allow the pope to govern the church hierarchy, which looks after the souls of the faithful. The Catholic Patriotic Association remains a sign of government regulation and interference in religious matters, and so the faithful continue to resist it. The following Sunday after National Day in China, I heard a spirited homily by one of the priests who had ignored the sixtieth anniversary celebration of Beijing’s Catholic Patriotic Association. He began with a short recollection of a recent dialogue he had with a troubled parent. “My child disobeys the Church’s moral teachings, Father; what’s your opinion of what the Church says about this?” “Priests don’t have opinions on such matters,” he replied, “it’s rather the job of the priest to obey and support whatever the Church teaches.” Being Catholic, the priest asserted, “requires all Catholics to assent to the authority of the pope and the teachings of the faith.” Only one week after National Day, one of China’s so-called “sanctioned church” priests, openly urged autonomy from state interference in religious affairs, while also urging China’s faithful to obey Rome, no matter what the cost. 3.5.1

Envoi

As I write this essay, I see China’s dry northern landscape outside of my train window quickly passing by (speed train from Tianjin to Beijing); I just spent several days assisting the good priests of Tianjin’s beautiful Xikai cathedral organize and catalog the rare books in their library and archive. Sixty years ago, the French Vincentians were exiled from China, labeled “imperialist counterrevolutionaries.” In haste (and terror) they left behind their most precious books and fled the turbulence of Republican China as it transitioned into communist China, and the Chinese priests who remained had little time to attend to rare books, photos, and documents. Religion was viewed, as Chairman Mao said, as “an enemy

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without guns,” to be firmly purged from Chinese society. In the mid1960s, Red Guards stormed the cathedral library and bundled the most accessible books and burned them in front of the cathedral while chanting Maoist slogans: bibles, missals, breviaries, and lives of the saints perished as Catholics helplessly stood by. The Church entered its darkest decade in China (1966–1976). The library was mostly forgotten, however, and despite its current condition (dusty and infested with vermin and mildew), most of it has survived, and the priests of the cathedral are eager to restore the library to its former glory. The Tianjin Catholic library, like the Church of China, is slowly emerging from the ashes of its unsettled past. As the government turns its attention away from religion, and toward economic development, China’s Catholics feel safer to practice their faith, renovate their churches, and restore their libraries. But old vestiges of Maoist radicalism persist, and Catholic resistance also persists. As I entered the archive, I saw a large anti-Catholic poster from the 1950s prominently displayed, and I asked the cathedral rector why such “art” should be kept. “It’s history, right? Shouldn’t the truth about what happened be preserved in our memory?” I could not help but agree with him. China’s Catholics are less interested in politics than their religious beliefs, and China’s churches are quite full, except, it seems, on days when the Catholic Patriotic Association orchestrates large celebrations in honor of its establishment and influence upon China’s Church.

3.6 Essay 3.6 Between Communism and Catholicism: A Bishop (December 2011) As nationalism reaches a fevered pitch in China, the country’s official Catholic leader, Beijing’s Bishop Li Shan published recently his testimony in support of China’s communist party and declared China’s Church is “independent, self-ruling, and self-managing.” Bishop Li’s largely anti-Rome remarks come just a few months after he defied Vatican orders not to ordain bishops illicitly; Li’s refusal to obey Rome has caused rifts in China’s Catholic community, as he has become increasingly pro-party and has announced his chairmanship of Beijing’s Catholic Patriotic Association. Here is a preliminary translation of Bishop Li’s “Introduction” to the “Sixtieth Anniversary Celebration of Beijing’s Catholic Patriotic Association,” published in October 2011.38

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Introduction (by Bishop Li Shan) On 16 September 1951, the first meeting of Beijing’s Catholics was solemnly convened under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and 500 Catholic clergy represented Beijing’s 30,000 Christians. They resolutely determined to cast off the shackles of colonialist and capitalist control for a more unpolluted Holy Church, so that the Holy Church can continue to transmit the Gospel. In support of and under the leadership of the communist party and a New China, they worked together with their compatriots to establish a Socialist society. The Patriotic Religious Organization was established at the great meeting to resolutely advance an independent, self-ruling, and self-managing Church: this was called the Beijing Catholic Patriotic Association. From that moment Beijing’s Catholics entered a new glorious era of evangelization. For sixty years now, the Beijing Catholic Patriotic Association has rallied together and guided the clergy, who have raised high the banner of the Catholic Patriotic Association, determined to firmly go down the road of being an independent, self-ruled, and self-managed Church. We enthusiastically promote the governance and rights of the Patriotic Association, and direct ourselves toward the aim of the collective education of the clergy, who together with the party and government are linked together by a common purpose. The diocesan and administrative committees work together toward the goals of pastoral evangelization, earnestly work to serve the interests of society, energetically work to serve the whole, to serve the capital, to serve humanity, and witness “the love of Jesus,” and implement the sacred commission, “that they may all be one,” to the glory of the Son.

3.7 Essay 3.7 In the Footsteps of Jesuits: Two Chinese Catholic Villages (January 2012) Hebei, China, 19 June 1900. Surrounded by fields of corn, sorghum, apple trees, and cotton, two French Jesuits waited for the arrival of their executioners. Father Remi Isoré (1852–1900) and Father Modeste Andlauer (1847–1900) had heard that Boxers had already arrived in their small village of Wuyi, where the growing Catholic community had attracted the attention of the Fists of Righteous Harmony. The two priests decided to offer Mass rather than abandon their community; they locked the chapel doors and began the liturgical rites. As the Boxer crowd crashed through the chapel entrance with their swords, the two French Jesuits knelt at the altar. According to witness testimonies, they prayed as they were hacked to death. Their heads were displayed the next day at the village gate to warn other Christians what awaited them if they

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refused to apostatize, which was customarily done by performing some act of disrespect to an image of Christ or his mother, Mary. Hebei, China, 20 July 1900. More than 3000 Chinese faithful had crowded into Zhujiahe, a small Catholic village on the vast flatlands of China’s Zhili province, today known as Hebei. Normally the village held only 300 poor peasants, but Boxers were sweeping through northern China destroying churches and killing Christians who refused to apostatize, and Catholic villagers from other areas had accumulated there to marshal their forces and defend themselves. By mid-morning the two Jesuit priests in the village, Father Paul Denn (1847–1900) and Father Léon Mangin (1857–1900), could see the signs; it was evident that they would all wear “martyrs’ crowns,” as the expression goes, by the end of the day. The two exhausted priests donned their vestments—stoles and chasubles—and gathered with 1000 others into the village church, where they intoned prayers beside the altar. Having killed nearly everyone outside of the church building, the Boxers and Qing troops at last pried open the chapel doors and directed a barrage of bullets into the crowd. Fearful that bullets would kill her pastor, Mary Zhu, one of the parishioners, leapt in front of Father Mangin and extended her arms to form a cross. She received his bullets and fell to the floor. Exhausted from shooting, the attackers at last barricaded the church doors with mattresses soaked in kerosene and ignited the building with sorghum reed torches. The sorghum palms the villagers had planted “became the martyrdom palms that ushered them into heaven”—all but a handful of the 3000 Catholic defenders were massacred that summer day at Zhujiahe village. Hebei, China, 9 December 2011. Passing by fields of crops, village walls with nationalist slogans, and factories billowing dark smoke into the skyline, I imagined what Hebei looked like in 1900. One can now reach Dezhou from Beijing in an hour and a half by speed train; 111 years ago it took several days by horse or wagon on rut-marked mud roads. I had visited villages before where simple men and women—farmers who worked the land in bitter conditions—had suffered martyrdom during the Boxer Uprising, but I knew that I would soon stand where the largest anti-Christian massacre in China’s long history had occurred. As local Catholics envision this spot, it was this soil that had absorbed the blood of the 3000 Christians who were killed during the fevered violence of 1900. I was taken first to Wuyi, where two Jesuits died alone at the altar, and then to Zhujiahe, where two other Jesuits died along with 3000 poor Catholic villagers.

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3.7.1

Wuyi Village

Two priests were scheduled to assist me as I visited Hebei, and though neither had known in advance that I wished to visit specifically the two small villages of Wuyi and Zhujiahe, it fortuitously happened that the pastors of those two churches accompanied me as I retraced the footsteps of the martyrs of those places. Local Catholics met me and our small entourage at the newly constructed train station, and I was escorted first to Number Three Village—many old, literary names of places and institutions have been reduced to numbers in “New China”—where Father Zhang celebrated Mass with us before settling into a pleasant discussion under a panoply of religious images and photographs: Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and group photos of the priests of the diocese. “The history of martyrdom here is still sensitive,” insisted Father Zhang, “so let’s all keep this secret.” Our first stop was to be Wuyi, where we were greeted by Father Luo, the diocesan chancellor and pastor of the Wuyi chapel. There is both irony and paradox in the Church’s present condition in China, for while the government is indeed providing more property and funds to Catholic agencies, new lands provided for church construction are often located in isolated and industrial areas. The Wuyi church has been relocated some distance from the original church where Saints Isoré and Andlauer suffered martyrdom during Mass, and today rests amid large plots of what bears the semblance of what one would imagine to be postapocalyptic rubble and industrial wreckage. But once one drives into the walled church compound, she or he is welcomed by two attractive pavilions, each dedicated to one of the two Jesuit martyrs of the village. In fact, devotion to these saints seems to sustain the small group who attends Mass in a diminutive chapel—one of the parishioners had painted two large images of Isoré and Andlauer that were featured prominently in the church and venerated by the faithful. A commemorative monument was erected in the village after the Boxer Uprising, but all that remains today after the anti-religious campaigns of the Maoist era is a monument rubbing, which also hangs in the Wuyi chapel. Despite the reduced number of Catholics in Wuyi, there is a sense of renewal and growth that is being built upon the memory of their martyrs, who they are eager to announce, planted the seeds of their

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church. I drove away from Wuyi reflecting on the insightful words of Soren Kierkegaard, who said, “The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.”39 3.7.2

Zhujiahe Village

Having written in one of my books about the dreadful extermination of Catholics at Zhujiahe, and having read the personal accounts of those who witnessed the holocaust, I was uneasy as I approached the village.40 The execution of two people was conceivable, but calling to mind the destruction and massacre of an entire community of 3000 persons was unreachable in my imagination. After a long hour’s drive through a bitterly cold landscape on roads covered in mud and riddled with huge potholes, we finally turned into the village entrance. The villagers knew we were coming and had gathered to greet us on the spot where the village martyrs died in the chapel as they prayed with Fathers Denn and Mangin. Only around one-quarter of the population of Zhujiahe is Catholic today; in 1900 it was entirely Catholic. But since all but a small number of the village’s Catholic population was killed in 1900, it has struggled to retain its Christian identity. Among those who greeted me were two elderly women who were direct descendants of the martyrs who died during the Boxer catastrophe. One old woman, Lucia Zhu, is honored by the village’s Catholics for being a direct descendant of St. Mary Zhu, the woman who held out her arms to receive the bullets intended for St. Mangin, dying, arms outstretched in the form of a cross (Fig. 3.2). The plot of ground where the original church was located is now flattened and being prepared for a small garden with pavilions and honorary stone memorials that recount what happened there more than a century ago. Standing on the soil where the 3000 Christians had died, the villagers told me about the fate of Zhujiahe during their own lifetimes. Despite their attempts to safeguard the monuments and human relics through the Maoist era, during the Cultural Revolution reckless chaos and senseless violence precipitated a ten-year campaign against anything religious, foreign, or “counter-revolutionary.” In the new, revised official rhetoric of the state, the Boxers were no longer the superstitious ruffians they were previously labeled as, but rather were esteemed as patriots who fought against imperialist aggression. Since Zhujiahe had become a pilgrimage site for Catholics, and since it had also been targeted by Boxers, Mao’s

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Fig. 3.2 Anthony E. Clark (right) and Mrs. Lucia Zhu (center), the descendant of St. Mary Zhu, at Zhujiahe Village, 2011 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)

Red Guards set out to eliminate any remnant of religious veneration in the village. The Red Guard radicals made every attempt to remove and desecrate these holy remains. According to the villagers, the Red Guards first attacked the church building, and then took the bulk of the human remains from the 1900 massacre and tossed them into a nearby culvert. With some of the skeletons they filled a millet grinder and dispersed the crushed bones onto the village soil; this is why Catholics in the diocese call Zhujiahe “Shengdi,” or “sacred earth.” Before the Red Guards had arrived, the villagers buried several stone tablets underground on which many of the names of those who died in 1900 were inscribed. Some of these monuments are still buried beneath households that were later built on top of them. Naturally the Red Guards could not remove the remains of all 3000 martyrs, and many monuments remain buried beneath the soil. The bones and the names of these men and women are still discovered when the earth is broken to build a house or plant new trees.

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After visiting the ground where the old church had been, Father Zhang led us to the modest home of one of the village Catholics; they served us tea, fruit, and seeds—it was more than these poor farmers could afford. I was placed beside Lucia Zhu, who gave me a card with an image of her ancestor, St. Mary Zhu. Lucia radiated; it was her relative who offered her life on behalf of her pastor. Several members of the Zhu family, all Catholic descendants of the original clan who established the village, recounted what happened on the day of the massacre. They noted that only a few people survived the attack, and only two of these survivors were members of Zhujiahe Village. Both were young children who managed to go unnoticed as the Boxers and Qing troops killed men, women, and other children. These two survivors are the ancestors of all of the Zhu clansmen who still farm in the village today; they are a devout Catholic family that has endured not only the ravages of the Boxer Uprising but also the precarious whims of the Maoist era. After a protracted evening of animated recollection, the villagers insisted on hosting a banquet the following day. The banquet was plentiful, and the Catholic women gathered in the home of Lucia Zhu’s son, a cotton farmer, to cook various dishes and lay them out on a large round wooden table. After the meal the Zhu elders gathered together to continue their stirring narration of the village martyrdom, and it was then that I learned that the church elder was the bearer and guardian of the bones of the martyrs who had perished there in 1900. As a gift the villagers had tenderly sewn several bone fragments into small pouches, which were presented to me by their pastor, Father Zhang. It struck me as I held the bones of these Chinese martyrs that Father Zhang was also, in a way, a descendant of martyrs, as he was the pastor of the same church as Saints Denn and Mangin; these villagers were the living heirs of those who had earlier died for their religious beliefs. None of the villagers ever boasted of his relation to the martyrs; they only spoke of the martyrs and why they died. I recalled a Latin phrase cherished by the Jesuits at the turn of the century: Oportet illum crescere, me autem minui, “That He should grow, and I should diminish.”41 At last we walked to the impressive new church, which is now under construction and being modeled after the previous church that was attacked by the Red Guards in the mid-1960s. I walked with Mr. Zhu, Lucia’s son, whose cotton crops surround the scaffold-enshrouded church. He said that the government had dammed the river that flowed into their village; I could see the dry riverbed beside the village. They

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now had to pay exorbitant fees to water their crops, but despite anxieties over water the village rejoiced that it was getting a new church, and Father Zhang hoped that Mass can be offered there next year. Wuyi and Zhujiahe Catholics are people of hope, for they assert that persecution and martyrdom plant the seeds of new faith, and that human cruelty cannot overcome God’s love. I was informed that most of the Catholics in these two villages, the villages of martyr saints, are new Catholics, and more people are interested in joining their church community. As Father Zhang drove away from Zhujiahe, I turned back for one last glance at the village and its rising Church. It reminded me of so many European villages I have seen; the church was towering above all the other buildings, somehow claiming the village again for its religious legacy.

3.8 Essay 3.8 “Eating Bitterness” and the Hope for Freedom (February 2012) China presently has the world’s fastest growing economy, the fastest growing cities, the second fastest growing population, and probably the fastest growing number of Christians. When Chairman Mao Zedong declared the establishment of the People’s Republic in China in 1949 there were around four million Christians in China. Today, sixty-three years later, there are around seventy million. I was in China a few months ago with several friends and colleagues, with whom I discussed the situation of the Church in that country, and visited new places with histories both unhappy and hopeful. During my many visits to China I have learned that the Christian community is resilient, even adamantly resistant. In a country ostensibly cut off from the pope, I have seen a deeper commitment to him than I have in any other place I have visited. In a country seemingly divided into two Catholic communities I have seen greater unity than I have observed elsewhere. And in a country where Catholics have lived a life of, as they say, chiku (“eating bitterness”), I have observed countless faithful bear witness to Henry David Thoreau’s remark, “The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.”42 It would be easy to write an essay at regular intervals on the “suffering Church” in China—reporting arrests, church closures, and state–Church tensions. But that would be a misrepresentation of what Catholic life is like in China today in the twenty-first century. It would also be easy to read official state sources about religion in China and report on how China’s Catholics are thriving and happy under their new state leaders. I

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shall attempt to report instead on what is really happening in China’s Catholic Church, taking as my motto Flannery O’Connor’s insightful quip, “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”43 3.8.1

The Church in China Today

In the opening line of his 2007 encyclical, Pope Benedict XVI began with the words of St. Paul to the Romans: “Spe salvi facti sumus,” in hope we were saved.44 I think that one of the more positive trends in the Church in China today is the trend toward a sense of hope. And it was Benedict XVI who, on 18 February 2012, bestowed the red hat to Hong Kong’s Bishop John Tong, making him a cardinal. It marked an important moment in the future of the Catholic history of China; Tong is only the seventh Chinese man to be elected a cardinal in the history of the Catholic Church, and he is the first Hong Kong-born Chinese to receive this honor. Cardinal Tong’s appointment is significant, not only as he is in many ways the successor of his influential Chinese predecessor, Joseph Cardinal Zen, but because Tong is uniquely informed regarding the state of the Church in China today. During the 1998 “Asian Synod” of bishops, opened by a Mass at St. Peter’s offered by Pope John Paul II, Tong intervened to tell his fellow bishops a few stories about the Church in China. He recounted the story of Bishop Matthias Duan Yinming (1908–2001) of Wanxian Diocese, ordained a bishop by Pope Pius XII in 1949, who suffered severe persecution for his faith during the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards rushed into his cathedral and took down a statue of Mary, and ordered Bishop Duan to crush her image with a hammer. He refused, reportedly exclaiming, “You can take my head, but not my faith.” He was taken, tortured, imprisoned, and placed in a labor-reform camp until 1979. Tong also spoke of a young boy whose uncle, a priest, was publicly tried during the Cultural Revolution for being a Catholic. The young boy was in the large crowd when he heard the Red Guards sentence the priest to death, and he watched the bullets enter his uncle’s heart, and watched the blood flow from his chest. As Tong recalls, “At once he heard a voice inside him, calling him to the priesthood. He told himself, ‘I must become a priest to continue my uncle’s work.’”45 This is when the boy says he first decided to serve as a priest in China. Countless such stories of Chinese bishops, priests, nuns, and faithful, most of whose names are lost to history.

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While problems persist, the present reality in China is not so bleak as some imagine. I continue to hear reports from a priest friend of how far the Church in China has come since the Maoist era. In Shanxi, fortyfive catechumens were baptized in the cathedral recently on the Feast of the Holy Family, and the number of baptisms continues to rise. Priests at China’s seminaries are giving speeches to full crowds on the “new evangelization” encouraged by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Bearing in mind that religious orders have been prohibited in China, it is astonishing that Father Xia, a Franciscan, has begun spiritual instruction to forty new third-order Franciscans in Shanxi. Tianjin’s Catholic diocese has begun open celebrations of its 100-year presence in the city, and in the opening Masses—concelebrated by seventeen local priests—the 1870 massacre of foreign nuns in Tianjin was openly discussed in the homily. Meanwhile, the state authorities in Beijing are paying for the restoration of the large bishop’s residence beside the historic North Church. The residence will be returned to Beijing’s prelate once restoration is complete, after having been held by the government and used as a grade school for decades. China’s Catholics are not ignorant of present struggles, but they are also not blind to recent improvements. One only has to remember that during the Maoist era China’s churches were boarded up or used as factories, warehouses, or restaurants. Today they are filled with the faithful who benefit once again from their restored access to the sacraments and liturgical services. 3.8.2

Some Recent Reports

As the Chinese often say, one can always find a little yin in the yang, that in life there are no purely good days or purely bad days. Just as we hear optimistic voices among China’s Catholics, we also hear voices of caution, among them Cardinal Zen. In some recent remarks the Cardinal stated that “the Beijing Government has not changed one iota in its policy of religious oppression, it still wants absolute control of religion and, in the case of the Catholic Church, China wants to detach the Church from obedience to the Holy See.”46 In unusually frank terms, Zen has asserted China’s political engine has become so intrusive in Catholic religious affairs that “we are on the verge of a schism, with these repeated statements of wanting to make an independent Church and continue to ordain bishops without papal mandate.”47 And so Zen calls China’s Catholics to take a firmer stand against the state, as they did in the early 1950s.

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We might ask what precipitated the Cardinal’s firm remarks. As is quite common today, the Chinese government insists on selecting and ordering the ordination of bishops without the mandate of the pope, which is canonically punishable with excommunication. On 14 July 2011, a new bishop was ordained in Shantou, China, against the pope’s will, and among those bishops who participated in the rites was the coadjutor bishop of Nanchang, John Baptist Li Suguang. To date all of the bishops who participated in that ordination have apologized and received pardon from the Holy Father except for Bishop Li Suguang, who has neither apologized for, nor recognized that this has created a division between himself and Rome. And to add to this, in an interview in 30 Giorni (30 Days), he asserted: I believe that from the beginning until now our Church in China has never changed a single iota of the Apostolic Tradition that was delivered to it. We have not changed a comma of the doctrine that concerns the faith and the great discipline of the Church. We are united around the same sacraments, recite the same prayers, in the continuity of the apostolic succession. This is the basis of authentic communion. Even with our limitations and all our failings and frailties, we are a part of, and we are of the number of the Holy Universal Church.48

Without a single acknowledgment of his strained relationship with the pope, Bishop Li appears to be lecturing the Vatican on the “authentic communion” of the Chinese Church with the universal Catholic Church. 3.8.3

The Challenge of China

Opinions and accounts are so varied as to make reporting on the Church in China extremely difficult, confounding, and frustrating. Here is one small example. While sharing lunch with an excited young priest in Tianjin, I heard a series of stories of how his native village in northwest China has an active Catholic youth association, how the Tianjin cathedral cannot accommodate all of the people who attend Masses on Sundays, and how helpful visiting foreign priests have become to the ministry at Tianjin. Several weeks after that lunch I shared another meal with a Chinese priest in Rome, who stated repeatedly, “The priests and bishops in China are brainwashed with nationalism, and corruption in the hierarchy is rampant.”

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Anyone who carefully watches the Church in China undoubtedly feels as Albert Einstein (1879–1955) did when he said he was used to spending “weeks in a state of confusion” trying to solve complex problems. But what is clear is that the state of the Church in China is unusual, and that the current state of Catholic life there is restrained and distorted under the anti-religious pressures of the communist authorities. Christianity is a religion of codified beliefs, and Chinese Christians often feel that their survival depends on acquiescing to contrary beliefs, or implicit distortions of the truth. If we begin the Church’s life in China with the first Mass offered there, then it would be more than eight centuries old, and in those 800 years the Church has suffered and flourished in turns, but Chinese Catholics are keen to remind others that it has always survived. When attempting to discern the actual realities of China’s Christian community with any clarity one is often exasperated by the pervasive clouds of ambiguity that obstruct one’s analysis. The truth is deeply challenging when discussing issues on China’s “sensitive” list, and Catholicism ranks highly on that list. When describing Mount Lu in a poem, the famous poet and calligrapher, Su Dongpo (1037–1101), once wrote: Gazing horizontally at its ridges, one imagines its peak, Near and far, high and low, all are different, Since you stand in the middle of the mountain, You cannot see the true face of Mount Lu.49

Su Dongpo’s depiction of how hard it is to describe a mountain so laden with craggy cliffs and varied heights, perhaps, is the best way to imagine the difficulties of discussing the Church in China. Chinese Catholics often reflect on Paul’s words for the Church in Rome, written nearly 2000 years ago, and view them as apt advice for the Church in China in the twentyfirst century, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer.”50

3.9 Essay 3.9 China’s Catholics in Confusing Times (April 2012) Aristotle (c. 384–322) famously wrote that “Hope is a waking dream.”51 Hope, to indeed be hope, must awaken; it must be a dream that is made real. Many scholars, and indeed religious persons in China, have recently asserted that China’s dreams for religious freedom and tolerance have for

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nearly a century been slumbering under a strong anaesthetic, but recent months have shown slow but tangible signs of waking. China’s Catholics have embraced the Vatican’s call for a “new evangelization,” and have decided that, as J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) once said, “There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”52 As I draft this essay, I am aware of the recent arrests of Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin and his chancellor, Father Jiang Sunian; they are scheduled to undergo ideological classes, or “brainwashing,” as China’s faithful often describe this process. Only two months ago, Bishop John Ruowang was also arrested and forced to attend government classes. In fact, the bureau chief of the communist party’s United Front Work Department met with representatives of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association on March 2 and exhorted them to “convert the underground community.” What the media often fails to mention is that the two Catholic communities—sanctioned and unsanctioned—collaborate as often than they conflict. Despite official exhortations, “aboveground” clergy are more interested in converting non-Christians than in indulging in ideological disputations with their fellow Catholics. I am often struck by the irony that China’s Catholics, who have less access to papal encyclicals, are more interested in them than many other Catholics in areas with easier access to such Vatican documents. The pope’s 2005 encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, has had a weighty effect on the routine lives of Chinese Catholics, and its opening line, “Tianzhu shi ai” (God is love), has inspired a renewal of Catholic charitable activities throughout the country, and the first few months of 2012 have seen a precipitous rise in Catholic outreach and catechumens. A Chinese priest in Rome has provided me with several reports of hope from within China’s Christian community. In typically euphemistic language, the Chinese nuns of Guangxi went to a small leper community in the rural mountains to, as they said, “bring spring to winter.” In order to “be the hands and feet of Christ” in their “winter” of suffering, these sisters brought “smiles and gifts” to the forgotten victims of leprosy. In the Wenzhou Diocese, Father Jiang initiated a new Lenten practice that he has called, “family Eucharistic adoration,” a movement that is swiftly sweeping across the area. Seeing China’s economic rise and its trend toward materialism, Jiang complains that “secularization is threatening our faith life and we do not have enough strength to combat against it.” “However, the almighty God is the source of our strength,” he suggests, and “people who rely on God will find joy and peace.” To

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confront China’s materialism Wenzhou’s Catholics are signing up to have a Eucharistic altar installed in their home for twelve to twenty-four hours; the individual families spend that time reading the bible, praying together, and in prolonged adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. As one Chinese Catholic asserted, “When Jesus comes, he is not only a special guest, or even just a physician, but he is the head of our household.” So far more than fifty households have registered for this activity. Not only is family Eucharistic adoration becoming more popular in China’s rural areas, most dioceses are now organizing weekly adoration in major cities. Beijing, for example, now attracts large crowds of Catholic faithful to its four principal churches, where adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is held four days a week. While traditional devotions have largely diminished in America, nearly all China’s Catholics pray a daily rosary and recite evening prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for it is commonly held that the battle cannot be won without the supernatural aid provided through the devotions of the Church. China’s Catholics often remark, “Outsiders already know about our struggles, but do they know about how blessed we are? There are victories, too.” Believing in the salutary results of prayer and adoration, China’s Christians trust that God will help them survive and flourish. Indeed, the robust growth of China’s Catholics and the renewal of popular devotions suggest that their optimism is not unrealistic. Vocations are rising, as are ordinations, and as many local officials turn impatiently toward the lure of fiscal hegemony, more and more young Chinese are turning toward the waters of Christian baptism. On March 17, seven deacons were ordained priests for the Diocese of Shanghai. Festooned with streaming red banners, the Cathedral of Saint Ignatius was filled beyond capacity as the faithful gathered to celebrate their new priests. Bishop Jin Luxian, currently in his late nineties, celebrated the Mass in Shanghai, while in distant Shaanxi four new priests were ordained. Already this year China is enjoying more vocations than it has in several decades. After taking a group photograph in front of a large Christmas tree, still outside the cathedral long after Christmas, forty-five catechumens were recently baptized in the Italianate cathedral of the Taiyuan Diocese. As is the custom in northern China, the catechumens vowed to “follow Christ” and brought candles and salt during the solemn offertory, representing their promise to be the salt and light of the gospel in China and the world. And despite the fact that Roman Catholic orders are officially banned in mainland China, forty Shaanxi Catholics joined the Franciscan third

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order in a ceremony officiated by Father Xia. This growth of Franciscan spirituality is intentional, for as secular China venerates the altar of wealth, Shaanxi’s faithful honor the words of Saint Francis, who said, “Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty.”53 Not all is promising however, as Bishop Ma Yinglin, who remains one of the few bishops in China who is unrecognized by the Vatican, recently ordained priests for the Kunming Diocese. The outspoken Hong Kong priest, Father Anthony Lam Sui-ki, responded to Ma’s ordination in spite of the Vatican’s objection, stating, “It is very dangerous for the country and society to have a ‘son of corruption’ like Ma, as the mindset of conniving corruption is contagious, which would encourage more opportunists who disregard Church principles.”54 While some dioceses boast growing numbers of priests and converts, others like the one under Bishop Ma continue to elicit division and suspicion among the faithful. Before the ordinations, one mainland blogger appealed to Ma to “repent and avoid making another mistake.” As Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803– 1882) once said, “Obedience alone gives the right to command,”55 and Bishop Ma has demonstrated little of the expected Catholic obedience to the pope he claims to follow. 3.9.1

Patience in a Time of Repression

During my last visit to Beijing I spent time at two museums that are next door to each other, the Millennium Pavilion and the Museum of Military history; both are painstakingly crafted testaments of China’s cultural prominence in human history. The Millennium Pavilion featured a newly installed exhibit dedicated to the 1911 Revolution, when imperial China was at last replaced by a modern Republican government, and the Military Museum featured exhibits on the People’s resistance to imperialist and foreign powers through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I was most interested in the fact that both museums displayed historical images and descriptions of Catholic missions—photographs of churches, orphanages, and hospitals. Much has changed in China’s rhetoric regarding missionaries between 1960, when the Military Museum exhibit was installed, and late 2011, when the Millennium Pavilion exhibit was staged. In the Military Museum, photographs of Catholic churches seized by the People’s Liberation Army are proudly displayed, touting the party’s victory over “imperialist Catholic missionaries” who had done only harm to Chinese sovereignty and culture. The Millennium Pavilion, installed

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only a few months ago, featured a different narrative; in this new version of Catholic history in China foreign missionaries are shown caring for young orphans, treating sick villagers, and teaching Chinese women who had before then received little attention in China’s educational system. In short, for the first time since 1949, Christian missionaries were presented in a government-sponsored exhibit as “beneficial” to China’s people and its transition into modernity. I do not wish to downplay the genuine challenges of religious liberty in China, but like many who read the daily news, I have grown weary of the incessant reports of oppression, repression, and rebellion. There is much happening in the world that is hopeful, and the Church in China, despite some major and minor glitches, is presently experiencing relative freedom and support. In his play, Les Misérables, Victor Hugo (1802–1885) wrote that “even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”56 China’s official line on Christian missionaries has been built more upon ideological propaganda than historical evidence, and it was refreshing indeed to see, for the first time in my many visits to Beijing, an official exhibit praising the works of missionaries who came to China in the name of their religious tradition; and it is encouraging to see China’s Catholics, at least for now, awakening a dream of hope.

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Essay 3.10 A Small Note on a Large Number of Baptisms (April 2012)

China’s dioceses have reported over 22,000 Catholic baptisms this Easter, and additional statistics remain to be reported. According to the Hebei Study Center of Faith, roughly 75% of these baptisms were adults, though infant baptisms are also on the rise. The Diocese of Shanghai reported 379 baptisms during the Easter Vigil Mass, but expects around 1500 for the entirety of 2012. This is an extraordinarily large number of people entering the Catholic Church compared to previous years, especially in light of recent reports of hardline strategies to impose restrictive measures on Christian activities in China. There were only three million Chinese Catholics in 1949 when Mao proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Today there are an estimated twenty to thirty million Catholics, and Church authorities there look optimistically to an even larger increase in coming years of catechumens and new members of the Church.

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3.11 Essay 3.11 The Solemnity of Christ the King in China (November 2012) Sunday, Solemnity of Christ the King, 25 November 2012, Beijing, China. Only recently the auxiliary bishop of Shanghai rather bravely announced from the pulpit of Saint Ignatius cathedral that he would no longer subject himself to the leadership of China’s Catholic Patriotic Association. Soon after, he was “escorted” to the Sheshan Catholic Seminary, where he is presently on an extended “spiritual retreat” to “reconsider” his affiliation. In addition, the seminary has been closed “until further notice.” China’s Catholics are keenly aware of their situation, and they are also keenly aware of how to respond. Sitting in the pews during 10:00 a.m. Mass on the Solemnity of Christ the King at Beijing’s largest Catholic church, North Church, the Mass was crowded as usual. An old man sat behind me talking with two younger women; he was discussing the communist party and the recent conclusion of the 18th Party Congress. The two women repeated over and over, “Love God and love others; this is Catholicism.” The pope has called for a “New Evangelization,” and China’s pulpits and church bulletins every Sunday serve to exhort Chinese Catholics to “follow the Vatican’s commission and bring others into the Church.” Again, the two women told the old man behind me, “Love God and love others; this is Catholicism. Can you remember this?” Her interlocutor replied, “I’ll remember.” During Communion the man went to the priest for a blessing. As Mass began, and the long procession of acolytes preceded the celebrant, the hymn was intoned: “Jesus king, Jesus victor, Jesus rules over heaven and earth.” During the prayers of the faithful, the Church and the pope were prayed for first, and during the offering of the gifts young children were led to an image of Our Lady of Guadeloupe where they, in Chinese fashion, bowed three times to express their reverence for the Shengmu, or “Holy Mother.” The solemnity of Christ the King is underscored in China as one of the Church’s most important feasts, and I have regularly pondered how state authorities have not discerned why this is so. Surely if party officials studied the liturgical and doctrinal implications of this day in the Church’s calendar, they would raise an eyebrow ….

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3.12 Essay 3.12 Beijing’s “Benedictine” Age (December 2012) Confucius’ (551–479 B.C.) disciple, Yan Hui (c. 521–481 B.C.), once asked the Master how to become a good person. “Goodness,” the Master said, comes about when “one forms himself according to ritual.”57 China has never quite lost its Confucian sense of ritual, for ritual is what forms a person in goodness, and in his final exhortation to his inquisitive student, Confucius suggests that ritual forms our vision, our speech, and our actions. Little wonder, then, that when Jesuit missionaries first went to China in the late sixteenth century, one of the aspects of Christianity that attracted Chinese most was the richness of Catholic ritual. Few Roman Catholic adages appeal more to Chinese sensibilities than the axiom, Lex orandi, lex credendi, or “The law of prayer is the law of belief”; the relationship between worship and belief is apparent in a society, such as China, wherein ritual is understood as a foundation of the human person. Confucius’ disciples have transmitted this idea until today, just as the notion of Lex orandi, lex credendi was transmitted by St. Augustine’s disciple, Prosper of Aquitaine (390–455), from whom this formula derives. In the Patrologia Latina, we find Prosper’s assertion: “Let us consider the sacraments of priestly prayers, which having been handed down by the Apostles are celebrated uniformly throughout the whole world and in every Catholic church so that the law of praying might establish the law of believing.”58 China has valued few things more than tradition, continuity with the past, and the transformational value of ritual; and when China’s first converts were taught that the Holy Mass is holy because God had made it, the Mass became for Chinese Catholics the very summit of Christian life. As I spend another year living and researching in China, I continue to witness China’s growing Catholic culture; pews are full, young men and women light candles and pray rosaries before and after Mass, and the “Catholic culture war” between “Latin enthusiasts” and “progressives” is less divisive here in my native United States, in a culture that almost universally appreciates high ritual as a method of spiritual self-cultivation. My aim here is not to assert myself into the igneous liturgical debates one often hears after Masses in America, but rather to offer some observations on what I observe as a “Benedictine” liturgical renewal in China, where the liturgical writings and ideas of Pope Benedict XVI are enthusiastically

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taking root. Almost every church in China hosts a small bookstore—typically overrun with visitors after Masses—and next to the ever-popular Marian devotional books, the writings of Benedict XVI are increasingly in vogue; my most recent purchase was a Chinese translation of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s, The Spirit of the Liturgy (Liyi zhi jingshen). 3.12.1

Bells, Smells, and the Music of Mass

Bells and incense have defined religious experience in China for perhaps longer than they have in the West, and they continue to figure prominently in the Chinese liturgy. Incense marks sacred places in China and bells mark sacred moments. Acolytes are sometimes so eager to indicate the moment of Consecration that they raise the bells above their head and ring them with an unrestrained enthusiasm. In Beijing there are six Catholic churches, and in addition to the popular Extraordinary Form offered at the cathedral every Sunday, the other churches have begun to employ more Latin liturgies. At North Church, the most well-attended church in Beijing, the eight o’clock Sunday Mass features a professional choir, which sings classical Latin hymns during the liturgy: Pange Lingua, Credo, and Ave Verum Corpis. The first announcement after Mass encouraged everyone to attend the church’s new Latin classes. Rather than dismiss Latin because “no-one knows it anymore,” the churches in China are beginning to teach Latin after Sunday Mass (Fig. 3.3). One of the notable characteristics of Chinese Catholic practice is its deliberate integration of Chinese and Western cultural sensibilities. During one of my early research trips to the Papal Archives at the Vatican, I looked through a seventeenth-century Chinese translation of the Tridentine Rite of Mass translated into Classical Chinese by Ludovico Buglio (1606–1682); China’s Catholics have always held that both Latin and local language Masses could be fruitfully offered. The pope then agreed, but decided to await a later time to permanently allow the Mass in Chinese—four centuries later it is at last in common use. The bishops and priests of China make time in their busy pastoral lives to keep abreast of the pope’s exhortations, and after he encouraged the renewal of Latin use during his mid-day Angelus in March 2011, China’s choirs began collecting Latin hymns and studying pronunciation. It has become common to hear the Salve Regina sung by Chinese congregations after the liturgy. In his The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ratzinger wrote that:

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Fig. 3.3 Bishop Li Shan incensing the altar during an outdoor Mass in Beijing, 2011 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)

… the Council of Trent intervened in the culture war that had broken out. It was made a norm that liturgical music should be at the service of the Word; the use of instruments was substantially reduced; and the difference between secular and sacred music was clearly affirmed.59

Thus, Chinese choirs tend to avoid music that seems overly “popular” in favor of more “sacred” tunes. What one notices, however, is that Chinese liturgical music derives both from the hallowed Latin hymns of the West and from the Buddhist chanting of ancient China. Indeed the Extraordinary Form of Mass in China commonly uses Buddhist music that has been overlaid with Catholic verse; the Mass in China has been celebrated this way since it first entered the Middle Kingdom. The music selected to accompany the parts of the Mass is always centered on what in China sounds sacred, and helps one better attune to spiritual solace.

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Turning Toward the Lord

Another movement in China’s “Benedictine” renewal is a response to recent liturgical scholarship, which recommends a renewed and openminded discussion regarding the historical practice of offering Mass “toward the Lord.” In his forward to Uwe Michael Lang’s book, Turning Towards the Lord, Ratzinger encouraged: … a new, more relaxed discussion [of liturgical orientation], in which we can search for the best ways of putting into practice the mystery of salvation. The quest is to be achieved, not by condemning one another, but by carefully listening to each other and, even more importantly, listening to the internal guidance of the liturgy itself. The labeling of positions as ‘preconciliar,’ ‘reactionary,’ and ‘conservative,’ or as ‘progressive’ and ‘alien to the faith’ achieves nothing; what is needed is a new mutual openness in the search for the best realization of the memorial of Christ.60

Questions of versus the altar (God) or versus the people do not carry the ideological antagonisms as in the West. While the Church in the West was busily arguing about liturgical orientation in the 1960s, Catholics in China were wishing they could simply go to church, as most were closed during that time. China’s sense of collectivity encourages the notion of priest and people together “turning toward the Lord,” and its Confucian sense of hierarchy reinforces the priest’s principal role in the Mass as mediator between them and God. There is a celebrated account of a visit Confucius once made to a temple, wherein he asked repeated questions about the objects and rites employed in the sacred space. Knowing that Confucius was already an expert in such things, the temple keeper asked him why he asked questions to which he already knew the answers. The Master’s answer was telling: “I ask questions about ritual because asking is part of the ritual.”61 This is to say, ritual must be perennially re-remembered and requestioned. The Chinese understand the tension between continuing to preserve ritual while persistently nuancing it as times change, but they do not forget that forgetting ritual is, simply stated, to forget the most effective way of remaining in historical continuity with those of the past. As the pope’s writings on liturgy and ecclesiology continue to be translated into Chinese, the Chinese Church continues to undergo a “Benedictine” renewal. What strikes me most about the liturgical richness of Mass in China is that Latin, high altars, and altar rails are less the objects of heated

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argument, than they are the symbols of the Church’s long and organic history, celebrated for their beauty and ritual efficacy. Beautiful churches, as Chinese Catholics insist, make beautiful people, and beautiful liturgies, they continue, make beautiful souls. In one of the more famous passages from the Analects, Confucius unwittingly established the Chinese view of ritual for the next several millennia: “If one does not understand the laws of Heaven it is impossible to be an excellent person. If one does not understand ritual it is impossible to establish one’s character. If one does not understand the power of words it is impossible to understand humanity.”62 When Western priests begin to study philosophy they first read Socrates (c. 470–399), Plato (d. 348/347), and Aristotle; when Chinese priests begin to study philosophy they first read Confucius. Pope Benedict XVI has been called “the pope of ritual,” and it makes good sense, then, why China’s Catholics are responding so enthusiastically to his works.

3.13 Essay 3.13 Father Charles McCarthy: China’s California Jesuit (December 2012) I have lived in China several times since my first stay in the 1990s, when I lived in Beijing as a Chinese language student. Deng Xiaoping was still alive then, and people thought that China was emerging from its hardline era of Chairman Mao. Much has indeed changed since Deng took office and reformed China’s economic policies. I am once again in Beijing, this time during the Eighteenth Party Congress: newspapers, television specials, and long red banners with communist slogans have covered the city in a “Red” canvas of optimism, and propaganda. Here is one example: turning the corner after Mass at South Cathedral this morning was an enormous red banner reminiscent of the Maoist era. “Long live the great people of China! Long live the great communist party of China!” Slogans such as these are being given new birth as China struggles to redefine and reassert itself as a communist country that is growing more conspicuously wealthy as Western countries grow more economically challenged. Exiting from the subway I saw still another banner extolling how Socialism will “manifest a great resurgence of the Chinese people!” As the Party Congress continues, I thought it would be opportune to reflect upon the other side of the party, one that only fifty years ago imprisoned foreign priests, nuns, and Chinese Catholics, accusing them of being “spies,” “saboteurs,” and “counterrevolutionaries.” One of the

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priests arrested in the 1950s was Father Charles McCarthy (1911–1991), a Jesuit from the California Province who lived and served in Shanghai until the party arrested him and placed him in a small prison cell. 3.13.1

An American Jesuit in China: From California to Shanghai

The great German polymath, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749– 1832), once wrote, “The moment one commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would come his way.”63 Some rare and adventurous missionaries in China have left such extraordinary footprints in the Middle Kingdom so as to confirm Goethe’s assertion. Father Charles McCarthy was such a man, whose uncommon mixture of intellect and piety fashioned one of China’s most tireless evangelists for the Christian faith, and a gentle friend of the Chinese people. McCarthy’s life in China is hardly imaginable to most people; he was detained twice while in Asia, interned first by the Japanese from 1942 to 1945, and then later imprisoned by the Chinese from 1953 to 1957 during the troubled Maoist era, and through all of his trials Father McCarthy remained an unwavering example of the Ignatian spirit, to, as Saint Ignatius of Loyola advised his successors, “give and not count the cost.” Having read several of McCarthy’s richly prosaic letters home to friends, confreres, and family, I see in his tenor the same spiritual zeal that I have discerned in the hundreds of letters I have read by canonized saints. His life was marked by surrender to the vicissitudes of fate, and from his first days in China it was clear that he loved the Chinese who he befriended as his family away from his native America. Charles McCarthy was born into a devout Catholic family in Modesto, California, in 1911, moved to San Francisco in 1915, and by the age of eighteen he had entered the Society of Jesus. He was ordained a priest in 1939, and arrived at Beijing, China, in 1941, where he studied Chinese at the famous Maison Chabanel, a house established by French Jesuits to train Society priests for the China mission (Fig. 3.4). By 1948, during the most turbulent years of transition, as the Communists and Nationalists made their most desperate and violent bids for China, Father Charles had become one of the most important Catholic journalists in Asia, writing for the Catholic Central Bureau, the Hua Ming News Service, National

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Fig. 3.4 Fr. Charles McCarthy at the Jesuit language school in Beijing, Maison Chabanel, ca. 1941 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

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Catholic Warfare Council Correspondent, and Fides International. He recounted the events of one of China’s most fractured eras from the frontline and was himself unwittingly drawn into the maelstrom of national conflict. On 3 December 1952, the American priest from California wrote a summoning letter from the Jesuit mission in Shanghai: During the first months of the year, intense and multiform pressure was brought to bear on Catholics. The authorities wanted them to form a schismatic national Church which would not be Catholic at all. They were urged to make accusations against their bishop, priests, sisters and “obstinate” lay leaders.64

In closing his letter, Father Charles exclaimed, “The Faith is firmly planted in China now; and the same grace which helped it enter through Canton’s forbidden gates, will foster its future growth.”65 In 1953, Father McCarthy no longer wrote of “others” who had been arrested; he was himself arrested on June 15th. He was accused of being an “ideological saboteur,” and spent the next four years in five different prisons. One of his cells was five feet by eight—occupied by six people—and when he was finally released in 1957, he weighed only 107 pounds, on a six-foot frame. Father Charles returned to America by boat, and when he at last sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge he was met by his three brothers, Walter, Alex, and Robert and their families. Walter’s ten-year-old daughter, Mary Jo, was also there, and this past summer, over a half-century later, I was able to chat with Mary Jo over a cup of coffee in Spokane’s South Hill neighborhood, where she and her husband, Tom, now live. We spoke about her relationship with Father McCarthy, who was one of the last two foreign priests to be released from prison during the Maoist era, and about his particular love for China after so many years a missionary there. 3.13.2

“For Love of Jesus”

One of the first topics we discussed regarding Father Charles was the unique depth of his commitment to the priesthood. Mary Jo underscored her uncle’s dedication to his religious service as a Catholic priest, and she provided me with an excerpt from a talk Father Charles delivered to the

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Serra Club in 1946, when he had briefly returned to the United States to complete a degree in journalism at Marquette University. He recalled: The Catholic missionaries had been forewarned about the war and probable internment. Most Protestant missionaries returned to America or Europe before Pearl Harbor. They had wives and children to protect. But the Catholics stayed. The Chinese Christians are still like young shoots that need nurturing, or like lambs that need protection, and we, their shepherds, felt obliged to stay with them as long as possible.66

In a letter to a confrere in 1948, Father Charles outlined his reasons for remaining in China, despite the obvious risks: “The effect of our departure on the community would be serious,” he asserted, “and might start some sort of panic. It would also further discourage our Chinese Jesuits, who are deserving of any comfort and strength that we can give them.”67 “Father Charles was at Marquette when I was born,” said Mary Jo, and her first memory of him was when he arrived in San Francisco after his release from prison. Mary Jo’s father, Walter, read all of Father Charles’ letters to the family, and “We prayed for him every night, in my grammar school … all the time. He was a presence in our lives; he was part of the family.” When they first saw Father Charles, “We just ran up and hugged him.” Mary Jo continued: We knew him. We had corresponded with him so often; we knew all about him and he knew all about us. I asked my father if he ever talked about prison, and my father said, “No, if Charlie wanted to talk about that he would.” And we never asked.

But Mary Jo noted that even though her uncle did not speak about his experiences in China, he did write about them, and he wrote very often. It was an era of transition and turbulence; China’s civil war between the Nationalists and Communists raged around him. In a letter to his brother Walter in 1949, McCarthy described in vivid terms the apprehensions of living in Shanghai at that time: “There’s a feeling that almost any letter may be the last one out for a long time… from our perch the international situation seems to be deteriorating constantly… But perhaps we can at least suffer for the souls in China.”68 Conditions grew more precarious each day, and in another letter home in April 1951, Father Charles wrote, “For months I’ve felt like a tom turkey in the third week of November: no fooling! Never know from day to day

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when we’ll be kicked, and whether it’ll be kicked out of China or into jail.”69 In October he wrote to his brother Walter: “You’ll probably have a jailbird brother soon.”70 And in November he wrote one of his most stirring letters: We have never been so conscious of the honor and privilege that comes with being a Catholic, a priest, a Jesuit—as nowadays. Twenty-one of our brothers are in custody in this land now, and the prospect is that the number will grow. All sorts of charges, but the real reason plainly is their loyalty and love for Christ and the true interest of souls—for love of Jesus.71

In 1953 he was arrested on a June evening, just past midnight, when a “cold-faced” man entered his room and announced: “You will come with me.” And he left his texts, papers, and notes. The first two years while Father Charles was in prison he was not permitted to write letters to his family in California. Mary Jo said, “For Father Charles that was heart-wrenching. … We heard about him from the Red Cross, so we knew he was alive. In one letter he wrote that it was confusing to the authorities, as he wrote often to his ‘brothers’ in Christ and to other ‘Fathers.’” They got confused because he wrote to so many “brothers” and “fathers.” He and other priests would write, “Dear Brother” and “Dear Father.” He recounted in an article in 1971 how he was able to say Mass while in prison. Through the Red Cross he managed to receive hosts wedged between Necco Wafers, and wine identified as “vitalizing medicine.” The parcels were, of course, most welcome. … I noticed in the parcel, as I signed a receipt for it, a box neatly wrapped in cellophane, with a printed label: ‘PABULUM VITAE: A time-tried nutriment to supply the vital deficiencies of those deprived of their ordinary balanced diet. INSTRUCTIONS: Take one teaspoon of the liquid, and one wafer each morning before breakfast. DOMINI CORP. Box 1212 Los Gatos, Calif.’ In the box was a bottle of dark red fluid, the liquid part of this vitalizing medicine; then there was a glass cylinder or tube, which contained a dry type of candy, Necco Wafers, of various colors and flavors, but between each of the wafers were thin layers of unleavened bread, as separators.72

With these gifts Father McCarthy was able to offer Mass in his tiny cell. His hands, as another imprisoned priest once said, had become a beautiful

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cathedral in which the Holy Sacrifice was made along with invisible choirs of angels. As we spoke I grew more curious why Father Charles did not simply return home to America as the situation in China had grown more perilous. In one of the documents Mary Jo shared with me, which he wrote in 1974, Father McCarthy recounted a moment when his interrogators asked him why he did not leave China long ago. “Couldn’t you take a hint and go away?” they asked, “Your government must have given you orders to stay! Who gave you these orders?” Quoting Christ, Father Charles responded: “‘I am the Good Shepherd, and I lay down my life for my sheep. As the Father sent me, I send you.’ Yes, I had orders to stay from Christ!”73 3.13.3

An Ambassador for Friendship

Among the characteristics of Fathr McCarthy’s life in Asia were his commitments to building a global family and his abiding love of China and the Chinese people. As we spoke, Mary Jo often recalled that “He was just part of the family,” and she emphasized that people all over the world would say the same about Father Charles. While he was in the Philippines, long after his release from prison, McCarthy learned that the Chinese there were not allowed the same social status as the native Filipinos. “They didn’t have the rights that Filipinos had there,” said Mary Jo. Opportunities were shut off from them; McCarthy was an advocate for these Chinese people. He was instrumental in helping the Chinese as an exponent of the integration of the Chinese in the Philippines. He was at the forefront of amending the citizenship provision for the Chinese, and in order to better work toward Chinese–Filipino integration, he became a Filipino citizen in 1979 and wrote books to help improve the status of the Chinese in the Philippines. Father McCarthy’s important role in Chinese integration in the Philippines was featured in the Chinese–Filipino digest, the Monthly Tulay, 8 December 1991, where it is noted that “Father McCarthy worked day and night writing to convention delegates, media men, government offices, and magazine and news publications to espouse the cause of the Philippine Chinese.”74 When in 1974, as President Marcos decreed easier access for Chinese naturalization it was, as the article recounts, “a recognition of the efforts of Father McCarthy,” and for his tireless advocacy of

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Chinese in the Philippines, he was awarded De Salle University’s prestigious Signum Meriti Medal in 1981. Jenny Go, who was once the principal of Xavier School in Manila, stated that Father Charles, “was a wonderful man whose heart was always in China.”75 Yet it is astonishing that despite his activities in distant parts of the world—Asia or Europe— Father McCarthy always managed to maintain steady correspondence with his relatives in America. Remembering McCarthy’s closeness to his own family, Mary Jo recalled a letter from China: “He wrote to his mother when his father died. He wanted to embrace her. He wanted to wrap his arms around her. My father says, ‘That’s how he felt about all of us.’” Whenever it was possible, he traveled through the United States to visit his family. The McCarthy family has been, and remains, a family powerfully united, and as Mary Jo and I concluded our discussion, she reemphasized the particular bond between Father McCarthy and his siblings. In one of Walter McCarthy’s last letters to his brother in the Philippines, dated 10 April 1991, he wrote to “Charlie”: Please know that I think of you constantly and pray for you. I wish the Philippines were closer so I would visit you and talk with you and tell you how much you mean to me. You were always a big brother and a real friend. I’ll always be praying for you.76

3.13.4

From China to Heaven

Typical of McCarthy’s beautiful correspondence to those back home, he signed off a letter to his brother, Walter, dated 28 November 1951, in the most tender and stirring words a priest can render his family. In the midst of bitter conflicts between the Church and China’s new authorities, and at a time of anxious uncertainty about his own safety, he wrote: Above all, give my love to Peg, Charles, Mary Jo, and Clare Ann, to Al, Bob and Mary, Frank, Kathleen, Bobby & Tommy. Your names are on my lips a few moments before the sacred words of Consecration morning after morning at the altar, and I’m sure they wing straight to heaven by angel couriers to gain God’s graces, protection and blessings for you all.77

Just when he himself needed “protection and blessings” most, it was for others that Charles McCarthy offered his Masses. And in his final remarks,

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he asks his family at home in California to, “Please keep up the prayers for China and the for the Church here. … Your loving brother, Charles.”78 The end of this extraordinary life came in 1991, after many decades of service to the Catholic community in Asia. On 15 December 1991, just two weeks after his passing, Father Ted Taheny (1925–2011) gave the funeral homily for Father Charles in the chapel of the Jesuit community at the University of San Francisco. He said: “Today would have been Father Charles’ 80th birthday. Today is the 14th day of his birth into the company of the Lord’s saints.”79

3.14

Essay 3.14 Beijing Lent (February 2013)

Lent has begun, and many Christians in Western countries have likely selected something to “give up,” and the more devout have committed to Friday evening Stations of the Cross. In Beijing, where I am presently living to continue my research on the Church in China, Ash Wednesday service was overcrowded, and the homily was animated: “Self-denial is countercultural,” the priest said, “but this time is an opportunity to grow closer to Jesus.” The hymn during the reception of “holy ashes,” shenghui, intoned repeatedly, “Oh man, remember always that you are ashes (shenghui), and into ashes you shall return.” And after Mass everyone funneled back into the ninety-eight percent non-religious population of China’s twenty-million-person capital with a dark cross on our foreheads. An hour before Mass on the first Sunday of Lent, three young, energetic Catholics, probably in their early twenties, led the filled church in the Stations of the Cross, which will be prayed by China’s Catholics on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays during Lent. The manner in which China prays the Stations is impressive; each Station is done with prayers, bows, kneeling, and chanting. After a deep bow while intoning the name of God, tianzhu, the faithful sing a lamentation: “My Lord, Jesus, I have sinned, and I detest what I have done. Along with the Holy Mother and all the saints, I share Your suffering; I share Your injuries; I share Your worries. I beg You, my Lord, remain forever in my heart, and I beseech you to have mercy on me …” And following this prayer, the booklet instructs the faithful to “kneel toward the holy altar of sacrifice.” The parish prayer booklets in every church in China contain Mass cards from Requiem Masses, reminding the faithful to “Please pray for the recently deceased, [name],” which seems appropriate during Lent.

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After the Stations of the Cross on this weekend, a priest provided a brief instruction on the Gospel reading before the Mass, the entire congregation read the passage together out loud, and then the bell rang, marking the beginning of Holy Mass. The celebrant wore the traditional purple vestments for Lenten Masses, and his beautifully embroidered chasuble featured the signs of Christ’s Passion—Cross, nails, and crown. In his homily the priest spoke about how important it is to, “remain vigilant against the temptations of the Enemy, pray for the Church, read your bibles, and try your best to be holy.” After evening Mass, my wife and I stopped in the church bookstore, where I overheard a man ask the clerk, “Where are your catechisms? I need to know more about the faith.” As I entered the subway station to return to my small apartment in Beijing’s University District, I reflected on typical Lenten Masses in my home country, and I could not help but wonder if China’s historical Via Crucis has given its Catholics a special awareness of Lent’s meaning, an awareness that inspires them the pray the Stations more often, and with more solemnity.

3.15 Essay 3.15 China’s Church and the Pope’s Resignation (February 2013) After a week of international news coverage about the pope’s imminent retirement, China’s news has so far failed to announce it. China’s Catholics, even the priests, are still unaware of what is happening in Rome, and this media silence in China about the pope’s retirement comes at a time when the government has begun a three-part campaign to “eradicate non-sanctioned Christian activities.” The government’s official response to the pope’s announcement has not appeared in the news, which reiterates the communist party line. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman stated: We have noted relevant reports. China is always sincere in the improvement of China-Vatican relations, and would like to do so based on the two basic principles of handling China-Vatican relations. First, the Vatican should sever its so-called diplomatic ties with Taiwan, recognize that the PRC government represents the whole of China, and that Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory. Second, the Vatican should not interfere in China’s internal affairs, including interferences in the name of religious affairs. We hope under the leadership of the new pope, the Holy

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See will take a flexible and practical attitude to create conditions for the improvement of bilateral relations.80

At every Mass, China’s Catholics pray for Pope Benedict XVI; it is unfortunate that this news about the pope they pray for is withheld from them.

3.16 Essay 3.16 Pope Francis’ Installation, and the Advent of a New Era (March 2013) Little has changed in China’s official attitude toward the Vatican since Chairman Mao famously described Christians and other religious groups as, “enemies without guns.” During the most intense years of the Maoist era, the Chairman praised the “life-and-death class struggle” between religion and the People, and continued: “The enemies without guns are more hidden, cunning, sinister and vicious than the enemies with guns.”81 While China’s rhetoric has softened somewhat since Mao, it still adheres to its position that the Catholic Church interferes in China’s affairs “under the cloak of religion.” China’s spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hua Chunying, expressed China’s congratulations for his installation as the new pope, but warned that the Vatican, “must stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, including in the name of religion.”82 She then asserted China’s demand that Pope Francis sever ties with Taiwan. Beijing’s communist party, which severed ties with the Vatican in 1951, was angry that a Taiwan representative attended Pope Francis’ installation, and refused to send a representative from mainland China. The Holy See, however, did not issue specific invitations to the installation Mass, and as Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi stated, “No one is privileged, no one is refused, everyone is welcome if they say they are coming.”83 One of the most common refrains I hear from Chinese Catholics is, “It is our dream that the pope will someday come to China.” And even while they say this they understand well the complexities of such a request. China’s communist government maintains its position that religion is an “opiate” that should be eradicated, and the Church maintains its position that true religious freedom cannot exist under communism. Taiwan’s popular newspaper, The China Post, announced that “President Ma Yingjeou and first lady Christine Chow had front-row seats at Saint Peter’s

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Square” during Pope Francis’ installation.84 Taiwan’s president sat next to Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla. China alone refused to attend the installation, as China’s Catholics continue to pray that their Holy Father will someday be able to visit their country, still run by a government that sees their religion as an “enemy without guns.”

3.17

Essay 3.17 The Death of Shanghai’s Bishop Jin Luxian (April 2013)

China’s most famous, and most powerful, Roman Catholic bishop has died. When I last saw him in 2011, I knew then that age was finally catching up with Shanghai’s remarkable and indefatigable prelate. As we sat together, I handed him a pile of rare photographs of him and his fellow Jesuits, images that dated before his arrest in 1955. Pausing for some time as he looked over the first photograph, he said in a low voice, “Old beloved friends.” He had not seen those faces in more than six long and eventful decades. He asked me to bring more photographs of “Catholic Shanghai before the communists”; I do have more images to give him, but now he is perhaps seeing the real faces of his “beloved friends,” and I will file them away for posterity. Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian was one of the most gentle and charming people I have met, and he was also among the most enigmatic, and as I thumb through his dossier I vacillate between admiration, disagreement, speculation, and sometimes disappointment. As I said in my 2010 interview with Bishop Jin for Ignatius Insight, with Jin there are “no easy answers.” I would like to offer a few remarks here about why Bishop Jin’s death, at the age of 97, marks the closure of one of the most noteworthy eras in the history of Catholicism in China. Jin Luxian lived through China’s most dramatic changes and growing pains as it transitioned from empire to the largest and most paradoxical communist country in the history of our world. He witnessed China’s war with Japan (1930s); the fierce and tragic war between his own countrymen, the Nationalists and Communists (1920s–1949); the rise of Mao Zedong and Maoism in 1949; the turbulent 100 Flowers Movement (1956) and the following Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957–1958); the Great Leap Forward and the millions of deaths it caused; the cruel violence of the Cultural Revolution; the post-Mao economic boom inaugurated by Deng Xiaoping. This long list of China’s landmark events does not include equally dramatic events in Catholic history, such as the Second Vatican Council. Because he was a Jesuit priest who had

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earned his doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Jin was labeled a “dangerous counterrevolutionary” in alliance with an “imperialist power,” the Vatican. Jin Luxian’s life provides historians extraordinary access to some of the world’s most exceptional moments of transformation, and if you ask China’s Catholics who has been the most influential figure in their Church’s remarkable survival and seemingly impossible growth through their country’s painful birth as a communist superpower, they will, to the person, reply, “Bishop Jin.” On my desk, as I write this essay lay two handsome photo-histories of the Diocese of Shanghai, replete with images of Bishop Jin, as well as a massive 750-page collection of his homilies, a French biography of his life, countless Chinese liturgical books that he has either written himself or sponsored, and the recently published copy of his personal memoirs, to which I wrote the introduction.85 Books by or about him can fill a bookcase, and anyone who has made a tour of “Catholic Shanghai” cannot but notice that Bishop Jin singlehandedly solicited enough funds from all over the globe to restore Shanghai’s numerous churches, build a new seminary, and commission the construction of many other Catholic facilities, including a busy retreat house for China’s overworked clergy. Catholic Shanghai is Jin’s Shanghai, and his new rectory towers over his cathedral, named after St. Ignatius, the founder of his order. 3.17.1

The Complexities of Survival

Many Catholics have asked; how did Bishop Jin manage to build a Catholic empire in Shanghai under the watchful eye of a communist government that had vowed to “help religion along the natural path of withering away.” I once asked him how he explained his successful efforts to revitalize the Church in China while also maintaining a cozy relationship with the communist party. He answered: “I am both a serpent and a dove. The government thinks I’m too close to the Vatican, and the Vatican thinks I’m too close to the government. I’m a slippery fish squashed between government control and Vatican demands.” For better or worse, Bishop Jin Luxian’s priority was the survival of Catholicism in China, and he maintained connections with an enormous array of personalities. He kept a wide range of company; in one photograph he is pictured at Rice University with his friend, the dissident theologian Hans Küng, in another he is seen giving Holy Communion to Mother Teresa, and in yet another photo Jin is shown meeting with President

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Bill Clinton. While there can be little doubt that he was able to use his connections to preserve and promote the Church in China, Jin’s decisions were not always popular with Rome. When he accepted his office as bishop of Shanghai in 1988, he did so without the approval of the Holy See. In his “Acceptance of Office and Promise of Fidelity,” Bishop Jin pronounced, “I believe all the teachings on faith in the Holy Church…I will try my best to take care of the spiritual and material needs of the clergy and faithful.” And then he promised to “observe the Constitutions and Laws of the People’s Republic of China,” and offer his life for God and the “independent and autonomous Diocese of Shanghai.”86 While rendering his obedience to the Constitutions and Laws of the communist government of China, he was at the same time writing countless letters to foreign bishops, describing the political persecution under which Chinese Catholics suffer, and asking for generous donations to rebuild the Chinese Church. One of his patent lines in letters to solicit even a small donation was, “Many streams make a large river.”87 I cannot help but have mixed feelings knowing that Jin made public concessions to China’s oppressive and anti-religious government, while at the same time I know countless Chinese Catholics can presently practice their religious faith in the Shanghai church that was funded and restored through Jin’s efforts. Even as one considers Jin Luxian’s collaboration with China’s authorities and the communist-overseen Catholic Patriotic Association, anyone with sympathy for human suffering must acknowledge his herculean resolution to survive decades of sustained communist imprisonment, bullying, and “reeducation.” In the 1950s, Shanghai’s party officials launched a merciless attack against the city’s popular bishop, Ignatius Gong Pinmei. On the evening of 8 September 1955, the Shanghai police made a wide sweep through the city’s Catholic residences. Father Jin was at home reading a book at 9:30 p.m., when plain-clothed officers forced themselves into his room and arrested the unsuspecting priest. As he recalled his arrest: “The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was 8 September 1955, which was also the anniversary of my vows.”88 He was rebuked, as was his fellow prisoner, Bishop Gong Pinmei, as a “stinking old nine intellectual” and a “parasite” of the People. He began his tireless work to restore the Church in China after his release from prison, when he was sixty-six years old, and he adhered to the Jesuit motto, Magis —“More”—until his death a few days ago, at the age of 97.

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In the preface of his Memoirs, which he wrote when he was 92 years old, Bishop Jin wrote: “When I close my eyes and think back, those years have truly passed in an instant, but on close examination this instant was full of hardship.”89 Whether or not his methods were correct his life has not been one of comfort and selfishness; Jin Luxian, if anything, lived as a Catholic priest. There is much about Bishop Jin’s actions that many Catholics may not comfortably condone, but none of us is without complexity. Every time we met, Jin was unselfish with his time, and spoke with warmth and kindness. As I wrote in my introduction to his Memoirs, “Jin Luxian has been identified as a politician, protector, and prisoner, but he would simply refer to himself as a priest; and in a final word, Jin has always been, and remains, a priest.”90 There is little doubt that the Church in China has flourished under his leadership, as priest, bishop, and administrator. One of his favorite sayings of St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, was taken from John the Baptist, “Oportet illum crescere, me autem minui”—“He should grow and I should diminish.” Bishop Jin has gone, but I suspect that his greatest wish would be for the Church he left behind to continue to grow, even as his memory diminishes into history. Requiem ætérnam dona eis; et lux perpetua lúceat eis.

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Essay 3.18 China, the Vatican, and an Enduring Culture of Disagreement (May 2013)

In the wake of China’s Eighteenth National Congress of the communist party, held in November 2012, the party has renewed its dedication to asserting its ideology. Beijing has redrawn the line between the Church in China and Vatican authority, recently revising its regulations for how China’s Catholic bishops are selected and ordained. The state-controlled Bishops Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC), which is not recognized by the Holy See, has been assigned even more authority over the election and consecration of Catholic bishops in China. Previously, the Vatican had gained a significant voice in the approval of China’s bishops, but as of April each diocese must first seek the approval of the BCCCC and the Bureau for Religious Affairs before ordaining a new bishop, and the new prelate must now render public support for the Chinese communist party.

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Until now no Chinese bishop has been required to express such an explicit support for the communist party and its policies, which they know places bishops in conflict with the teachings of the Church. In Pius XII’s famous encyclical against communism in 1937, the pope declared communism “the most persistent enemy of the Church,” and among the concerns of Catholics in the pew in China is that the government’s new hardline will result in a rapid growth of “underground” ordinations and worship.91 At the end of his general audience on May 22, Pope Francis called all Christians to pray on May 24 for the suffering Church in China: “I urge all Catholics around the world to join in prayer with our brothers and sisters who are in China, to implore from God the grace to proclaim with humility and joy Christ, who died and rose again; to be faithful to His Church and the Successor of Peter and to live everyday life in service to their country and their fellow citizens in a way that is consistent with the faith they profess.”92 And then the pope recited the prayer to Our Lady of Sheshan, China, written by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI: “Our Lady of Sheshan, sustain all those in China, who, amid their daily trials, continue to believe, to hope, to love. May they never be afraid to speak of Jesus to the world, and of the world to Jesus.”

3.19 Essay 3.19 China’s Modern Martyrs from Mao to Now: Part 1 (June 2013) 3.19.1

Part 1, Accusations

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.—John 1:10

I have just returned from another year in China where I have witnessed China’s Roman Catholic population continue to increase. I have observed churches struggle to accommodate the crowds who come for Mass, and I have listened to countless stories of Christian suffering and resistance in post-1949 China. Over the years I have traveled with, and developed enduring friendships with many Chinese Catholics. Priests have risked their safety to meet me at secluded places, accompany me on peasant-filled

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busses to remote places of Catholic martyrdom, and send me surreptitious messages about the continued challenges that China’s Catholics confront every day. I once sat across from a crippled “underground” bishop, his spine permanently stooped over from 20 years of maltreatment in a state prison because he refused to denounce the pope. The bishop’s eyes were kindly and at peace, despite his distorted face, and he said over and over, “Thank you, Lord.” At such times, when I am with Chinese Catholics who have harrowing personal stories of courage and endurance, I recall the famous line from St. Augustine: “God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.” This remarkable bishop, Hu Daguo, was believed by his fellow Catholics to have suffered like Christ, and was esteemed as one of the most notable bishops to have lived through the Cultural Revolution. For nearly a decade I have collected testimonies, handwritten accounts, and archival documents that outline how China’s Church has preserved its religious identity, and in the following account I will highlight some of those stories, stories that will help explain why Chinese Catholics still define their community as a “martyr Church.” 3.19.2

Looking Ahead: His Excellency, Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin

While most Westerners hear only of China’s “economic miracle” and its troubled relationship with Tibetan Buddhists, few news sources or university courses discuss the government’s consistent policymaking aimed at controlling and slowly diminishing China’s Christian community. Only hours after Bishop Ma Daqin was consecrated the auxiliary bishop of Shanghai in July, 2012, the 54-year-old champion of Shanghai’s Catholic community was quietly escorted away by incognito communist officers. He has not been seen publicly since. Bishop Ma was favored and recognized by Pope Benedict XVI, and was set to succeed the recently deceased bishop of Shanghai, Aloysius Jin Luxian a Jesuit who suffered 27 years of imprisonment before his release. China’s state authorities only begrudgingly allow Catholicism to remain active, and the government is adamant that the Church hierarchy remains obedient first to the government, and governs the Catholic community in complete separation from the pope in Rome “in all matters except spiritual ones.” Ma Daqin insists that he is Catholic first, and for this he is now under house arrest.

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During his ordination as bishop, Ma Daqin allowed the three consecrating bishops who are in communion with the Holy See to lay hands on him, but when an illegitimate, state-supported bishop approached him, Ma stood up to embrace the other bishops, openly defying state interference in Church law and governance. And after this bold act, the new Bishop Ma announced in his public thank-you speech that he declined any further affiliation with the communist-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association. He would, he said, devote himself only to his ministry as a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church without official government oversight. Shanghai’s crowded Saint Ignatius cathedral erupted into a long and enthusiastic applause of open support for the bishop’s defiance against the government. I was told by sources in Beijing that Bishop Ma is still under arrest at the Sheshan Catholic seminary near Shanghai, and is undergoing “reeducation” by the local authorities. While I could not confirm that information, I know that China’s Catholics are heartened by Bishop Ma’s courageous opposition to communist control, and continue to seek a renewed era of clerical resistance to the state’s involvement in the Church’s life and affairs in China. 3.19.3

Looking Back: A Communist Attack Against the Trappist Abbey of China

The history of communist hostility against Christianity in China reaches back more than eight decades before Bishop Ma Daqin’s resistance in Shanghai. One of the most tragic examples of how intense action against Christianity can be was the communist massacre of thirty-three monks connected to Our Lady of Consolation Trappist Abbey at Yangjiaping. Still today, Chinese Catholics only speak of this incident in hushed tones for fear of the government. In 1947, a bedraggled and terrorized group of Trappist monks arrived in Beijing, where the American Jesuit, Father Charles J. McCarthy was the first person to collect the horrible stories of what had happened to their celebrated abbey, then in ruins (Fig. 3.5). The stories they provided McCarthy had clearly stirred the young priest, for he later penned one of the most harrowing accounts of communist atrocities in China’s early modern history. He began his narrative in vivid terms:

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Fig. 3.5 Trappist survivors of the 1947 anti-Catholic death march led by the Peoples Liberation Army, Beijing, 1947 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

In the early morning hours of 30 August 1947, the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Consolation…was reduced to ruins by fire. … The burning of their monastery, effected by communists who control this region, was but one act, and not the most pathetic, in a long tragic persecution inflicted on the brave Trappist Community. At present writing, 16 Trappists are known to have died during the ordeal.93

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The death toll indeed rose beyond 16, and as the details of their deaths came to light the inhumane tactics of China’s communists also became known. Among the best sources for what happened in 1947 at Yangjiaping Abbey are the published descriptions by Father Stanislaus Jen (1936– 2003), one of the Chinese monks who witnessed many of the incidents.94 Jen recounts that communist forces under Mao Zedong had gained control of the area around Yangjiaping Abbey in late 1937, and by 1939 had decided to begin a campaign against the Christian monks. At noon one day some of the monastery Oblates left the enclosure to enjoy a walk, and were startled to discover that 8000 People’s Liberation Army troops had surrounded the community. Commanding officers entered the Abbey and demanded that the monks surrender the few rifles they had been given during the Boxer Uprising in 1900 to defend themselves; the situation was tense. Fearing an attack on the monastery, the monks surrendered their rifles, and once they were unarmed the communists forced themselves into the Abbey and searched through every room, even upturning the floors. As Father Stanislaus wrote, “Even the Oblates foresaw the end of O. L. of Consolation for the monks.”95 Under orders of Chairman Mao’s leader of the People’s Liberation Army, Zhu De (1886–1976), several of the monks were arrested; “they were stripped of their clothes, tied by thumbs and big toes behind their back and hanged in trees in the valley for hours in icy cold winter temperature.”96 Scoffing at Brother Alexis Liu (d. 1948), soldiers shot bullets near his head to frighten him. The People’s Army eventually left the Abbey, leaving behind representatives of the police, and from that time on the monastery was “completely under the control of the communists.”97 During the decade before 1949, Mao was already asserting strongly the party’s position against religion, especially the Christian religion. In one impassioned speech, Mao proclaimed that “the imperialist powers have never slackened their efforts to poison the minds of the Chinese people,” and this “policy of cultural aggression,” he argued, “is carried out through missionary work, through establishing hospitals and schools, publishing newspapers” to “dupe the people.”98 Christians, he told his followers, were imperialists determined to take over China, and since nearly three-fourths of China’s Christians at that time were Catholic, the People were encouraged to attack Roman Catholic institutions and convert them to their own way of thinking.

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3.19.4

Accusations: The People’s Court and the Trappist Monks of Yangjiaping

An exceptional account of what the People’s Liberation Army did to the Trappists next is found in Gerolamo Fazzini’s, The Red Book of Chinese Martyrs, though even this work does not provide all the tragic details.99 By April 1947, the communists began gathering people near the Abbey and conducted “peasant association meetings,” during which the party cadres contrived false allegations that the monks had taken land from “the People,” and that the Catholics were determined to tyrannize the Chinese. After pillaging the monastery, the communists organized an open-air trial before more than a thousand villagers. At the first of these “People’s courts,” on 1 July 1947, two of the monks were dragged before a crowd, accused of “oppressing the people of China,” and ordered to give the Abbey’s goats to the peasants. At another trial on July 10, the monks were again presented to the People’s court. The thirty-nine-year-old Father Seraphin, OCSA (1909– 1948), was, as Thomas Merton, OCSA (1951–1968) wrote in his The Waters of Siloe, “marked out for particularly cruel treatment,” and was “beaten across the back with clubs for two hours” in the presence of the villagers, many of whom were formerly friends of the Abbey.100 The monks stood on stage after they were stripped to the waist—the communists tore their habits during their arrests. The charge: the Abbey had collaborated with foreign colonial powers during the Boxer Uprising and used the guns received from the French government to oppress the Chinese people. The verdict: the People’s Court ordered the monks to repay to the local peasants all it “had stolen from the people.” The next trial was held on the morning of July 23. The soldiers kicked the monks as they walked from their residence to the Abbey church, where the soldiers occupied the choir stalls while the monks began to chant the morning Divine Office: Laudate Dóminum de cælis; laudate eum in excelsis, “Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights above.”101 Peasants filed into the nave as they sang. Theresa Marie Moreau’s dramatic book, Blood of the Martyrs: Trappist Monks in Communist China, describes the scene of this final trial in the Abbey church: A table for the judges had been placed underneath the extinguished sanctuary lamp. … Father Gulielmus Cambourieu (1870-1947), gifted with a

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sensitive nature, whispered to his confreres, “We’re all going to die martyrs. Let’s make a general Act of Contrition.” They were to be tried before another People’s court.102

The communist court summoned Father Seraphin to the platform and accused him of spying on the neighboring villages to gather information for the Japanese. After he denied the false charge, members of the People’s Liberation Army were ordered to beat the monk with clubs. The abuse was so severe that Father Seraphin cried out, “Have a little mercy.” His judge’s reply was direct: “The time for mercy is past; this is the hour of our revenge.”103 A young Catholic woman named Maria Zhang was commanded to testify against Father Seraphin, but after she defended him before the court she was tied to a column and beaten on her head and back. Collapsing from the abuse, the communists thought she was dead; “they took one of their crude festal banners, threw it over the prostrate form, then calmly resumed the trial.”104 Selected village representatives gathered in the nave, and at last demanded that the entire Trappist community should be executed. The party cadre officiating at the trial coldly informed the monks that “the people’s decision is our decision; for the communist government is the people’s government.”105 One after the next, the Trappist monks were forced to the corner of the church, near where the vigil lamp of the Blessed Sacrament was suspended, and their hands and feet were shackled in chains. Their rosaries, scapulars, and holy medals were taken away, and they were escorted to the monastery refectory, where they were imprisoned to await their punishment. The monks, as they said, submitted to divine will, for as Saint Benedict had written in his Rule, “monks are men who can claim no dominion even over their own bodies or wills.”106 The trial and the accusations were a charade. The Abbey and the surrounding villages had always lived in peace, and the monks had even helped the villagers on many occasions. The party had carefully orchestrated the trials and beatings; they had turned the villagers against the monks with fabricated rumors and encouraged them to raid the monastery’s provisions and seize its land and animals. The Trappists had lost everything but their lives, but many would lose even that.

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3.19.5

The Hidden History of China’s Communist Government

China’s current government is keen to conceal the events of this tragedy, and few people in and out of China today are aware of the unpitying violence the People’s Liberation Army inflicted upon the monks. Over the past several years the events of the Trappist martyrdoms in 1947 China have punctuated my research on other historical events; at chance moments I stumble across accounts of what happened there. After Mass at Beijing’s West Church, an elderly Catholic man called me to the parish center to show me materials he had gathered about the Yangjiaping massacre, and suggested a surreptitious meeting with one of the Abbey survivors. I later met this survivor and recorded his tragic story of what happened. Last year, Theresa Marie Moreau kindly sent me a copy of her book, Blood of the Martyrs, and in a recent correspondence she expressed her hope that the Trappist martyrs of China are someday recognized widely in the Catholic Church. And during research visits to important Catholic archives in Europe, I inadvertently came across several rare documents related to the Trappist monks in China who were tried, tortured, and martyred by Chinese communists. Other accounts of persecution of China’s Catholics have been given to me during recent trips to China. “We can’t say anything about this,” they tell me, “but you can.” I shall thus convey some of these stories so more may know about the extraordinary experiences of China’s former Trappist community. In another essay I shall outline what happened to the Trappist monks of Our Lady of Consolation Abbey at Yangjiaping after their trials. Relying on several sources, including the report taken by Father Charles J. McCarthy in 1947 and the testimony given to me by one of the survivors, I will describe the death march inflicted on the monks, and the torments they endured. As one communist soldier informed the monks, “Before long, in our territories there will be no Catholic Church.” Despite their sufferings, or perhaps because of them, the area around Yangjiaping now boasts a thriving Catholic population.

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3.20 Essay 3.20 China’s Modern Martyrs from Mao to Now: Part 2 (September 2013) The body of Christ which is the Church, like the human body, was first young, but at the end of the world it will have an appearance of decline.— St. Augustine

As I sat with Brother Marcel Zhang, in his Beijing apartment, I thumbed through his private photographs of Yangjiaping Trappist Abbey. Some were taken before its destruction in 1947, and some he had taken during a recent visit to the ruins. What was once a majestic abbey church filled with worship had been reduced to debris and an occasional partial outline of a collapsing gothic window. When the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attacked the monastery in 1947 and began its abuses against the monks, Zhang was one of the monks. He shared with me some of his recollections, no doubt at great risk, and with what must have been considerable inner anguish. As we looked at a picture of the Abbey church as it appears today, where the monks gathered for daily Mass prior to 1947, Zhang paused to contemplate the ruins. “It’s already gone … already, the church is like this,” he said, insinuating that the ruins of the Abbey “church” metaphorically represented the “Church” in China, still haunted by the past, still tormented in the present107 (Fig. 3.6). After the People’s court had demanded the collective execution of the monks of Our Lady of Consolation Abbey at Yangjiaping, the Trappists were bound in heavy chains or thin wire that cut deeply into their wrists, and were confined to await their punishments. Brother Zhang recalled that during the many trials, party officials presiding over the interrogations accused the Trappists of being, “wealthy landlords, rich peasants who exploit poor peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad eggs, and rightists.” Essentially, they were charged with all of the “crimes” commonly ascribed to the worst classes in the communist list of “bad elements.”108 Normally, only one of these accusations was sufficient to warrant an immediate public execution, but some of the accused from the abbey were foreigners, and news that Nationalist forces were on their way to save the monks alarmed the communist officers. Punishments had to be inflicted on the road, on what became the Via Crucis of the Trappist sons of Saint Benedict. More interrogations were staged during stops, and Brother Zhang noted that new trials, or “struggle sessions” as he called them,

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Fig. 3.6 Anthony E. Clark with the last remaining survivor of the 1947 Trappist death march at Yangjiaping Abbey, Brother Marcel Zhang, Beijing, 2011 (Source Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)

were orchestrated at every village. Zhang himself was questioned more than twenty times at impromptu People’s courts. He remembered that he was treated with much more leniency than the priests, as he was still only a young seminarian in 1947. The priests were much more despised. “After the interrogations,” Zhang recalled, “we would go out to relieve ourselves, and I saw the buttocks of the priests, which were red [from their beatings]; the flesh hung off like meat.”109 Chinese Catholics who know about the Yangjiaping incident refer to these torments as a “siwang xingjun,” or a “death march,” and this is when most of the Trappists who died received their “palms of martyrdom.”

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The Death March: A Trappist “Way of the Cross”

Late in the evening of 12 August 1947, the feast of St. Clare of Assisi, one of the communist officials who had ordered the severe beatings at the People’s court, Comrade Li Tuishi, gathered the wearied monks for their march. He told the assembled community that they “had been blinded by their religious Superiors and by their life behind the cloistered walls.” “Things have changed,” Li exclaimed, now they were to leave the abbey and see the glorious new China under communism.110 The large mass of troops in the People’s Liberation Army was actually fleeing from Nationalist forces as torrential rainfall beleaguered their march. Each monk was burdened with the soldiers’ packs, heavy with supplies, and the first night march through narrow mountain passes extended until noon the following day. As Theresa Moreau describes it, they were “whipped and beaten with sticks” as they walked, and after arriving at their destination they were “herded into sectioned-off rooms” in a landlord’s home that the communists had confiscated from the hapless owner.111 The first to die was Brother Bruno Fu, (1868–1947) who collapsed from overexertion; he was eighty-two years old and his frail body was unable to endure the torturous climbs and long hours of marching on steep trails with a heavy pack. Father Charles McCarthy noted that Brother Fu “died on the fiftieth anniversary of his final vows” as a Trappist. He was “buried without a Mass, almost without a ceremony at all.”112 Hearing that the PLA had escaped with their prisoners, the Nationalists abandoned their rescue mission, and on August 18 Li Tuishi commanded his troops to return to the abbey, then empty after days of pillage. The rigors of the return march claimed the lives of two more Chinese confreres, Brothers Phillip Liu (1877–1947) and Clemens Gao (1899– 1947). When Father McCarthy asked whether they had died from “beatings,” “from hunger, or the poor food,” the surviving witnesses simply replied, “Kusile,” or “He just died from anguish.”113 On August 29 the communist forces again assembled the Trappist community and forced them on another march, this time for nearly 100 miles without rest in constant rain that made their packs even heavier. Several of the monks were too infirm to walk, and had to be carried by stronger confreres until they were allowed to briefly rest in a large, muddy pigpen. As they set out again, Father William Camourieu (1874–1947), had to be carried, but his bearers lost their grip on him during the long march, and the old priest fell to the ground and gashed his head on a sharp stone. He lost so much

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blood from his injury that a nearby priest “edged over and administered absolution.”114 His body was hastily buried and the march continued to another small village named Dengjiayu, where they were housed in cold, leaky rooms for more than three weeks. There they endured even more violent treatment—all of the monks were bound with thin wire that cut into their arms. One witness told McCarthy that “Those whose hands were bound in front of them could make out well at meal times; those whose hands were bound in back had to eat from their rice bowls like animals.”115 At the village, the soldiers invited the Catholics to outline their religious views, though surviving Trappists described these exchanges more as taunts than sincere attempts at dialogue. One communist soldier derided: We’ve seen you pray when you were beaten. You don’t feel the first ten blows badly; but when you have had a hundred, you wail and ask God to help you. Does God prevent you from feeling further blows? If he’s a God that does not care to help you or cannot help you, we want none of him. For our part, we don’t believe in God.116

The monks were unmoved by these insults; as Brother Zhang asserted, they had time and again read in Sacred Scripture: “As then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born of the spirit, even so it is now.”117 Even so, many physically succumbed to the violence that accompanied the trials and struggle sessions at Dengjiayu. Five Chinese brothers died from sheer exhaustion: Conrad Ma (1872– 1947), Jerome Li (1873–1947), Mark Li (1885–1947), Aloysius Ren (1872–1947), and Bartholomew Qin (1893–1947). Each of these monks was buried in a shallow trench, and the rains were so severe that their bodies were quickly exposed as the waters washed away the soil. While the brothers died mostly of extreme fatigue, the priests suffered deliberate torments. When Father Damian Huang (1890–1947) arrived at the village he crawled on his knees for the last portion of their march, since he had previously suffered frostbite on his feet and could barely walk. His hands were tied tightly behind his back, and Huang was thrown into a pigsty, where soldiers kicked and punched the priest.118 He died in February the following year, after six months of suffering related to his abuses. Brother Marcel Zhang described to me the final agony and death

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of Father Alphonse L’Heureux (1894–1947), whose anguish was particularly severe. Zhang remembered that Father L’Heureux “had been in China for several years, and had just contracted severe dysentery” before the communists besieged their monastery.119 While marching to Dengjiayu village, Father L’Heureux’s trousers were entirely saturated with excrement since he was never allowed to stop relieve himself along the way. The communist troops confined him at the village, and tightened the wire around his wrists so that his wrists swelled and opened into wounds. Testimonies recount that Father L’Heureux begged the PLA soldiers for a priest to hear his final confession on the night before his death. A sympathetic soldier permitted one of the priests to hear his confession and bring him some water. The next morning, September 13, Father L’Heureux was found dead, and Brother Marcel Zhang was ordered to bury the body. Zhang said that the priest’s expression was serene, and that one of the soldiers remarked that Father L’Heureux looked like “the man on the cross in the abbey church.”120 Buried beside his Chinese confreres who had just died, the earth covering his grave, too, was washed away as rain continued to fall. These monks had died from neglect and abuse; others were killed outright. In Theresa Moreau’s account of the final executions of six monks, she recounts that the communist “death squad” shot them after they endured a series of beatings and interrogations in staged struggle sessions.121 Brother Marcel Zhang recalled that other Trappists from Our Lady of Consolation Abbey were forced to kneel while the communist soldiers pummeled them to death with stones, which they did after asking the monks how people were killed in the bible.122 Among those who died from stoning were Fathers Chrysostom Zhang (1917–1947) and Seraphim Shi (1908–1947). Father P. Decroix writes that these two priests “were made to stretch out on the ground with their heads resting on a rock, then jagged stone was dropped on them, crushing their skulls and cutting the heads from their bodies.”123 This grim description was supported by Brother Marcel Zhang, who said they were martyred as the soldiers “crushed them with stones.”124 In his carefully preserved record of the tragic torments of the Trappists of Yangjiaping, Father Stanislaus Jen has verified that of the seventy-seven monks who were in the community during the communist persecution of the abbey, fourteen were murdered, while nineteen others died from negligence and maltreatment; this makes “a total of thirty-three martyrs” who died in 1947.125

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Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Tertio Millenio Adveniente (As the Millennium Draws Near), conjures Tertullian’s adage that “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity,” and in it he wrote that: At the end of the second millennium, the Church has once again become a Church of martyrs. The persecutions of believers—priests, religious, laity— has caused a great sowing of martyrdom in different parts of the world. … This witness must not be forgotten.126

His exhortation to remember the martyrs still serves to motivate many Chinese Catholics to collect and preserve records of what happened to the Trappist monks of Yangjiaping in 1947. 3.20.2

The Transition: Our Lady of Consolation Becomes Our Lady of Joy

We can recall the events of 1947 at Our Lady of Consolation Abbey only because there were survivors to recount what happened. Weary of dealing with the monks, General Zhu De’s troops were ordered to leave the remaining Trappists at Dengjiayu, and local officials sent them to another village in October. They were then released in small groups that made their way to Beijing, where Father Charles McCarthy, China’s Jesuit reporter for Fides News Service and Catholic News Service, collected their testimonies. Exhausted, hungry, and emotionally drained, the survivors who staggered into Beijing were looked after by the Benedictine community then teaching at Fu Jen University. Some of the Trappists decided to remain in Beijing, including Brother Marcel Zhang, where they established a dairy farm on property purchased from a Russian man who used the money to move to America.127 With fifty cows, the survivors were able to maintain their Trappist routine of prayer and Mass. Perhaps not knowing that the dairy farm was a clandestine Catholic monastery, many communist officials purchased dairy products from the Trappist confreres; the first premier of the People’s Republic of China, Zhou Enlai (1898–1976), was among those who bought milk from the monks.128 For two years this clandestine community of Roman Catholic Trappists sustained its monastic obligations, and their dairy profits even allowed them to provide financial help to other Catholic congregations that struggled under the political uncertainty of that time. But in January 1949, communist forces entered Beijing triumphantly, and by the end of 1950

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the party began to more closely monitor activities within the city. By spring 1953, the “dairy farm” in Beijing accommodated sixty Trappist men, and China’s new government confiscated their farm, sending all of them to labor camps, as Ren Dayi describes, where they “had to undergo another martyrdom.”129 Many of the survivors who made it to Beijing in 1947 relocated to Lantau Island, near Hong Kong, and built Our Lady of Joy Abbey, where Trappists today still fill the choir stalls of their small chapel. This new abbey is the daughter house of Our Lady of Consolation, and the community of men there continue to operate an active dairy farm. In the May 1954 issue of the China Missionary Bulletin, a series of photographs of this new community was published to celebrate their new monastery and restored Trappist life of prayer, penance, and fasting. The habited monks are seen planting new trees, growing strawberries, milking cows, praying the Divine Office, in the library at lectio divina, and offering the Mass.130 Earlier this year I wrote to the abbot of Abbé de Sept-Fons in France, the motherhouse of Yangjiaping’s now abandoned Our Lady of Consolation Abbey, asking for support in writing a book-length account of the events of 1947. His response to my inquiry was telling; the events of that year are still too recent for some monks, too painful and sensitive, to discuss. He asked me to patiently await more testimonies as time stretches the distance between the present and 1947 before I begin writing such a book. I knew that Brother Marcel Zhang, too, was recounting his memories of that year only with great emotional grief. He showed me a photograph before I left his small apartment in suburban Beijing. The picture was taken on the fiftieth-anniversary party of a priest’s ordination; the priest was the nephew of an “underground” bishop, His Excellency Peter Zhao Zhendong, (1920–2007) who was pictured near his nephew. This photograph was an instant reminder to me that while events such as the Trappist incident of 1947 are, at least for now, in the past, China’s Christian community still confronts several daunting challenges. Bishop Zhao was arrested in 2005, placed in prison, and forced to undergo “reeducation” classes. Sources later revealed that Bishop Zhao, whose nephew was a priest at Yanjiaping, was being compelled to join the Catholic Patriotic Association, and he was attended at all times, even as he went to the bathroom. While at a Paris archive this past summer, I worked through several folios of materials related to the Jesuit mission in late imperial China. One

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folio contained a photographic series of 1950s “anti-Catholic activities” in China; one set of images showed the trial and executions of many Chinese Catholics. As I looked through these photographs I recalled Pope John Paul II’s appeal, “This tragic history must not be forgotten.” China’s Catholic history during the Maoist era, 1949–1976, is little known, and yet its impact on the vicissitudes of modern China—and the world—has been significant. In 1957, Father Jean Lefeuvre, who had lived in China during the Maoist era, published an account of the party’s campaign against the Church in Shanghai, Les enfants dans la ville.131 The antiCatholic strategies described in Lefeuvre’s book so upset Premier Zhou Enlai, who preferred these facts to remain secret, that he asked his friend, Simone de Beauvoir, (1908–1986) to write a response. The result was her The Long March: An Account of Modern China, also published in 1957.132 Both of these books were bestsellers in France, one exposing the Chinese communist party’s anti-Catholic strategies, while the other praising its “benevolent liberation of China.” While these two works stirred a literary war in Paris, the Catholics of China were concerned with other matters, their survival and reconstruction.

Notes 1. Mao Zedong, “Strike Surely, Accurately, and Relentlessly in Suppressing Counter-Revolutionaries” (December 1950–September 1951), Selected Works of Mao-Tse-tung, Vol. V (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), 53. 2. Anthony E. Clark interview with H. E., Bishop Wang Chongyi, at St. Joseph’s cathedral, Guiyang, China, September 2008. 3. Church of Xi Shi Ku (Beijing: Beijing Catholic Diocese, 2004), 6. 4. See Gretta Palmer, God’s Underground in Asia (New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts, 1953); Harold Rigney, SVD, Four Years in a Red Hell (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1956); Jean Monsterleet, Martyrs in China (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1956); Mary Victoria, Nun in Red China (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953); and Paul Sih, Decision for China: Communism or Christianity (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1959). 5. Jiefang ribao [Liberation Daily], Shanghai, December 16, 1950. 6. Beatrice Leung and William Liu, The Chinese Catholic Church in Conflict: 1949–2001 (Boca Raton: Universal Publishers, 2004), 85. 7. Pope Pius XII, Ad Sinarum Gentem, 11. 8. In Jean Monsterleet, Martyrs of China (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1956), 46.

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9. Anthony E. Clark interview with H. E., Bishop Hu Daguo, at St. Joseph’s cathedral, Guiyang, China, September 2008. 10. “On Illegality of the Roman Catholic Church in China, Now Underground,” Religion in China—Did You Know, Cardinal Kung Foundation. 11. Leung and Liu, The Chinese Catholic Church in Conflict, 93–94. 12. Yan kejia, Zhongguo Tianzhujiao [Roman Catholicism in China] (Beijing: Wuzhou chuanbo, 2004), 75. 13. Yan, Zhongguo Tianzhujiao, 82–83. 14. Pope Benedict XVI, Letter to the Catholic Church in China, 8. 15. Father Jean Charbonnier, “The ‘Underground’ Church,” in The Catholic Church in Modern China, eds. Edmond Tang and Jean-Paul Wiest (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 65. 16. For Yongzheng’s remarks on Western religion, Christianity, see Rooted in Hope, In Der Hoffnung Verwurzelt: Festschrift in Honor of Roman Malek, SVD, on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ed. B. Hoster, D. Kuhlmann, and Z. Wesołowski (Sankt Augustin, Germany: Monumenta Serica, 2017), 329. 17. Mao Zedong, Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Vol. 2 (Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1965), 381. 18. Mao Zedong, Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Vol. 5 (Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1977), 53. 19. Anthony E. Clark interview with H. E., Joseph Cardinal Zen, at the Salesian Residence in Hong Kong, June 2011. 20. Ian Fisher and Keith Bradsher, “Vatican Takes Stern Line Against China for Installing Bishops,” New York Times, 5 May 2006. 21. Cindy Wooden, “Vatican Says China Violates Religious Freedom, Hampers Dialogue,” China News Service, 24 November 2010. 22. “China Says Vatican Criticism ‘Imprudent and Ungrounded’,” Times of Malta, 23 December 2010. 23. Quoted in Randhir Singh, Marxism, Socialism, Indian Politics: A View from the Left (Delhi: Aakar, 2008), 69. 24. “Top Mainland Religious Officials Visit Taiwan,” UCAnews, 12 January 2011. 25. See James T. Meyers, Enemies Without Guns: The Catholic Church in China (New York: Paragon House, 1991). 26. Taiyuan jiaoqu jianshi, 311. 27. John Ricci, Franciscan Martyrs of the Boxer Rising: The Authentic Account of the Sufferings and Death of Some of the Victims of the Boxer Rising, China, 1900 (Dublin: Franciscan Missionary Union, 1932), 14. 28. Clark, China’s Saints, 141. 29. Bégin, Life of Mother Marie-Hermine of Jesus, 62–63.

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30. Li Di, Quan huo ji [Record of the Boxer Calamity] (Shanghai, 1906), 340. 31. The words of this hymn, paraphrased, are: “We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting. To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. … The noble army of Martyrs praise thee. The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee. … When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.” 32. Ricci, Franciscan Martyrs of the Boxer Rising, 23. 33. Bégin, Life of Mother Marie-Hermine of Jesus, 38. 34. Quoted in Gavin Kitching, Karl Marx and the Philosophy of Praxis (New York: Routledge, 1988), 39. 35. Benedict XVI, Letter to the Catholic Church in China, 8. 36. Li Shan, Rong Zhu yi ren fuwu renqun: jinian Beijingshi Tianzhujiao aiguohui chengli 60 zhounian (1951–201), trans. Anthony E. Clark (Beijing: Beijing Shi Tianzhujiao aiguohui, 2011). 37. Li, Rong Zhu yi ren fuwu renqun. 38. Li, Rong Zhu yi ren fuwu renqun, translated here by Anthony E. Clark. 39. Søren Kierkegaard, Papers and Journals: A Selection, trans. Alastair Hannay (London: Penguin Books, 1996), 352. 40. See Clark, China’s Saints, chapter 4. 41. From the Latin Vulgate translation of John 3:30. 42. Quoted in John Nichol, American Literature: An Historical Sketch, 1620–1880 (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1882), 319. 43. Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being, ed. Sally Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979), 100. 44. Pope Benedict XVI, Saved in Hope/Spe Salvi (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 7. 45. John Tong, “The Church in China,” Asian Synod Intervention, 1998. 46. Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, “ What Is the True Good of the Church in China,” Asia News, 8 February 2012. 47. Zen Ze-kiun, “What Is the True Good.” 48. Gianni Valente, “‘The Church in China Has Never Changed a Single Iota of the Apostolic Tradition That Was Delivered to It,” Interview with John Baptist Li Suguang (September 2009). 49. Quoted in Anthony E. Clark, “China in Transition: Jesuit Encounters with the Dying Qing Empire,” Whitworth University (2014). History Faculty Scholarship. Paper 7. 50. Rom 12:12 RSV. 51. Quoted in Thomas Sergeant Perry, A History of Greek Literature (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1890), 217.

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52. Quoted in Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs, Understanding the Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), 248. 53. Quoted in Émile Gebhart, Mystics and Heretics in Italy: A History of the Religious Revival in the Middle Ages, trans. Edward Maslin Hulme (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923), 107. 54. “Yunnan Ordains New Priests,” UCA news, 28 March 2012. 55. Quoted in George Willis Cooke, Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Writings, and Philosophy (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1882), 304. 56. Quoted in Edward Behr, The Complete Book of Les Misérables (New York: Arcade, 1989), 28. 57. For an alternative translation of this passage see Confucius, The Analects of Confucius, trans. Arthur Waley (London: Routledge, 2005), 162. 58. St. Proper of Aquitaine, Patrilogia Latina, quoted in Joel L. Watts, Praying in God’s Theater: Meditations on the Book of Revelation (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014), 1, n.1. 59. Jospeh Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2000), 146. 60. Uwe Michael Lang, Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 10. 61. See Confucius, The Analects of Confucius, 98. 62. See Confucius, The Analects of Confucius, 206. 63. Quoted in Clark, Heaven in Conflict, xiii. 64. Charles McCarthy, Correspondence, 3 December 1952, McCarthy Family Private Collection. 65. Charles McCarthy, Correspondence, 3 December 1952, McCarthy Family Private Collection. 66. Charles McCarthy, “Talk to Serra Club,” 1946, McCarthy Family Private Collection. 67. Charles McCarthy, Correspondence with a Jesuit Confrere, 1946, McCarthy Family Private Collection. 68. Charles McCarthy, Correspondence to Walter McCarthy, 1949, McCarthy Family Private Collection. 69. Charles McCarthy, Correspondence, 1951, McCarthy Family Private Collection. 70. Charles McCarthy, Correspondence to Walter McCarthy, 1951, McCarthy Family Private Collection. 71. Charles McCarthy, Correspondence to Walter McCarthy, 1951, McCarthy Family Private Collection. 72. Charles J. McCarthy, “Divine Providence: The Bread of Life,” in God’s Message of Love and Peace for all the World, ed. Wilfred J. Le Sage (Manila: SCC Development and Research Foundation, 1974), 90–91. 73. McCarthy Family Private Collection.

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74. “Goodbye, Father Mac,” Tulay Monthly Chinese-Filipino Digest 4, no. 6 (8 December 1991): 34. 75. McCarthy Family Private Collection. 76. Walter McCarthy, Correspondence to Charles McCarthy, 1991, McCarthy Family Private Collection. 77. Charles McCarthy, Correspondence to Walter McCarthy, 1951, McCarthy Family Private Collection. 78. McCarthy Family Private Collection. 79. McCarthy Family Private Collection. Special thanks are due to Mary Jo McCarthy Reynolds, Father Charles McCarthy’s niece, and to Walt McCarthy, his younger brother, for kindly providing me with materials used to write this essay. For more information about Father McCarthy, especially remembrances from his brother, Walter McCarthy, see the Summer 2011 issue of Genesis, the alumni quarterly of Saint Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco. The definitive biography of McCarthy’s life is Amanda C. R. Clark, China’s Last Jesuit: Charles J. McCarthy and the End of the Mission in Catholic Shanghai (Gateway East, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Also see Mariani, Church Militant. 80. Quoted in Anthony E. Clark, “Most of China’s Catholics are Unaware of Pope’s Resignation,” Catholic World Report, 18 February 2013. 81. Quoted in Lowell Dittmer, China’s Continuous Revolution: The PostLiberation Epoch, 1949–1981 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 83. 82. Gerry Mullany, “Beijing Cautions New Pope on Meddling in China,” New York Times, 14 March 2013. 83. “Ma Joins World Leaders at Pope’s Inauguration,” Taipei Times, 20 March 2013. 84. Quoted in Anthony E. Clark, “China’s Hardline Continues as Pope Francis Is Installed,” Catholic World Report, 20 March 2013. 85. Le Pape Jaune: Mgr. Jin Luxian, Soldat de Dieu en Chine Communiste [The Yellow Pope: Bishop Jin Luxian, Soldier of God in Communist China] (Perin: Paris, 2006). 86. CPJA (China Province Jesuit Archive), Jin Luxian File. 87. CPJA (China Province Jesuit Archive), “Letter to Cardinal Jaime L. Sin [1928–2005],” 19 January 1997. 88. Jin Luxian, The Memoirs of Jin Luxian: Learning and Relearning, 1916–1982, trans. William Hanbury-Tension (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), 206. 89. Jin, Memoirs, 1. 90. Jin, Memoirs, xx. 91. Pius XII, Divini Redemptoris, 5.

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92. See “Pope Francis Prays for Chinese Catholics,” Vatican News, 22 May 2013. 93. Charles J. McCarthy, “A Trappist Tragedy,” in Paolino Quattrocchi, Monaci nella Tormenta (Abbaye de Cîteaux, 1991), 136. 94. The document I am relying on most is a facsimile of one of Father Jen’s books, provided to me by an anonymous Catholic at Beijing’s West Church: Father Stanislaus Jen/Ren Dayi, Yinshui siyuan Chaha’er huai laixian Yangjiaping Shengmu shenwei yuan Shengmu shenle yuan zhi muyuan [In Remembrance of Our Lady of Consolation Abbey, Yangjiaping, Chahar Province, the Mother House of Our Lady of Joy, Liesse] (Hong Kong, 1978). 95. Ren, Yinshui siyuan, 17–18. 96. Ren, Yinshui siyuan, 18. 97. Ren, Yinshui siyuan, 19. 98. Mao Zedong, “The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party,” in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. 2 (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1965), 312. 99. See Gerolamo Fazzini, The Red Book of Chinese Martyrs (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 285–310. 100. Thomas Merton, The Waters of Siloe (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949), 254. 101. Psalm 148 RSV. 102. Theresa Marie Moreau, Blood of the Martyrs: Trappist Monks in Communist China (Los Angeles: Veritas Est Libertas, 2012), 29. 103. Merton, The Waters of Siloe, 256. 104. Ren, Yinshui siyuan, 99. 105. Ren, Yinshui siyuan, 99. 106. The Rule of Saint Benedict (London: Baronius Press, 2005), 48. 107. Interview with Bro. Marcel Zhang, December 2008 (Beijing). 108. Interview with Bro. Marcel Zhang, December 2008 (Beijing). 109. Interview with Bro. Marcel Zhang, December 2008 (Beijing). 110. Ren, Yinshui siyuan, 100. 111. Theresa Marie Moreau, Blood of the Martyrs: Trappist Monks in Communist China (Los Angeles: Veritas Est Libertas, 2012), 36. 112. McCarthy, “A Trappist Tragedy,” 145. 113. McCarthy, “A Trappist Tragedy,” 145. 114. Ren, Yinshui siyuan, 101. 115. McCarthy, “A Trappist Tragedy,” 146. 116. Quoted in McCarthy, “A Trappist Tragedy,” 146. 117. Galatians 4:29 RSV. 118. See P. Decroix, Supplement to Asian Martyrs and Unsung Heroes (Paris: Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris, 202), 21: Moreau, Blood of the Martyrs, 40.

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119. Interview with Bro. Marcel Zhang, December 2008 (Beijing). 120. Interview with Bro. Marcel Zhang, December 2008 (Beijing): Also see Moreau, Blood of the Martyrs, 43–47. 121. Moreau, Blood of the Martyrs, 70. 122. Interview with Bro. Marcel Zhang, December 2008 (Beijing). 123. Decroix, Supplement to Asian Martyrs and Unsung Heroes, 21. 124. Interview with Bro. Marcel Zhang, December 2008 (Beijing): Also see M. Basil Pennington, Twentieth Century Martyrs of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance (Spencer, MA: St. Joseph’s Abbey, 1997), 21. 125. Ren, Yinshui siyuan, 107. 126. John Paul II, Tertio Millenio Adveniente (As the Millennium Draws Near), 37. 127. Decroix, Supplement to Asian Martyrs and Unsung Heroes, 23; Ren, Yinshui siyuan, 127. 128. Ren, Yinshui siyuan, 127. 129. Ren, Yinshui siyuan, 135. 130. See “A Monk’s Last Mass,” China Missionary Bulletin (May 1954), beginning on pg. 437. 131. Jean Lefeuvre, Les enfants dans la ville: Chronique de la vie chrétienne À Shanghaï, 1949–1955 (Paris: Témoignage Chrétien, 1957). 132. Simone de Beauvoir, La Longue Marche: Essai sur la Chine (Paris: Gallimard, 1957).

CHAPTER 4

Bishops, Priests, and Echoes from the Pews, 2014–2019

When “My ultimate goal is that the Chinese people should be able to practice the human right of religious freedom as claimed in the [Chinese] constitution.” Gong Pinmei (Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-mei)

4.1 Essay 4.1 China’s Modern Martyrs from Mao to Now: Part 3 (March 2014) The Maoist era marks one of the darkest hours of the history of Christianity in China, and Chinese Catholics have repeatedly asked that this era be preserved and expounded in scholarly and public writings. 4.1.1

Resistance

Our greatest success is not in never falling, but in rising again every time we fall.—Confucius

In 1952, young and spirited Catholic students of Shanghai addressed their bishop, Ignatius Gong Pinmei. “The battle demands sacrifices,” they asserted, “even if the battle and sacrifice were painful, the depth of the heart is filled with joy.”1 For his part, Bishop Gong continued to encourage his flock to remain loyal to Christ and the Church as © The Author(s) 2020 A. E. Clark, China’s Catholics in an Era of Transformation, Christianity in Modern China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6182-5_4

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China’s new communist government intensified its campaign to control all Catholic activities, if not entirely erase them. China’s Catholic youth were undaunted. They composed a statement—written with a brush soaked in their own blood—in which they vowed their resistance to communist pressure. “We have daily marched down a sure path in a set direction: we now maintain our position: steadfastly and resolutely Catholic, come what may.”2 China’s Catholic response to its new government was simple: resistance. The historical pattern for Catholics in China after Chairman Mao Zedong became the “Great Helmsman” was straightforward; government oppression and Catholic resistance produced decades of state conflict with religious groups. Several years ago, during a visit to Guiyang’s monumental cathedral, I met with Bishop Wang Chongyi. After sitting down beside him he told everyone to leave and close the door, and then he leaned over to whisper in my ear: “I was in prison during the Maoist era; I watched my fellow Catholics suffer. No one will ever know how many people were abused and killed. I saw it.” He asked me to preserve their stories, and in this third essay of a series, “From Mao to Now,” I will address Catholic resistance during the rule of Chairman Mao, from 1949 to 1976. 4.1.2

Mao’s Media Campaign and the Wave of Arrests

In Paul Mariani’s summoning monograph, Church Militant: Bishop Kung and Catholic Resistance in Communist Shanghai, he recounts the party’s early strategies for confronting the presence of religion in China. AntiChristian militants in the new, liberated China, “were not above using antireligion campaigns and terror…everything from burning churches to killing religious leaders.”3 In one early communist document related to the “religious problem” in China, it is affirmed: “Marxists are absolute atheists. We believe that religion is an impediment to the people’s awakening.”4 What followed this assertion of the party’s anti-Christian position was a sustained newspaper and poster crusade of slander and harassment against China’s Catholic community. While researching for a new book, I spent some time at the Shanghai Municipal Library thumbing through copies of 1951 newspapers, and I discovered that anti-Catholic articles and cartoons were a national priority for Mao’s new government. In one article, Catholic nuns were villainized as “baby killers”; in another, Catholics were accused of secret

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plots to overthrow the “People’s Government” while full-page features highlighted vitriolic cartoons depicting Catholics as “unpatriotic” and “imperialist agents.” In one cartoon, which appeared in the Jiefang ribao, or “Liberation Daily,” a European bishop is depicted with a banner of the Virgin Mary above the American and Korean armies, then considered the enemies of the Chinese people. The side caption reads: “The people resist America and support Korea’s patriotic movement—as they [Catholics] assert: ‘The Holy Mother watches above the American and Korean militaries.’”5 Turning Catholic images and actions into iconic “enemies of the people” was ubiquitous during the early decades of the People’s Republic of China; in that cartoon, Mary, the Mother of God, is shown as the protectress of China’s rivals. In another cartoon, a Chinese priest, mistakenly depicted with the pectoral cross of a bishop, is shown being beaten out of a Catholic church by a massive fist with the words “Patriotic Catholic” inscribed on the forearm. He is accused of being a collaborator with “imperialist powers,” and his priestly habit is adorned with Nazi swastikas.6 Such articles and cartoons were the first stage in a calculated operation to summon the people against Catholics, and these efforts were largely successful. Soon after their publication in the early 1950s, massive rallies of Socialist Youth marched through city streets with anti-Christian banners calling the government to suppress Catholic groups such as the Legion of Mary. Prior to the peak era of Catholic martyrdom during the 1960s, the party initiated a wide-scale arrest of Catholic clergy and hierarchy. China’s Catholics described state policies against Christianity by simply quoting a passage from the gospel of Mark: “I will strike the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered.”7 On 9 September 1955, Shanghai’s police were dispatched to raid church properties, and arrest priests and faithful at all the city’s Catholic parishes, schools, and convents. “They arrested Bishop Gong,” writes Msgr. Stephen DiGiovanni, “a number of priests and hundreds of lay Catholics.”8 Immediately after the wave of arrests, the Catholic newspaper overseen by the local government, The Courier Dove, announced that Bishop Gong was detained for spreading “anti-revolutionary rumors with evil intent; sheltering anti-revolutionary elements in the cathedral and other places,” and for “praying to God for Catholics who had been condemned by the communists.”9 Any Catholic who had not denounced his loyalties to the pope, and who had not made his intentions clear to place the party above his religion, was targeted as un-Chinese, counterrevolutionary, and unpatriotic. Bishop Gong and

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all other priests, nuns, and lay Catholics who did not follow this line were accused of undermining the people’s revolution under a subversive “cloak of religion.” Bishop Gong remained in prison for more than three decades; he was offered release if he denounced the pope, though he never did. Conditions in China’s prisons during the Maoist era were extreme for foreign priests, but much worse for native Chinese Catholics. Father John Casey, an Irish Columban missionary, was arrested in 1952 and suffered agonizing symptoms from maltreatment. In addition to recurring cases of dysentery, Casey contracted beriberi, one of the most painful diseases caused by malnutrition. “I experienced a swelling of the legs and severe jabbing nerve pains, especially at the joints, toes, and fingertips. Some of my toenails fell off.”10 His sight began to fail and he frequently collapsed as he tried to stand. The Jesuit priest Zhang Boda (Beda Chang, 1905– 1951) serves as an example of how much more intense the situation for Chinese Catholics was in communist prisons during the Maoist era. He was arrested on 9 August 1951 while playing chess with his fellow Jesuits in Shanghai. Father Jean Monsterleet recounts that Zhang was asked by Shanghai’s authorities to “lead the ‘reformed’ Church of Shanghai,” and when he refused he was subjected to relentless torments.11 During his interrogations, Father Zhang simply repeated, “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, save me!”12 On October 30th, Zhang was transferred to a nearby hospital; his abuses were so severe that he had fallen into a coma, from which he died on November 11. When a Chinese priest went to retrieve Zhang’s body, he discovered that the “filthy, emaciated, naked and almost unrecognizable corpse had simply been flung down on the concrete floor on one of the rooms in the hospital.”13 Local newspapers published creative slanders against Zhang Boda’s character, and his death was falsely reported to have been caused by “apoplexy.” 4.1.3

Mao’s “Destroy the Four Olds” Campaign

Bishop Wang Chongyi and many other Chinese Catholics have suggested that the most intense era of Christian conflict with state authorities was during the 10 years of the Cultural Revolution. Some accounts of church closure and destruction, anti-Christian attacks, torture, and martyrdoms have been already published, though most of the government-sponsored anti-religion campaigns remain “too sensitive” to discuss in China. Gerolamo Fazzini’s, The Red Book of Chinese Martyrs, has examined several

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attempts by the Chinese government to repress—or weaken—Catholicism in China, but this work, too, serves only as an introduction to the sweeping turbulence of the Cultural Revolution. During a recent visit to Beijing, I returned to my favorite church there, Xishiku Church, more famously known as North Church. As I stood admiring the monumental Gothic façade, I noticed a groundskeeper giving particular attention to an area beside a nearby tree; it was as if he was attending to a sacred site. After I spent considerable effort to earn the man’s trust, he confided a stirring account of a Red Guard attack against an elderly priest on that very spot during the summer months of 1966. When a large crowd of radical teenage Red Guards, encouraged by Mao to confront and destroy the “Four Olds” (Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas), arrived at the church, an elderly Chinese priest met them near the church entrance. The priest was forced to kneel beside the cathedral while his arms were contorted above his head in what was called the “airplane position”; in this painful state he was subjected to ridicule and commanded to denounce his religious belief. He refused. The Red Guards threatened to bury him alive if he did not apostatize. He still refused. The groundskeeper, a member of the North Church community, informed me that he was attending to the location where the old priest was buried alive by the crowd of Red Guards; events such as this were common during that era, and retelling them is still a risk. During the “ten-year catastrophe,” as the Cultural Revolution is commonly called in China, Catholic churches were desecrated, destroyed, or seized by the government for “public use.” During that time Beijing’s Catholic churches were all emptied and reused: North Church was used as a middle school and cafeteria; South Church was a processing factory, and West Church was a warehouse to store Chinese herbs for the Tong Ren Tang pharmaceutical company. While it is difficult to locate images of Red Guard attacks against Catholic churches, I have been able to acquire a few photographs taken during the most tempestuous months of 1966. Two photographs taken in front of Beijing’s South Church show a characteristic Red Guard attack against a Catholic property. The church, which marks the original location of Matteo Ricci’s chapel during the final years of the Ming dynasty, was emptied of all its religious objects (statues, art, relics, tabernacle, and so forth), which were gathered near the church façade and burned before a large crowd of radicals. In one photo we see a banner suspended from the church roof that reads, “Long live Chairman Mao!”, while onlookers crowd around a rising flame. And in another

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image, Red Guards destroy statues of Jesus and Mary with hammers and clubs; the figure of Christ crucified lays headless among the broken statues. Another photograph taken in front of Tianjin’s Xikai Cathedral depicts images of Chairman Mao and anti-Catholic slogans pasted around the church’s front door. The tabernacle rests on the front steps as Red Guards burn and destroy sacred objects from the cathedral interior. In addition to the destruction of churches during Mao’s Cultural Revolution were the arrests and public executions of Chinese Christians. The story of Father Wang Shiwei (1910–1970) remains largely unknown outside China; he is among the many Christians who were executed for stubbornly refusing to comply with the demands of local officials to apostatize. In an unpublished manuscript by Wang Jingshan, an elderly Catholic villager in central Shanxi, Father Wang’s suffering is outlined in bitter detail.14 In the 1960s, all the Catholic bishops, priests, sisters, and seminarians around Taiyuan were summoned to an assembly at the city’s cathedral; the meeting was convened under the typical Maoist slogan, “Eradicate Religion,” and during one of the sessions Wang Shiwei exhorted the Catholics to “resist cowardice” and remain faithful. He was later arrested by large groups of Red Guards. They were merciless. “His prison was popularly called the ‘prison of death,’” writes the author of Father Wang’s biography; his feet and hands were shackled in chains so that he was unable to stand erect, and another chain linked his body to a beam above his head so that he could not lie down to sleep comfortably. He was restrained in this fashion in his prison cell for several years. In January 1969, Wang was sentenced to death for defying the government and for resisting “intellectual reform”; in short, he refused to deny his Catholic beliefs and support the radical views of the local party officials. On 15 February 1970, Wang was beaten in his prison cell, and then taken to a public stage where he was shot and killed. Throughout the era of Mao’s “Destroy the Four Olds” campaign, during the first year of the Cultural Revolution, China’s Catholics were targeted as “enemies of the people.” Priests like Father Wang were ordered to trample on crosses while nearby Red Guards shouted, “Down with God!” Lian Xi describes this era forcefully: “Throughout the country, church leaders were dragged into public ‘struggle meetings’ to be humiliated or beaten; countless were sent to ‘cowsheds’ (improvised places of confinement for the ‘ox demons’) and labor camps or driven to suicide or apostasy.”15 And as Vincent Goossaert and David

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Palmer have stated, “The Cultural Revolution produced the most thorough destruction of all forms of religious life in Chinese and, perhaps, human history.”16 4.1.4

Mao’s Death and the Softening of Anti-Catholic Programs

At 11:15 p.m., on the evening of 9 September 1976, Chairman Mao Zedong drifted into a coma, and a few minutes after midnight the following day he passed away. One million people gathered later at Tiananmen to hear Mao’s successor, Hua Guofeng (1921–2008), who praised the chairman’s “great accomplishments.” He did not mention that among the tragedies during his rule was the suffering and death of tens of millions of Chinese people from persecution and administrative policies; many of these people were Christians. Mao’s views on Christianity were never a mystery. In a speech he gave in 1939, he informed his comrades that “missionary work” was aimed at “duping the people,” and was an ally of “imperialist powers” that “poison the minds of the Chinese people.”17 The Maoist era marks one of the darkest hours of religious history in China, and many Chinese Christians have expressed their concern that the details of that era might be obscured and forgotten. “If prudence results in the loss of their memory,” they tell me, “then put prudence aside for the sake of the Church.” On my desk I have a signed copy of a book written by Brother Peter Zhou Bangjiu, a Chinese Benedictine, who now lives at St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, California. In August 1960, communist officials tightened bronze handcuffs to his forearms, and because he refused to “reform,” they were left on his arms for four weeks. A photograph of his right arm reveals a permanently crippled hand—his arm is deformed from the maltreatment.18 Brother Zhou was forced to remain in prison for thirty-three years because he refused to deny the pope’s leadership of the Chinese Church and would not openly approve the communist government. After his long years in prison for the “crime” of being a Catholic monk, he composed an elegant poem of gratitude crafted in classical Chinese verse: “Throughout an endless night, in a tenacious fight, I see the dawn at last.”19 As Bishop Wang Chongyi recalled, many did not survive the “tenacious fight.” Many are surprised to learn that since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the number of Chinese Catholics has grown by at least ten million. This growth has occurred during an era of complex

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and continuous antipathy between China’s Christian community and state authorities. Mao’s expectation that China would “grow out of Christianity” was not realized; scholars have observed that his attempts to eradicate the Church ironically resulted in its expansion. 4.1.5

Envoi: Our Lady of Donglü

In 1900, a Vincentian priest named Father Wu prayed to the Virgin Mary, asking her to protect his community of Catholics at Donglü village from attacking Boxers. Popular accounts assert that when the Boxers approached the village a “beautiful lady in white” appeared in the sky surrounded by a formation of lights. The Boxers shot their rifles at the emanation, but eventually fled in fear. The village was saved. In thanksgiving the priest commissioned the construction of a new shrine dedicated to Our Lady, and a painting of Mary wearing imperial robes (modeled, rather ironically, after an image of the Empress Dowager Cixi [1835– 1908]) was to be displayed inside (Fig. 4.1). During a 1925 synod held in Shanghai, the collected bishops decided to use the Donglü painting as the official image of “Our Lady of China,” and in 1932, Pope Pius XI consecrated the village as an official Marian shrine for pilgrims. Devotion to Our Lady of Donglü, China, has, according to local Christians, sustained the faith of countless faithful during the Maoist years of severe persecution, and after Mao’s death Chinese Christians restored the tradition of making annual processions to the Lady at Donglü, who had protected them through both the Boxer Uprising in 1900 and the Maoist era, from 1949 to 1976. One hundred thousand Catholics from the unofficial community (“underground Catholics”) formed a long processional line in May 1995, carrying banners and praying the Rosary as they approached Donglü village. On May 23, more than 30,000 Catholics reported a miraculous vision as the priest began to offer Mass at the shrine. The sun was seen spinning from right to left, while various shades of light emanated from different areas in the sky. Some claimed to have seen the Our Lady of China image in the sky, the Virgin holding the infant Jesus. The apparitions lasted around twenty minutes, and afterward the bishop of Baoding approved the vision as verifiable. The following year, in 1996, the government was so exacerbated by the popularity of the Marian shrine at Donglü that it made illegal future pilgrimages to the village, and 5000 troops were dispatched to the shrine

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Fig. 4.1 Image of Our Lady of Donglü by Chinese Catholic artist, Luke Chen, produced at the Catholic University of Peking, ca. 1937 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

to assure an end to the renewed Catholic devotion to this site. Accompanied by around thirty armored vehicles and military helicopters, the village was sealed off, the shrine was destroyed, and the local police confiscated all the statues and images of Mary. I have visited Chinese Catholics in

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several provinces and dioceses, and one of the recurring themes I hear from the Catholics I speak with is their sense of antagonism between Mary and the current government. There were not many opportunities for pilgrimages to Marian shrines during the Maoist era; they were all closed. Now, however, even as churches are reopened and China’s Christian population continues to grow, the destruction of the Marian shrine at Donglü functions as a reminder that Catholic freedom is far from accomplished. When China’s bishops met in Shanghai in 1924, the pope’s apostolic delegate to China, Cardinal Celso Costantini (1878– 1958), proposed that the synod fathers consecrate China to the Most Holy Virgin Mary (Fig. 4.2). As Jeremy Clarke has describes this important event, “The consecration meant that the Church leaders were placing the needs, the hopes, and the prayers of their communities (and the whole of the Chinese people) at the feet of Mary in a special way, seeking her intercession and help.”20 When Bishop Gong Pinmei faced a crowd of young Catholics as the Maoist era began, he told his flock to turn to Mary and the Rosary. This, he said, was how they would win their battle to survive, and this is how China’s Catholics still describe their will to avert their own disappearance.

4.2 Essay 4.2 Shanghai’s Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang Dies (March 2014) After two decades of government-imposed house arrest, Shanghai’s Vatican-approved bishop, Joseph Fan Zhongliang (1918–2014) has died. Few Catholics outside of China knew that Bishop Fan was Shanghai’s ordinary (leading bishop in charge of a diocese), and even fewer in China knew this fact. The recently deceased Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian was actually the auxiliary bishop to Bishop Fan, and Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, also an auxiliary, is still under house arrest for his refusal to remain affiliated with the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA). Bishop Fan, who joined the Jesuit order with Jin Luxian in 1938, died late Sunday evening. He was consecrated as the coadjutor bishop of Shanghai in 1985, and was recognized by the Vatican in 2000 as the ordinary of the Diocese of Shanghai after the death of Cardinal Ignatius Gong Pinmei, the famous leader of Catholic resistance to the communist party during the early 1950s. Bishop Fan was the leader of the unsanctioned Catholic Church in China, and he spent most of his tenure

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Fig. 4.2 The pope’s first official apostolic delegate to China, Bishop Celso Costantini, in Beijing, ca. 1924 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

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as Shanghai’s bishop under constant surveillance; with very few exceptions he was denied visitors. Unofficial sources from the “underground” Catholic community have reported that after Fan’s death, government officials removed his bishop’s zucchetta, affirming the state’s denial of his status as Shanghai’s legitimate bishop. After pressures from the Catholic community, however, the government has agreed to allow the faithful to pay respects to Bishop Fan for two days. Bishop Fan was among those Jesuits in Shanghai who were arrested in 1955 and subjected to continuous interrogations and pressured to make a statement of support for the new government. Fan refused, and was sentenced to decades in labor camps and prisons. He and Bishop Jin Luxian were released in 1979, after which Fan taught for a high school. Fan lived in a small apartment after being made a bishop in 1985, until Public Security Bureau (PSB) officials ransacked his home in 1997, seizing his bibles, liturgical books, and his funds used to support the activities of Shanghai’s unsanctioned Catholic community. Throughout his life, Bishop Fan remained, according to the local community, a symbol of “Catholic loyalty to the Church,” and a devoted member of the Society of Jesus. Fan’s passing marks the end of the generation of Chinese bishops in Shanghai who lived through China’s transition to a communist country. A small Requiem Mass was offered in Bishop Fan’s apartment before state authorities removed his body and transferred it to a funeral home.

4.3

Essay 4.3 Beijing’s “Bulldozer Diplomacy” with China’s Christians (March 2014)

In an official report identified as the “Blue Book,” Beijing listed religion as one of the “four greatest challenges to national security.”21 After the Opium War (1840–1842) Britain and other Western powers forced China to legalize the opium trade; menacing British warships lined China’s shores as officials were forced to sign a series of one-sided agreements. China rightly calls this an era of “gunboat diplomacy.” On 28 April 2014, thousands of Protestant Christians watched as local authorities dispatched bulldozers to demolish their massive new church. The Sanjiang church, in Wenzhou, was destroyed after several weeks of staged protests; the pastor reportedly said, “Pray for the Christians in China. The communist party sometimes begins with a small act, like tearing down one church, and it becomes a trend that could

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spread throughout China.” The party is known for sending bulldozers to demolish both Protestant and Catholic churches that it claims are “unregistered,” “unruly,” or “do not have a proper construction permit.” After twelve years of construction, the Sanjiang church was razed in a single day. This “bulldozer diplomacy” has grown into an unofficial policy of China’s increasingly hardline party. A recent article in The Telegraph, entitled “China on course to become ‘world’s most Christian nation’ within 15 years,” features an image of Beijing’s famous North Church, packed with Catholic Christians attending Mass.22 It quotes Purdue professor, Yang Fenggang: “By my calculations China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon.”23 When I met Professor Yang recently in Chicago, he noted his belief that China’s number of Christians will likely grow to around 160 million by 2030, making it the “world’s most Christian nation.” Needless to say, this is an alarming possibility to China’s communist authorities, who fear that Christianity is eroding Marxist ideology and its political aims. In the “Blue Book” report, Beijing has listed religion as one of the “four greatest challenges to national security.”24 The tone of this report is alarming: “Hostile western forces are infiltrating China’s religions in a more diverse way and in a wider range; deploying more subtle means either openly or secretly; and are strongly seditious and deceptive in nature.”25 It continues, asserting that “Foreign religious infiltration powers have penetrated all areas of the Chinese society.”26 The Maoist era rhetoric that identified Christianity as a tool for foreign imperialism has resurfaced, and China’s Christians are again watchful for policies that might affect their freedom to practice their faith. The West’s “gunboat diplomacy” of the mid-nineteenth century is being replaced by China’s “bulldozer diplomacy” of the present. The former leader of China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) said in a 2001 speech at Hong Kong’s Chung Chi College that “there is no conflict between our respect for freedom of religious belief and our advocacy of dialectical materialism.” He affirmed the party’s “respect for freedom of religious belief.” This apparent respect, however, assumes the ultimate “dialectical victory” of Marxist communism over religious belief. This victory, it appears, is not coming fast enough; Christianity is quickly gaining numbers while Marxism seems to be buckling under the popularity of Western materialism.

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While Wenzhou’s majestic Sanjiang church was being bulldozed, Shanghai’s Catholic bishop remains under house arrest for refusing affiliation with the CCPA, and new bishops are elected without papal involvement. The situation for Catholics remains complex. But as ever, I write what might seem like distressing news after hearing equally hopeful news from China. This morning, I looked at a poignant and powerful photo recently taken of a priest friend; he is leaning forward above a kneeling Catholic woman, placing his hands on her head to impart his blessing. Sunlight shines through the church window behind them, and the elderly woman is smiling, radiant with a sense of hope she ascribes to her religious faith.

4.4 Essay 4.4 Beijing Seminarians Boycott Graduation Seminary (July 2014) China’s Catholic community reeled recently as news spread that Beijing’s seminarians had boycotted their graduation ceremony, scheduled for late June. The decision was made after the seminarians discovered that the “illegitimate and excommunicated” rector of the seminary, Bishop Ma Yinglin, was scheduled to offer the graduation Mass. When the students voiced their objection to assisting at a Mass celebrated by a bishop who is not in communion with the pope, the seminary officials suggested replacing Bishop Ma with Bishop John Fang Xingyao, who serves on the Seminary’s board of directors. Bishop Fang, however, also serves as the chairman of China’s Catholic Patriotic Association, and since he participated in the consecrations of other illicit bishops in China, the seminarians again refused participation. These tensions follow soon after Bishop Fang had announced in an interview with the South China Morning Post that at last China “hopes China-Vatican relations will be normalized soon.”27 Bishop Ma was made the rector of Beijing’s seminary in 2010, but until now he has only issued diplomas at the seminarian’s annual graduation ceremonies; the seminarians were reportedly very disappointed when they were informed that an excommunicated bishop would be celebrating their graduation liturgy. The boycott precipitated swift reactions from the authorities. Rumors began to spread that some courses for priests and religious sisters would be suspended beginning next academic year, and in an even more severe move, all of the seminarians were ordered to return home with no hope of returning to the seminary. Just as China, like

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most countries, struggles to attract vocations to the priesthood, Beijing’s Catholic diocese will now face the possibility of several years with few, if any, ordinations. The seminarians presented an open letter to the seminary’s officials that represents well the sentiments of China’s current generation of young Catholic faithful: “We do not want to go against the pope, and this will mean no longer becoming priests. At least we will have a clean soul, in communion with the universal Church and united in love of Christ.”28

4.5 Essay 4.5 China’s Modern Martyrs from Mao to Now: Part 4 (September 2014) We should be glad and rejoice. As the Shanghai Catholic youths said: ‘We are greatly honored to have been born and lived at this important time.’— Cardinal Gong Pinmei, Sermon for Catholics in China (Rome, 30 June 1991)

When I published my book, China’s Saints, in 2011, I thought that only a few interested scholars would read it. I wrote it, after all, as an academic study, a work for curmudgeonly professors like me more inclined to read objective history than pious hagiography. Thus I was surprised when a Jesuit priest mentioned to a large crowd of academics and ecclesiastics recently gathered in Chicago that he had been reading my book “for his daily devotions.” Results seldom match expectations, and that is the theme of my final entry in this essay on China’s Catholic martyrs “From Mao to Now.” In truth, even the most objective historian—secular or religious—must admit that decades of suppression, persecution, and suffering have resulted in a vibrant Catholic community. I shall here outline the “ongoing growth of these communities,” as Father Jeremy Clarke puts it, “even in spite of attempts to make them disappear.”29 In the first three essays of this series I focused on a very dark era in the history of Chinese Catholicism: the attack against Yangjiaping Trappist Abbey and the massacre of many monks, Mao’s acrimonious media campaign against China’s Catholic community, the wave of arrests that followed, and the imprisonments and executions of such priests as Father Zhang Boda and Father Wang Shiwei. I have also recounted the state destruction of Catholic churches during the Cultural Revolution and

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more recent efforts to suppress popular Catholic devotions in China, such as the annual pilgrimage to honor Our Lady of China at Donglü. No one can deny the persistent challenges that Christians have encountered in China in recent decades, but as St. Augustine famously asserted, “God had a son on earth who was without sin, but he never had one without suffering.”30 Still, China’s Christians have an optimistic view of their experiences. Elderly Catholics use the word chiku to describe their lives during the Maoist period, which literally means “having tasted bitterness.” One priest noted, “When we were bombarded with anti-Christian propaganda, we had tasted bitterness. We did not swallow it. We survived.”31 China’s Catholics have done more than survive; they have flourished. Over the years I have traveled in China by mule, train, plane, boat, taxi, bicycle, and long distances on foot to visit important places in the history of Christianity in China, and each year I am astonished by the unprecedented progress of the Christian believers there. Bishops, priests, sisters, and common faithful have told me their stories—and so have atheists, agnostics, and party members. In fact, party members have informed me that there are many persons in positions of influence who view religion as a “healthy human expression.” I have learned that while there are villains in the world, one is often surprised to learn that suspected villains are sometimes advocates. One party member carefully drew a Christian cross on a handmade card he gave me during Christmas, with the message, “God bless China and the US.” The same person has a Catholic image of Mary in his living room, not too far from a shelf of books containing Marxist writings. I am not, of course, advocating or downplaying communism, but I cannot help but recognize the signs of religious faith appearing in unlikely places. My task here, then, is to provide some concluding remarks on the “now” part of this series of related essays, and I shall do so by addressing what has happened to Catholic communities in China that are gathered in areas of previous persecution and martyrdom. I now turn to some promising signs of Christian restoration and growth in China today, centering on three of the country’s most Catholic dioceses. 4.5.1

Always Two Sides

Among the ironies of Christian history in China is that the Church, which has experienced severe restrictions since the advent of communism, has

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also experienced dramatic expansion. Research shows that two reasons lie behind this development: first, it appears that Tertullian was correct when he asserted that martyrdom is the seed of Christianity; and second, truth demands the recognition that China’s Christian community had too long been confined by Western imperialism. No other country has been so long identified as a “mission.” Christianity has existed in China since 635, only two centuries after the Christianization of Ireland. Certainly, the history of the Church in China has encountered more state persecution than in many Western countries, but unlike other countries, missionaries aggressively resisted allowing China to develop its own Catholic hierarchy until the Vatican finally intervened in 1926 when six Chinese priests were taken to Rome and consecrated bishops in St. Peter’s by Pope Pius XI himself (Fig. 4.3).32 When communist officials came to power in 1949 they were aware of this, and also had access to several missionary documents that revealed a deep sense of Western arrogance among many, perhaps the majority, of European clergy.

Fig. 4.3 The first six Chinese bishops ordained in Rome by Pope Pius XI, 1926 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

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In a book written by Scheut missionary Father Louis Kervyn (1880– 1939), we find an example of what was commonly believed in China’s early modern mission. “Does not the enfeebling of the intellectual, moral, and physical powers that we have been studying in the country of China persuade us that we find ourselves in China in the presence of a clearly inferior nature!”33 Not only was Kervyn’s popular opinion hurtfully antiChinese, but he also argued that the Chinese suffered from an extra amount of original sin than the West. The Vatican was not pleased with such ideas, and in 1919 Pope Benedict XV (1854–1922) published Maximum Illud, in which he excoriated imperialistic attitudes among the mission clergy. His most pressing call was for indigenous clergy to be prepared to become bishops so that the local Church could govern itself, still under obedience to the bishop of Rome. When he wrote that encyclical all of China’s bishops were European, mostly French. One thing the “underground” and “aboveground” Catholic communities in China agree upon most decisively is that once missionaries were expelled from China after the communist victory in 1949, China benefitted from having an entirely native Catholic hierarchy. Chinese priests and bishops attract more Chinese to join the Church. There are thus two sides to the current situation of the Church in China; on the one hand, China’s faithful lament the Vatican’s lack of explicit control over China’s Catholics, while on the other hand, the Vatican finally has its way. China’s Catholics appreciate a hierarchy that better understands them—as Chinese. With Chinese bishops in place and a growing awareness and devotion to the “blood of the martyrs,” China’s Church continues to flourish, despite the real and often bitter challenges it faces. 4.5.2

Beijing Diocese

I have written much about the history of martyrdom in China’s capital city. During the Boxer Uprising, thousands of Christians throughout the city were tortured and massacred, and during the Maoist era they were forced underground while their churches were occupied by state officials and reused as restaurants, warehouses, and factories. Priests and nuns were “struggled against” during the 1960s while massive crowds of radicals observed their torments. Today, these churches have all been returned to the Church and Masses are typically overcrowded with faithful. The official number of Catholics in the Diocese of Beijing today is more than

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60,000, which probably accounts for less than one-third of the actual number if one also counts the “underground” community. The bishop, Li Shan, oversees eighty priests (all Chinese), a seminary for the diocese, and a separate seminary that serves the entire country. In terms of property, the diocese’s churches are constantly under restoration, and the former bishop’s residence, which was reallocated to be a state school, has been given back to the Catholic community and is being restored, at great expense, to its former use. Once finished, this expansive complex will include four grand courtyards and a restored private chapel and will function as the new residence of Beijing’s influential bishop. Catholic bookstores are now open in each of Beijing’s four major churches, which include the works of past and present popes. Organized pilgrimages again regularly depart from the area’s churches, and each year thousands of Catholics crowd the diocesan cemetery, where the bishop offers Mass on All Souls Day. Beijing’s North Church—the city’s largest and oldest parish—is where I most often visit while living in China, and for one week every month the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration; adoration is scheduled at the other churches throughout the month so that Eucharistic adoration is available to the city’s Catholics at all times. During my last trip to China I observed young Catholics in city coffee shops reading the bible, organizing Catholic youth events, or discussing liturgy—a new and popular interest among China’s young faithful. I am no longer surprised by the openness and observable comfort with which Catholics today live and practice their religious faith. They are not naïve to the continuing complexities that afflict the Church in China, but they are clearly part of the renaissance of Christian belief. 4.5.3

Shanghai Diocese

Catholic Shanghai in recent years has been often in the international news; Bishop Thadeus Ma Daqin was arrested in 2012 for refusing to affiliate with the Patriotic Association, and in 2013 Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian, China’s most influential Catholic leader, died in his late 90s. In part three of this series of essays I discussed the tragic stories of Father Zhang Boda and Bishop Gong Pinmei, both of whom suffered terribly under state persecution. Shanghai is perhaps China’s most complicated Catholic diocese today, for it is both tightly constrained by party control and spiritually thriving, with more churches and financial resources than any other Catholic region.

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Bishop Gong set the tone for Shanghai’s Catholic reconstruction in his first sermon after his release from prison; he recommended prayer to the “Holy Mother of Mount She” (Sheshan Shengmu). He desired that Shanghai’s Catholics turn to her, “protector of the faithful, that she may bestow upon us the same mind and spirit, so that the great design of the Good Lord may be gloriously accomplished on our national soil for generations and generations to come.”34 Gong’s homily was an emotional plea for Shanghai’s Catholics to rely on Our Lady of Sheshan, whose basilica is just outside Shanghai, to help restore and nourish the Church of his “native soil.” This sense of local Chinese pride was precisely what Bishop Jin Luxian relied upon as he tirelessly sought international support to build one of the most robust dioceses in the world. In a small booklet Bishop Jin gave to me during a visit to his impressive new chancery, there is a pictorial account of the many dignitaries who visited him to see firsthand his successful reconstruction of Shanghai’s Catholic community: Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910–1997), President Bill Clinton, Cardinal John O’Connor (1920–2000), Rev. Billy Graham (1918–2018), and the presidents and royal families of numerous countries. Most remarkable, however, is the considerable growth of people and properties attached to the Shanghai diocese. In addition to restoring the churches lost to the diocese during the Maoist era, the Diocese of Shanghai now boasts a prosperous church dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes in Pu Dong, the Sheshan Seminary, the Qing Pu Catholic Preparatory School, the Holy Mother Convent for elderly sisters, the Congregation of the Presentation of Mary, the Xu Guangqi Catholic Research Center, and various other Catholic facilities, such as a press and active retreat center.35 While Shanghai’s churches continue to attract large numbers of tourists and Sunday worshippers, the clergy are forced to conduct their pastoral work under constraints and the administrative scrutiny of the local government. The diocese is still without the leadership of Bishop Ma, who was to succeed Bishop Jin after his death in 2013; after Jin’s death the Catholic Patriotic Association officially described the Diocese of Shanghai as “sede vacante,” or without a bishop to lead the diocese. The Vatican insists that Ma should now be leading the diocese, and many of Shanghai’s faithful wonder if he will be forced to spend his remaining years under house arrest. As was recently reported by Asia News, Ma is believed to have sent a message to Pope Francis: “Do not worry about me,” he said, “do not stop from preaching the truth.”36 Bishop Ma was ordained

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a bishop on July 7, only two days before the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the memorial of the martyr saints of China, and this year Shanghai’s Catholics remembered both Bishop Ma and the saints on that day. When asked how Shanghai’s local Church flourishes despite the obstacles it faces, many Chinese Catholics assert that it is because they remember to concentrate on God more than their own struggles. One of Bishop Jin Luxian’s favorite sayings of St. Ignatius was “Oportet illum crescere, me autem minui”—“He should grow and I should diminish.” The irony of this saying is that the number of faithful, in fact, is growing in China. 4.5.4

Tianjin Diocese

The Diocese of Tianjin has perhaps endured more strains than most other Catholic dioceses in China. Neither the Western missionaries nor the local non-Christians have behaved particularly well over the centuries in Tianjin. On 21 June 1870, a massive local crowd attacked the Catholic mission in the city after hearing popular rumors that French Daughters of Charity were, among other false reports, enticing children into their possession through bribes, and then cutting out their eyes to magically transform into Western medicine.37 Believing these accusations, local Chinese confronted the French authorities; the French consul responded by shooting the attendant of a Chinese official. An angry crowd then attacked the Catholic mission, killing twenty foreigners, including a priest, ten religious sisters, businessmen, wives, and Western diplomats. The church was destroyed along with other Catholic properties. This violence, provoked by baseless gossip, resulted in crippling indemnities imposed on Tianjin’s Chinese officials; the Church demanded a new and grander church be built at Chinese expense, and named it after Our Lady of Victories. Also at Chinese expense, the new church’s extravagant reopening was accompanied by an entourage of foreign diplomats, a dozen Western gunboats stationed nearby, and a contingent of European marines. Father Alphonse Favier, the missionary architect who designed the new building, orchestrated this “ceremony of supreme reconciliation,” which was in fact a deliberate humiliation of Chinese pride.38 Ernest Young describes this as a “muscular display” of Western egotism, which was common in Tianjin until 1950 when the missionaries were expelled from China.39 Tensions between the Catholic community and local non-Christians were widespread before the Maoist era, which ushered in new hardships

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to Tianjin’s Christians. Today, however, Tianjin is known to be one of China’s fastest-growing Catholic communities, with more than 50,000 Catholics attending Masses in the city’s “sanctioned” churches. When I met the rector of the Tianjin cathedral, Father Zhang Liang, he suggested that much of the diocese’s past history is less important today than the daily concerns of spreading the faith. As I sat across from Father Zhang’s cluttered desk, parishioners persistently interrupted us, requesting Masses for their deceased relatives. “Oh, this is common,” he said, “we have a massive parish, and they are very devout. We’re terribly understaffed, and the church keeps growing.”40 Hong Kong’s Catholic newspaper, The Sunday Examiner, published a report in 2012, noting that 350 adults were received into the Catholic Church on December 10 at the small village church at Xiaohan, in the Tianjin diocese.41 Churches throughout the entire diocese continue to confirm large numbers of adults each year, and the magnificent Tianjin cathedral, dedicated to St. Joseph, has more than 30,000 registered parishioners. Father Zhang is fond of saying that Tianjin Catholics would rather devote their attention to the work of the Church than the activities of the government. “Why look always to the government? That would be like blaming the sun for not shining.” Zhang suggests that in his diocese they would rather look for a place “where sunshine can be found”; if one door is closed, then they must find an open door, one where religious faith shines through, and then to attract others to that radiance. 4.5.5

Continuation in Complexity: The Case of Bishop Melchior Shi Hongzhen

After the Vatican’s first apostolic delegate to China, Celso Costantini, left China for good in 1933, one of his continual remarks about the Church before 1949 was that Western Catholic missionaries, despite their good wishes, had planted missions in China but had not planted a Church.42 Once Chinese bishops were installed in China’s dioceses, two results marked the Church there: it began to grow more robustly and the new Chinese bishops were better equipped to carry the Church through its decades of persecution during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Tianjin’s coadjutor bishop, Melchior Shi Hongzhen (1928–2005), serves as a good example of how a native Chinese bishop is better able than a Westerner to navigate the complexities of Catholicism under Beijing’s state scrutiny. Shi recalls that when the six Chinese priests set

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out for Rome on 10 September 1926, to become China’s first Chinese bishops since bishop Gregory Luo Wenzao served at Nanjing in the seventeenth century, they stopped in Tianjin before their departure. Kenneth Latourette describes the event: “Much publicity was given the bishopselect on their way to Europe.” It was as if, Latourette continues, the Vatican was “eager to demonstrate to the world and especially China its desire for a truly Chinese Church.”43 Rome’s efforts to create a Chinese hierarchy in China paid off. After Westerners were shipped out of China in the early 1950s, the only hope for the Church’s future there rested on its Chinese bishops, such as Bishop Shi Hongzhen, who knew much better than missionaries how to handle the unique challenges of Chinese culture and society. Tianjin today has two bishops; both are approved by the Vatican, but neither are approved by the government. Bishop Stephen Li Side was appointed the ordinary of the Diocese of Tianjin in 1982, and he refused affiliation with the Catholic Patriotic Association. Li now lives under house arrest outside of Tianjin. The network of “underground” bishops in China has a complicated history, and Tianjin is among the most difficult to follow. In the 1980s an “underground” bishop from Hebei secretly consecrated Li Side to be the bishop of Tianjin; Li then consecrated Joseph Shi Hongchen, who had been arrested for performing religious services in a public park as an “underground” priest. Li later consecrated Shi Hongchen’s cousin, Melchior Shi Hongzhen, another “underground” priest, in 1982.44 While Bishop Li now languishes in house arrest, Shi Hongzhen performs the function of Tianjin’s bishop. These native Chinese bishops, such as Shi, have been able to provide the sacramental services of a bishop only by “flying under the radar” of the authorities; Chinese bishops have been able, because they are Chinese, to safeguard China’s Catholic community from dissolving under state pressures. Bishop Melchior Shi Hongzhen is recognized by China’s government, not as a bishop, but as a simple parish priest at the Zhongxin Bridge Church in Tanggu district of Tianjin. He serves officially as “pastor” rather than bishop, as the state sees it, but his status as a bishop is well known to both the local faithful and the government, which tolerates his activities as long as he avoids open political criticisms. Shi’s refusal to join the Patriotic Association means that he will not be allowed to publicly function as the diocese’s bishop. He is free to serve as a parish priest, but when Bishop Shi is called away to administer last rites, he is required to

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seek permission from the local police to leave the small area of his parish. St. Thomas More (1478–1535) is his patron, he says, because he died a martyr for refusing to renounce his loyalty to the pope under political pressure. For Shi, the example of the martyrs should be an example for all China’s Catholic bishops. A recent article posted on UCAnews notes that China’s new party chief, Xi Jinping, has pledged to consolidate party power and crackdown on voices that incite “subversion of state power.”45 This has resulted, among other things, in a renewed assertion that Christians adhere to state expectations. How Xi’s plan to consolidate power, better manage public opinion, and control religious practice will affect the Church in China is yet to become clear. But one thing that is clear about China’s Catholics is that they believe themselves to be well equipped to survive and flourish no matter what pressures are laid upon them. When his tormenter slowly killed the recent convert, Xi Zhuzi, for refusing to deny his Christian faith, the martyr continued to exclaim, “Each drop of blood will tell you that I am a Christian.”46 Richard Madsen has written, “During the Mao years, the main controversies were about the degree to which Catholic Church leaders could submit to the authority of the communist government while still remaining in communion with the Holy See.”47 Today, China’s Christians insist, the main issue in China is less about Catholic submission to the communist government or one’s relationship with the pope, but rather it is about following the example of the martyrs, who demonstrated their resolve to remain Christian when local authorities exert pressures to compromise or apostatize.

4.6 Essay 4.6 Church Demolitions, Cross Removals, and a Clandestine Bishop (February 2015) In 2013, Zhejiang’s government officials initiated a campaign of church destruction and cross removal that has resulted in more than a year of intense confrontations and open displays of resistance between Chinese Christians and the communist party. The campaign, called the “Three Rectifications and One Demolition,” was announced as an effort to demolish “illegal” structures, mostly around Wenzhou, China’s most Christian city. The organization, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), recently published a timeline recording at least 400 crosses removed and thirty-five churches that were totally or partially destroyed in Zhejiang province. In 2014 and the early months

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of 2015, China’s political leaders have overseen what is probably the most destructive anti-Christian campaign of recent decades, despite official assertions that the campaign has nothing to do with religion. Further north, in Hebei, the death of the “underground” bishop of Yixian, Cosma Shi Enxiang (1921–2015), has been hidden from public knowledge by the authorities, and his family is still waiting—and hoping—to receive his remains so he can be given a Catholic funeral and burial. As reported in a recent article in The New York Times, Bishop Shi was under arrest and detained for much of his life for, “refusing to renounce his loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church, which ordained him in 1947.”48 Shi was ninety-three at the time of his death in prison (or labor camp); he was seized on 13 April 2001 at the home of his niece in Beijing, and has been held in an unknown location since then. When he was a priest, in 1954, Shi was first arrested because of his fidelity to the pope, and in 1957 he was sentenced to hard labor in Heilongjiang, and then in Shanxi’s dangerous coal mines. Shi Enxiang was consecrated an “underground” bishop in 1982, and much of his episcopal ministry has been spent in and out of prisons and at camps for hard labor. For many China Church watchers, the previous three years are seen as a return to a darker era of anti-Christian persecution in China. Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s recent report, however, optimistically notes some signs of improvement in the treatment of Christians in China. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong has stated that “Bishop Shi … has sacrificed himself … and has endured lifelong sufferings for the sake of religious freedom. We pay high respect to his great soul!”

4.7 Essay 4.7 Bishop Joseph Zhang Yinlin: Pope Francis’ First Chinese Bishop (August 2015) For the first time in several years, the Vatican and China’s political leaders have agreed to operate collaboratively rather than antagonistically. Amidst weeks of tensions over the removal of church crosses in Zhejiang, China’s state officials have extended an olive branch to the Holy See by accommodating the Vatican’s wishes in the consecration of a new Catholic bishop in Henan province. In Zhejiang province, now an area of robust Protestant growth, local officials have ordered the removal of crosses from the steeples of state-sanctioned churches. In response, both Catholics and Protestants there have initiated large-scale protests against government anti-Christian crackdowns by carrying crosses in rallies and prominently

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displaying them on their homes. A Protestant pastor and his wife, Rev. Bao Guohua and Xin Wenxiang, were recently arrested for “stirring social unrest”; they were among the protestors. According to a BBC report on the arrests in Zhejiang, “Christians have said the crackdown is an attempt to rein in the influence of Christianity.”49 Wenzhou and Zhejiang, both predominantly Protestant, have suffered rising numbers of church destructions and cross removals in the past year, while in other areas Catholic communities have begun to experience improvements in state–Church relations. The Chinese have a vivid saying for the situation of Christians nowadays: “Reguo shang de mayi,” or “It’s like being ants crawling on a hot wok.” The proverbial wok has been less hot for Catholics than for Protestants in recent months. China’s Catholic bloggers have been busy writing about the recent consecration of Father Joseph Zhang Yinlin at the cathedral of Anyang, in Hebei province. Zhang was ordained coadjutor bishop of Anyang on 4 August 2015 with the full approval of Pope Francis, and also with the full endorsement of the party’s SARA. Bishop Zhang’s elevation to bishop was the first episcopal ordination in China since the election of Pope Francis, and it is the first such consecration in China without major disagreements between Rome and Beijing. Unlike previous consecrations, none of the presiding bishops at Zhang’s ordination was illicit; all of the bishops present were in full communion with the bishop of Rome. Vatican Radio reported optimistically that the bishops at the liturgy were “all Vatican-approved and government recognized. Bishops not recognized by the Vatican were not present at the ordination.”50 The official website of the SARA announced that Bishop Joseph Zhang Yinlin’s ordination was a great success: “From both inside and outside the province there were 75 priests, 120 nuns, and the faithful who attended the ceremony at the Diocese of Anyang [cathedral] totaled more than 1,500 people. The solemn ceremony was warm, peaceful, and orderly.”51 The article includes little of the previous rhetoric, which has normally been aggressive and assertive of the party’s rule over all Catholic affairs in the country. For the first time in several years, the Vatican and China’s political leaders have agreed to operate collaboratively rather than antagonistically. Bishop Zhang is a model candidate for both sides; he was born into an old Catholic family and is known to be solidly faithful to Church teachings

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and the pope. But he also received his seminary training from the stateendorsed National Seminary in Beijing. Bishop Zhang is a loyal Catholic with a record of patriotism, who has risen to bishop without compromising his Catholic faith while also demonstrating his ability to navigate successfully the sometimes-precarious waters of state mood shifts. One priest of the Diocese of Anyang reportedly said, “This is a new beginning for our diocese.” The spirit among China’s Catholics is optimistic today, but their eyes have still not turned away from what is happening to their Protestant collaborators in Wenzhou and Zhejiang, where church crosses are still being removed and pastors are being arrested. Another popular Chinese saying expresses the Catholic sense today: “Ru zuo zhen zhan” or “It’s like sitting on a carpet full of needles.”

4.8 Essay 4.8 Partakers in the Suffering: Recent Events in Catholic China (January 2016) The situation in China is far more complex than a simple chronicle of antagonism, suspicion, and persecution; progress and hope also punctuate the narrative. “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief,” asserts Article thirty-six of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, “No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion.” This guarantee to allow “freedom of religious belief” is followed by the caveat, “The state protects normal religious activities.”52 Christians in China, and in most nations today for that matter, continue to struggle to navigate in a political framework wherein they are promised freedom to be Christian, but only if one’s Christianity conforms to the state’s definition of “normal.” The Columban missionary to China, Father Edward MacElroy (1911– 1980), who was arrested at gunpoint in the middle of the night by communist police in 1951, compared religious freedom in China at that time to being condemned to death: A man has been condemned to death. He remains free to walk around his cell. He may be free to walk, under close supervision, around the prison yard. When the last morning comes he will be free to walk to the scaffold. There is the freedom enjoyed by the Catholic Church in China. It is the

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freedom to walk down the years, at the point of a communist gun, to the day when she will die.53

Catholics in China today are for the most part living their faith with as much routine as possible, but events in recent months have reminded the faithful that late night knocks at the door remain inauspicious signs that the situation is still precarious. Even so, as Benedict XVI wrote in his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, a writing much heralded by Chinese Catholics, “Hope is practiced through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure.”54 That Catholics in China have grown from three million to around twenty million since the advent of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 is evidence to some of the virtue of hope in practice. 4.8.1

Hong Kong

After Hong Kong bookseller Lee Bo and four others had sold works critical of mainland China’s government, especially of the private life of President Xi Jinping, at least five men involved with publishing such books suddenly disappeared. Rumors in Hong Kong were that these men, critical of the government’s policies and practices, were kidnapped and taken to the mainland. Angry protests sparked in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and despite recent reports of possible wrongdoing by one of the missing men, tensions between the mainland and Hong Kong have reached their most fevered pitch since the leadership of Xi Jinping began in 2012.55 Whatever the circumstances of these disappearances in Hong Kong, China’s authorities under Xi have grown increasingly entrenched in the more hardline behaviors of the President’s predecessors. In May 2015, Xi Jinping affirmed his belief that “Active efforts should be made to incorporate religions into socialist society” and he continued to reiterate the communist party’s commitment to winning the hearts and minds of China’s people for the party.56 During Xi’s visit to the United States in September 2015, Christian scholars and China-watchers were aware that during the year prior to his visit China’s government had dispatched police and wrecking crews to remove more than 1300 crosses from churches, and in some cases razed churches to the ground.57 Thousands of Protestant and Catholic Christians protested by carrying red crosses in large-scale demonstrations, and several pastors who openly resisted the state’s decision to remove crosses from public view were themselves

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removed from public view. People in Hong Kong and within mainland China have become more openly critical of what has become an increasingly unpredictable situation for those who do not fit into the larger schema of China’s vision of a “harmonious society.” 4.8.2

Bishops

Discussions among China’s Catholics still largely revolve around the death of Bishop Cosmos Shi Enxiang, who recently died. Shi spent almost half of his ninety-three years of life in prison for refusing to renounce his loyalty to the pope, and he died last year in prison. His story is a common one for many of China’s Catholic bishops; Bishop Shi was ordained a priest in 1947, and was one of the last living bishops in China who was selected by the Vatican and consecrated without state approval, in 1982. His insistent commitment to the pope’s authority precipitated state antagonisms against him. Another bishop on the minds of Chinese Catholics is James Su Zhimin, known for his piety and deep love for the Church, who was arrested in 1986 as a “counterrevolutionary.” Bishop Su was labelled as a “counterrevolutionary” because of his refusal to join the state-sanctioned CCPA. He escaped from detention in 1997, but was quickly located and rearrested. In 2003, his family learned that he was in a hospital at Baoding, but he was removed by authorities soon after his discovery and has not been seen since. Bishops Shi and Su are among those often prayed for by “underground” Catholics who gather at the tomb of the famous Jesuit missionary, Father Matteo Ricci. In September 2015, Chinese Catholics from Hebei sent an appeal to Xi Jinping asking for Bishop Su’s release, but China’s authorities informed the petitioners that they were unaware of the bishop’s current location.58 At present, China’s government has not officially acknowledged that Bishops Shi or Su are dead or alive. The state’s intentions for China’s Catholics and the situation of those Catholics still in prison remain nebulous. Winston Churchill once said of Russia that it is, “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”59 This is largely true of China’s religious policies, especially when a religion such as Christianity is seen to impinge upon China’s national ideology, which is today preoccupied with the centralization of power and the expansion of China’s economy, often at great cost to human lives and the environment.

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4.8.3

Priests

Another mystery is the recent discovery of the body of a priest in Shanxi province, one of the most active Catholic areas in the country. The priest, Father Yu Heping (d. 2016), was found dead in the He River on 8 November 2015; he was on his way to teach a catechism class, but never arrived. Local Catholics suggest that Father Yu’s unregistered webpage, which had caught the attention of the government for providing upto-date translations of Catholic news and documents published by the Vatican, might be the reason for his disappearance and death. Whether or not Yu’s death is connected to the authorities, it is known that his webpage was shut down by local officials and he was under scrutiny for helping operate an “underground” seminary in Shanxi, where the sanctioned seminary had long been closed. At first the police announced that his death was a suicide, but after doubts were expressed by his family and fellow priests the authorities retracted their cause of death statement. Father Yu, who was only forty when he died, was the founder of the popular webpage Tianzhujiao Zaixian, or “Catholic Online,” which has been reopened and assigned to new direction, and is now much more state friendly. The webpage presently includes a report on Father Yu’s death with the headline, “Parish Priest, Father Yu Heping from Ningxia Diocese, Died an Accidental Death.” Nothing of the local suspicions of state involvement or the state’s scrutiny of Father Yu’s activities is mentioned on the current webpage. The pope’s speeches and announcements are, however, still prominently available on the website. Father Yu’s funeral Mass was celebrated with great solemnity. 4.8.4

Reparation and Rapprochement

The situation in China is far more complex than a simple chronicle of antagonism, suspicion, and persecution; progress and hope also punctuate the narrative. Not since before the inauguration of the People’s Republic of China have relations between the Vatican and Chinese government been better. While those relations are still somewhat strained—the selection of bishops is among the most bitterly unresolved topics—the Holy See has recently made successful overtures that would have been dismissed offhand several years ago. Pope Francis trenchantly crafted his communications with Beijing, and China is softening. After Francis’ election, the widely read webpage, “Vatican Insider,” began including a news section

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entirely in Chinese, which demonstrates that the pope’s eyes have turned toward the Catholics of China. Even more significantly, the Vatican has so far conducted two rounds of deliberations with China’s authorities in Beijing to discuss how to improve relations with China. Rumors have even begun to spread that Rome is considering shifting its formal diplomatic ties from Taiwan to mainland China, a possible move that has already attracted some criticisms from within the Church’s hierarchy. Overcoming decades of mistrust and irritation, on both sides, will require patience and consistent gestures of goodwill. Historically, China has cause to mistrust the West, and the Vatican resides in Italy, which did not always behave well in China during the concluding years of the nineteenth century. That meetings between the Holy See and China’s current government are being held at all is a sign of optimism for most Chinese Catholics, but neither side is naïve. In what was once the Jesuit mission at Xianxian, now the Roman Catholic Diocese of Jingxian, local party authorities have donated enormous amounts of state funds to Catholic projects to make up for what had been lost during the last several decades. A beautiful old Jesuit church at Zhangjiazhuang, in Hebei province, was in ruins before the state provided the resources to restore the church and accompanying buildings. Today it is a beautiful Gothic Revival church with a Marian shrine, a sign of a hopeful future to the local Catholics who attend Mass there. The new cathedral at Jingxian, along with an impressive new bishop’s residence and Catholic history museum, was also funded by the local government, and walking through the halls of these new buildings one cannot miss the prominently displayed photographs of the pope and panoramas of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Even the Catholic tombs and mausoleums that were largely destroyed during the turbulent years of the Cultural Revolution are now being returned to the Church and restored to their former beauty, and most notable is the Shanghai tomb of the famous Chinese Catholic convert, Xu Guangqi. While Masses are being said for bishops and priests who have recently suffered under vestiges of state oppression, signs of reconciliation have nourished the confidence of the faithful who continue to fill churches to capacity each Sunday.

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4.9 Essay 4.9 A Preliminary Agreement on the Election of Bishops (August 2016) Pope Francis is not the first pope to turn his pastoral gaze toward China, and in the long scope of the Middle Kingdom’s history the Vatican’s overtures to China are not so unusual. The American historian and novelist Edward Eggleston (1837–1902) once said, “Journalism is organized gossip.” There has been a lot of journalism lately about the Church in China, but it has been extremely difficult to separate the genuine news from “organized gossip.” In June, the bishop of Shanghai, Ma Daqin, who has spent four years under house arrest for refusing to join the CCPA, released an “admission of his faults,” stating that he should not have distanced himself from the CCPA. Ma’s message stressed the importance of “loving the country and loving the Church,” and emphasized the importance of independence from “foreigner influences,” and the CCPA’s positive role in the evangelization of China (Fig. 4.4).60 This message, which many Chinese Catholics believe to be false, or perhaps forced, has

Fig. 4.4 Bishop Ma Daqin meeting the faithful outside the Shanghai cathedral, 2014 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

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been interpreted by some as a betrayal toward loyal Chinese Catholics, while others view Ma’s confession as a pastoral strategy to help preserve the Church in his native country. After Bishop Ma Daqin’s alleged message was published, rumors began to circulate that the Vatican and the Chinese government had entered into dialogue, hoping to arrive at a rapprochement after decades of severed diplomatic ties between Beijing and Rome. Critics of such an accord between the Vatican and China’s government have noted that China’s treatment of Catholics must be normalized before an agreement can be made, pointing to such recent events as China’s refusal to allow clergy and faithful from China to attend World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland. In an article published by the Italian Catholic news source Asia News, it was reported that “A priest from the official Church in Beijing said that if a colleague goes to Krakow unofficially, on his return he is likely to lose his pastoral office or government aid for his parish.”61 If this report is true, Chinese priests could lose the freedom to practice their ministry in China if they get too close to the pope. Still, some 2000 Chinese Catholics are believed to have attended the recent World Youth Day events in Krakow and there are so far no reports of official retaliation against those attendees, lay or clergy. Toward the end of World Youth Day in Poland, the admired “underground” bishop of Mindong, in Fujian province, Bishop Vincent Huang Shoucheng, died, which resulted in a ripple of Catholic mourning and support throughout China. The “underground” community around Mindong is around 90,000 strong, and Huang’s popularity is shared among both the sanctioned and unsanctioned communities. It is a testament to China’s comparative tolerance toward Catholicism in recent months that Bishop Huang’s very public funeral was attended by more than 20,000 Catholics. The streets of Mindong were filled with thousands of faithful during the Mass, with no interference from the local authorities. Such open state tolerance toward Catholics as not punishing those who attended the public funeral of an “underground” bishop has left many wondering if the situation for China’s Church is on the threshold of a better era. But there are critics who harbor suspicions that no accord can, or should, be attempted between China’s communist government and the Holy See. On August 5, the South China Morning Post published what has been “big news” among China’s Catholics: “Beijing, Vatican Reach Initial Accord on Appointment of Bishops.”62 In this article, the head of

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Hong Kong’s Catholics, Cardinal John Tong Hon, is reported to have announced that under a preliminary agreement between the Vatican and China’s officials, the pope will choose from a list of proposed candidates for ordination to bishop by China’s bishops and state authorities, which would finally normalize how bishops are selected and ordained in China. This would be a significant step forward in Sino-Vatican relations. Cardinal Tong’s statements derive from an 8000-word document Tong released on the Hong Kong Catholic webpage, Kung Kao Po (Gongjiaobao), in which he described the agreement: Fortunately, after working for many years on this issue, the Catholic Church has gradually gained the reconsideration of the Chinese government, which is now willing to reach an understanding with the Holy See on the question of the appointment of bishops in the Catholic Church in China and seek a mutually acceptable plan. … The Apostolic See has the right to choose from the recommended list the candidates it considers as most suitable and the right to reject the candidates recommended by a bishops’ conference of China and the bishops in the provinces under it.63

In other words, under the initial agreement, the pope would choose from a list of candidates recommended by a conference comprised of bishops from both the open and clandestine churches. Tong acknowledges that there are critics of the Vatican’s negotiations with China’s communist authorities who claim “that the Holy See has not openly criticized China’s policies on human rights and has not attempted to change certain political policies of the Chinese government.”64 To such criticisms, Cardinal Tong responds that: The mission of the Catholic Church is not to change the institution or administrative agency of nations. It cannot and should not intervene in political struggles. Rather, it should realize the above targets through rational thought and the awakening of spiritual power. Without giving up its principles, it should resolve problems through communication with legitimate political power and not through continuous confrontation.65

Whether the Holy See should adopt a hard line with communist governments continues to draw fierce debate, but it could be said that the Vatican’s proposed agreement with China is comparable to agreements made with communist Vietnam quite some time ago. In June of 2010, Pope Benedict XVI established a similar form of diplomatic relations

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with Vietnam, and the Church there has continued to flourish under a circumstance that Pope Francis is now perhaps proposing with China. Among the most vocal critics of this new rapprochement between Rome and Beijing has been Cardinal Joseph Zen, and an Asia News post is entitled, “Card. Zen: My Concerns over China-Holy See Dialogue and Repercussions on Chinese Church.” Cardinal Zen’s concerns over the proposed Sino-Vatican agreement centers on “belonging to the Patriotic Association, which Benedict XVI called ‘incompatible’ with Catholic doctrine (and which Francis confirmed), … silence on the persecution of the faithful and priests,” and “ambiguities over appointment of bishops.”66 The history of mistrust and conflict between China’s authorities—communist, Republican, and imperial—is long and complex, and some suggest that any dialogue and progress is a welcome benefit to the continued growth of the Church in China. That being said, painful memories persist among China’s Catholics who have suffered for their inexorable loyalty to a papacy that has consistently condemned communism as a danger to religion and human prosperity. The diplomatic dance that follows these recent events will be a challenging one for all sides of the debate. So much is happening now in China’s growing Catholic community, and at such a quickening pace that the present and future landscape of China’s Church is difficult to describe and predict. Pope Francis is not the first pope to turn his pastoral gaze toward China; the well-being of the Christian community in the Middle Kingdom has been an abiding concern of the Holy See since the medieval Church, when Franciscan friars were sent to the Celestial Empire to introduce Christianity to “people of the Orient.” In the long scope of this history, the Vatican’s overtures to China are not so unusual. On a sunny Roman winter day, 16 February 1947, Pope Pius XII welcomed the first Chinese Catholic diplomatic Minister to the Holy See in his audience hall. Dr. John C. H. Wu (1899–1986), who had written the national constitution for the Republic of China, translated the Psalms and New Testament into elegant classical Chinese, and had written stirring essays on the role that St. Therese the Little Flower had played in his conversion, was China’s elected Minister, and addressed the pope with a poignant appeal: “I am confident that, with the wise guidance and constant encouragement from Your Holiness, the Church in China will produce ‘many a scribe steeped in the Kingdom of Heaven’ who will ‘bring forth out of his treasure new things and old.’”67 And he finished his short address with the words: “I will do my best, with the

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grace of God, to strengthen the good relation between the Holy See and my country.”68 Pope Pius XII responded with the heartfelt expression of the Holy See’s feelings for China: And as the Colonnade of the Vatican Basilica opens its large arms towards the East, so we now lift Our hands towards the Orient and invoke the protection of the Almighty over the rugged and arduous journey of the Chinese people from twilight to dawn, which We hope will soon shine forth in a secure internal and external peace.69

That moment was the first step of diplomatic relations and friendship between modern China and the leader of the Catholic Church, and perhaps with propitious and prudent steps that first encounter is beginning to bear new fruits of reconciliation after a long and silent distance.

4.10 Essay 4.10 Understanding the China--Vatican Agreement (November 2016) Bishops, priests, sisters, and lay faithful in China have said to me time and again, “All I wish is that the Holy Father can someday visit us here in China.” Several days ago, I received an email from the Wall Street Journal asking my opinion of the reported accord about to take place between Pope Francis and Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the communist party of China and the President of the People’s Republic of China. Several weeks earlier, a Jesuit friend asking about my thoughts on this imminent agreement phoned me. Interest is high, and for understandable reasons. I would like to offer some reflections here, especially since this rumored accord is receiving a significant amount of media attention, and I am not confident that the voice of Chinese Catholics in the pews is being sufficiently represented. There is an old Chinese saying that “what is whispered in one man’s ear is often heard a hundred miles away,” and what is heard a hundred miles away is more often different than what was originally said. There is no way of knowing precisely what is being negotiated between Vatican City and Beijing, but rumors of a Sino-Vatican agreement have already caused a stir on both sides of the Eurasian continent. In short, negotiations are underway between the Holy See and the authorities in Beijing to make an agreement regarding how Chinese

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bishops will be selected, approved, and consecrated in China. Beijing has asked the pope to recognize eight bishops who were ordained without Vatican approval, and who are still not officially in communion with the Bishop of Rome; three of these bishops are presently excommunicated. If the pope agrees to this condition, the process for electing bishops would include first, the selection of priest candidates by China’s Religious Affairs authorities; second, the Vatican’s approval of candidates; and third, the consecration and installation of these bishops into Chinese dioceses. Such an agreement, while somewhat different from how bishops are selected in most countries, would mark the first tangible sign of rapprochement between China and the Vatican since China severed ties with the Holy See and began to expel missionaries in 1949. Resumed talks between the Vatican and China’s authorities started in 2014, and underwent at least four rounds of negotiations. Among the topics undoubtedly looming in the background of these talks is the so-called “Vietnam Model.” Vietnam, like China, is a communist country with a thriving Catholic Christian community. According to this model, which is in place but still unofficial, the selection of a bishop in Vietnam undergoes four stages: (1) the Vietnamese authorities select a number of priest candidates that the state supports; (2) the Vatican recommends one of the state-selected candidates for ordination; (3) Vietnam’s authorities either confirm or reject the Vatican’s selection; and (4) the pope officially appoints the candidate to the episcopacy. Whether or not this model will become the template for the possible Vatican–China agreement, it has been, more or less, a successful model for the election of bishops in Vietnam. There are pressing reasons why the issue of selecting bishops is being discussed. China now has ninetyseven dioceses, and many do not have bishops, or have a bishop who is well beyond the normal age of retirement, which is seventy-five years old. Under the current circumstances, China is suffering from a severe shortage of bishops who can confer sacraments such as the ordination of priests or bishops. This bishop shortage is complicated because China’s Catholic Church is presently divided into the so-called “underground” and “aboveground” communities, each having bishops, some occupying the same jurisdiction. In 2008, I met with an “underground” bishop, Hu Daguo, who lived in the same residence as the “aboveground” bishop, Wang Chongyi, and both men collaborated together to improve the well-being of their

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diocese. Such cooperation is not uncommon in China, but “underground” and “aboveground” bishops in some areas remain in open conflict, especially in dioceses where the Church has suffered particularly intense challenges since the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949. In these areas, “aboveground” bishops are viewed as “traitors” who have abandoned open loyalty to the pope in Rome. In 1981, the “underground” bishop, Fan Xueyan (1907–1992), ordained a priest and three bishops without Vatican approval based on his conviction that the Church in China was in grave danger, and that the situation required more bishops in this state of emergency. Pope John Paul II not only approved of Bishop Fan’s surreptitious consecration of bishops, but also granted him permission to continue making such decisions without first seeking the approval of the Holy See. Bishop Fan, along with the bishops he had consecrated, ordained more than eighty Roman Catholic bishops in China in this state of emergency. Fan was imprisoned by the Chinese authorities, and his death in 1992 is believed by most Chinese Catholics to have been precipitated by mistreatment by the state. It is the memory of bishops such as Fan Xueyan that render many local Catholics suspicious of a possible accord between the Chinese government and the Vatican. But the situation is changing in China, and since many “underground” and “aboveground” bishops are now in collaboration, a Vatican accord with China might seem less like a betrayal of the Chinese faithful who have suffered to retain their loyalty to the Holy See. Some of the media reports I now see online appear to praise the present negotiations as a positive development in Sino-Vatican relations, while others decry it as a callous infidelity to those Chinese Catholics who have resisted China’s communist authorities and have avoided any relations with a government that has at times oppressed Catholics in the past. Hardliners on both sides of this debate will, no doubt, remain vocal. The Chinese Catholics I have spoken with mostly desire little more than normalization between the Chinese government and the pope in Rome. Cardinal Joseph Zen and Cardinal John Tong Hon represent two disparate views regarding the situation of Catholics in China, but both men remain tentative about how these negotiations might be received in China if an agreement is formally made. The Chinese Benedictine monk, Brother Peter Zhou Bangjiu, was imprisoned by communist officials in 1955, and he endured poor treatment, even torture, while in Chinese prisons and labor camps because

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he was a Catholic monk who refused to deny his loyalty to the pope. He wrote a poem to commemorate his departure from China after his release: Departure, my Motherland The sky of my country has changed over these thirty-five winters, Rancorous wind and rain have exposed a green pine. At Yang Pass—a sad parting—I intone a tune that crushes my heart, Oh Father of Heaven, when will you descend upon the Red Dragon?70

Brother Zhou’s mention of Yang Pass alludes to a Chinese area associated with bitter farewells, and the “Red Dragon” is his native country. This poem serves to underscore two common themes among Chinese Catholics; they feel an abiding love for their culture, and they share an enduring desire for more freedom for Chinese Catholics to practice their religious beliefs unencumbered by discriminatory state policies. The current negotiations remain largely veiled in secrecy, but one thing is certain: most of the Catholics I know in China are hoping now that whatever accord is made between Beijing and Rome, it will bring China one step closer to being more like other countries, closer to seeing the Bishop of Rome welcomed to their native country, and that their bishops are all in a normalized relationship with the pope, which has not been the case for more than half a century.

4.11 Essay 4.11 China’s Catholics Crave a New Era (May 2017) When China’s last empire, the Qing dynasty, ended in 1911, Christianity there entered what many scholars call the “Golden Age” of the missions. New Catholic churches, schools, orphanages, and hospitals were emerging throughout the country, and parish photographs through the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s reveal how intensely the Church had grown after the turbulence of the Boxer Uprising in 1900, when more than 30,000 Christians had been massacred. The French Lazarist, Frédéric-Vincent Lebbe (1877–1940), who formed a powerful movement to unfetter the Catholic community in China from foreign control, instigated one of the most important Catholic events during the Republican Era, which spanned the end of the Qing to the beginning of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 (Fig. 4.5). Lebbe himself became a Chinese citizen the better to advocate a more indigenous Catholic clergy and hierarchy.

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Fig. 4.5 The Lazarist missionary, Vincent Lebbe (center wearing a white and black habit), with another Belgian missionary, Paul Gilson, and Chinese Catholics, in Beijing, 1936 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

Largely owing to Lebbe’s tireless work on behalf of the Chinese Church, Pope Pius XI invited six Chinese priests to St. Peter’s in 1926; the pope himself ordained them bishops. This began an era during which China’s Catholic community finally had its own native bishops and an increasing number of local priests. After the collapse of imperial China in 1911, Chinese Catholics grew increasingly patriotic, and having their own bishops represented a welcome stage of growth in their national Church. After 1949, when Mao Zedong stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace and announced that “the people of China have stood up,” the new government under his leadership began a swift and effective campaign to deport all of China’s foreign missionaries, and diminish, if not eradicate, the Catholic Church in China.

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In 1951, many churches and other properties were confiscated under the Land Reform Law, and around 5000 foreign priests and sisters were expelled. This began a long period of suffering for many Christians. Chinese bishops and priests, such as Bishop Gong Pinmei and Father Zhang Boda, were imprisoned for refusing to cut their ties with Rome, and China’s Church divided into two communities, the so-called “underground” Church, faithful to the Vatican, and the “aboveground church,” which opted to operate under state control. After the death of Mao in 1976, the situation of the Church has steadily improved, though tensions between these two communities persist, and Sino-Vatican relations remain tenuous. While the churches, schools, orphanages, and hospitals that grew out of the post-imperial “Golden Age” largely disappeared, China’s Catholic Church did not suffer in human numbers. In 1949, China had roughly four million Christians, but today that number has risen to between forty to ninety million. After materialism, Christianity is conceivably the fastest growing phenomenon in China, and this is perhaps why the government has increased its efforts to check the tide of religious fervor, often with severe tactics such as the recent wave of church cross removals. The situation for Catholics in China remains difficult, and during a recent general audience on March 15, a group of Chinese pilgrims in Rome broke protocol and approached the pope on their knees, crying bitterly. Pope Francis told the Swiss Guard to allow them to come forward, where he and the Chinese Catholics shared a moving encounter. After so long an era of forced separation between China’s Catholics and their spiritual leader in Rome, this was an opportunity fraught with deep emotion, perhaps this meeting shall finally begin an era of healing in a burdened Church.

4.12 Essay 4.12 Perseverance Under Peter: China and the Papacy (June 2017) We cannot command our final perseverance, but must ask it of God.—St. Thomas Aquinas St. Peter is the leader of the choir, the mouth of the apostles and the head of that tribe, the leader of the world, the foundation of the Church, and the ardent lover of Christ.—St. John Chrysostom

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Few issues have plagued China–Vatican relations since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 more than the question papal authority. China’s political leaders remain uncomfortable with foreign leaders exercising power over Chinese citizens, and Chinese Catholics are among the only people in China who submit to an outside power. In 1951, China’s new communist government committed itself to solving the problem of the “foreign pope” by installing a Chinese one. Party officials approached the Vincentian archbishop, Joseph Zhou Jishi, and invited him to be the pope. Zhou responded that he would be happy to serve as pope, as long as his election was made by the cardinals of the Church in Rome, and that once elected he would live and lead the entire Catholic Church from his papal apartment at the Vatican. For his answer, Zhou was arrested in May 1951, subjected to three “people’s trials,” and sent to prison. Since 1949 China’s Catholics have struggled to find ways of remaining loyal to the pope while also appearing to (or actually) assuage the government’s requirement to obey the pope in only “spiritual matters,” and not in areas of administration. This situation has created a painful sense of separation between Chinese Catholics and their spiritual leader in Rome, and an expression of this pain was observed recently during the March 15th general audience with Pope Francis at St. Peter’s. Pope Francis allowed a group of Chinese pilgrims to pass through the barrier of Swiss Guards and Vatican carabinieri, approaching him on their knees and sobbing. These Chinese Catholics passed a few tender moments with the visibly moved pontiff. No pope has ever visited China; today he remains forbidden from visiting his flock in the Middle Kingdom. While one pilgrim performed the traditional Chinese gesture of obedience, the kowtow, another asked him to bless their statue of Our Lady of Fatima. There are two realities that define China’s Catholics today; they are sustained by their abiding devotion to their religious faith, and they are plagued by their abiding struggle to navigate between a political requirement to remain distanced from the pope of Rome and a spiritual requirement to submit to his authority. Recent events in China highlight the complexities of this situation. After an extended period of living under house arrest for refusing affiliation with the state-sponsored CCPA, Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin emerged from his confinement to concelebrate Mass on 17 April 2017 with Bishop Vincent Zhan Silu, who is not in communion with the pope. Some local Catholics have decried Ma’s concelebration as “blasphemous.” This was Bishop Ma’s first public Mass since 2012, and many of China’s

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faithful have expressed feelings of betrayal by his unexpected rapprochement with an illicit bishop. “Shen cang bu lu,” exclaim some, which means, “A hidden intention hides below.” In the same month, a police raid of an “underground” Catholic church in Heilongjiang province left Catholics fearful that the Church’s apparent freedoms gained since the 2008 Olympics are slowly being eroded by renewed state attempts to control and diminish the Catholic community. In August 2016 there were rumors that Bishop Ma had released an “admission of his faults,” and that he had reneged his former repudiation of the Catholic Patriotic Association. For many Chinese Catholics, his concelebration with an illicit bishop represents lost hope that China’s bishops can effectively resist state control, while for many others his concelebration signifies Ma’s practical commitment to preserving the faith in China under the Church’s present circumstances. Despite the news of Bishop Ma Daqin’s concelebration and the ongoing, and unresolved, saga of reported negotiations between the Vatican and China’s government regarding the current system of selecting bishops, China’s Catholics continue to fill churches. According to a recent report published by UCAnews, “There were 4,446 new Catholics baptized in China’s northern Hebei province during Easter, the highest amount in the country during the same time.”71 Central Shanxi province reported 1593 baptisms during Easter Vigil, and there were 1327 at southern Guangdong, 1234 from northwestern Shaanxi, 1169 from eastern Shandong, 1168 from eastern Zhejiang, and 1097 from central Henan.72 Baptismal statistics for China are impossible to accurately discern since around two-thirds of the country’s Catholics are members of the “underground” community, and cannot openly publish their records. That said, a preliminary report from the sanctioned Church accounts for 19,087 new Catholics in China this Easter. Other encouraging signs can be found in China’s large cities. In Beijing, for example, the city’s largest church, Beitang, or “North Church,” is being restored largely at the government’s expense, and the former bishop’s residence attached to the Beitang complex is being returned to the Catholic community after decades of use as a public school. Once the Gothic-style church is completely restored it shall again serve as Beijing’s grand cathedral. The state is also funding a major repair and restoration of Shanghai’s St. Ignatius cathedral, first designed by the famous English architect, William Doyle (n.d.), in 1906. The restoration of these two Catholic churches is

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costing the government around ten million US dollars, and they will serve the rapidly growing number of China’s Catholics. Meanwhile, in April, police officials raided a small gathering of unsanctioned Catholics during Mass, heralding what they viewed as successfully “blocking an illegal religious gathering.” Officials ransacked the room and attempted to arrest the huizhang (“community elder”) and priest, all of which briefly appeared in an online video. A still image from that video was posted on the Chinese webpage of UCAnews on April 27th.73 Events such as this remind the faithful that the situation for Catholics remains complicated, and that “perseverance under Peter” can come with costs. This incident followed the arrests of two “underground” bishops, Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin, of Wenzhou, and Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin, of Mindong, and rumors suggest that these two prelates were seized to prevent them from celebrating Easter Masses. The state continues to iterate its position that religious activities are allowed as long as they are conducted under the auspices of the Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) and the CCPA. Navigating within these parameters is often rewarded with generous state support, as is now seen in the construction and restoration of Catholic churches throughout China. The central anxiety among those sitting in China’s pews, however, revolves around the question of papal authority within a national system that insists upon total independence from foreign interference. But the technical area of ecclesial authority is not the only issue that occupies the thoughts of China’s Catholics. The Chinese Jesuit Father Joseph Jiang recently published a commentary on the state of Chinese Catholicism in La Civiltà Cattolica, entitled “Catholicism in 21st Century China,” wherein he notes China’s modern malaise due to the empty rewards of materialism. He asks: “Is the Chinese Catholic Church ready to face this challenge?”74 Given China’s persistent shortage of clergy, Jiang suggests that the Church in China must “empower the laity to take more leadership roles in the Church’s mission,”75 so that a more robust spiritual life among the faithful can mitigate the temptations of hyper-materialism. He also recommends that the Church in China more effectively utilize internet networking “to keep up with the times.” What is perhaps most intriguing about Jiang’s essay, however, is his assertion that: Because China is so different from the rest of the world, the Chinese Catholic Church needs to learn how to deal with the local culture and political authority. In other words, while keeping its Catholic identity, the

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Church has to establish a ‘Chinese Catholic Church with Chinese Characteristics,’ if it is to enculturate Church teachings and gospel values that are relevant to the Chinese people and serve both their [own] and Catholics’ spiritual needs.76

In order to “remain relevant to the needs of the new generation,” Father Jiang suggests that the Church must adapt itself to the particular realities of modern Chinese society, and he borrows from the rhetoric of China’s communist party, which states that China must have “socialism with Chinese characteristics (Zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi),” an idea encouraged by party leaders such as Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang (1915–1989), and Zhao Ziyang (1919–2005). Just as Marxist economic theories cannot conform precisely to the ideals of Karl Marx, neither can the Church’s conventional model conform precisely to the culture of the Chinese Catholic community. He suggests, though, that China’s Church must keep “its catholic identity.” To facilitate this accommodation, Jiang asserts that “the Chinese Catholic Church will have to redefine its role and relationship with the party and its ideological theories. This does not necessarily mean that the Church has to agree completely with party politics and values, but it must find flexible and effective way[s] to continue its mission and ministry in China.”77 Father Jiang’s assessment and proposal is largely pastoral, and on that level it has several merits. But Jiang’s suggestion overlooks that present realities in China are quite distinct from China’s past. Before 1949, when China’s political authorities became entirely communist, emperors and presidents had been religious persons, and the question of belief and religious practice was more a matter of “orthodoxy” than a matter of whether or not religion is altogether socially harmful. China’s current polity at best tolerates religious practice; at worst, it actively seeks to abolish it. China’s emperors were either Daoist or Buddhist, and the president of the Republican Era, Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), was a baptized Christian. Another aspect that complicates Sino-Vatican accord today is the question of the selection of bishops, which China’s government still refuses to return to the pope. China’s emperors, as tyrannical as they sometimes were, never infringed upon the pope’s authority to select priests for consecration to the episcopacy. When party officials asked Bishop Joseph Zhou Jishi to be the pope of China, an entirely new form of “Chinese Catholic Church with Chinese Characteristics” was proposed by China’s new government. The issue of St. Peter’s role in

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the Church remains central, and how this important reality of Catholic identity is handled in China will dictate the course of Catholicism in China as it continues its historical path. Father Jiang calls for the Sinicization (“Chinese-ification”) of China’s Church, and much of the Roman Catholic hierarchy agrees with that part of his summons; but the Church in China already began this process in the early twentieth century. It is in fact more Sinicized now than ever before. To place too much emphasis on the cultural dialogue between contemporary China and Catholicism is overly optimistic. Cultural rapprochement shall be an essential component for improving the spiritual and material lives of China’s Catholics, but many—perhaps most—of China’s Catholics would like to see the issue of how the state views and regulates China’s relationship with the Vatican finally resolved so that the leader of the apostles can finally visit his flock in China and function as the genuine pastor of China’s Catholics. I may be accused of stubbornly adhering to a long and persistent antagonism between the Vatican and China’s post-1949 authorities, but I would note that genuine and lasting reconciliation must begin with honesty. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in the opening line of his encyclical Caritas in Verite, wrote that “Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity.” Father Jiang’s essay, which I largely agree with, suggests that “As China and Chinese society in general become more and more open to religions—and to [the] Catholic Church in particular—Catholicism can find a stable place if it continues to be a Church of openness and a Church with Chinese characteristics and identity.” As a historian of China, I am convinced that China has never been, at least officially, less open to religions than it is today. All of my courses begin with a several-week section on Chinese philosophy and religion, and from the Shang dynasty (1600–1045 BC) until the Republican Era (1911–1949), China was far more religiously minded and open than it is now. The fact that China’s Church is indeed growing, and that churches are overflowing with faithful at each Mass is a hopeful sign to Chinese Catholics, and the challenges faced by China’s government actually lie beyond the scope of religious practice. Creating opportunities for 1.4 billion people to support themselves and maintain an agreeable standard of life occupies much of the discussions held each time the party meets in Beijing. Yet for Catholics, as long as their religious gatherings

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are designated as “sanctioned” and “unsanctioned,” and as long as the pope is viewed as a “foreign threat” to the people of China, there are larger issues to discuss than Sinicization. Although historical factors will undoubtedly require time and patience as China’s Catholics unhurriedly seek to normalize their relationship to Rome, the pastoral and administrative role of the pope remains for them a central issue. As long as bishops, priests, and the faithful feel pressed between their loyalty to Rome and their patriotism for their country, incidents such as the illicit concelebration between Bishops Ma and Zhan, and the indiscriminate raiding of private gatherings for Mass shall continue to afflict China’s Catholic community. All this being said, Pope Francis has made it clear that China’s Catholics remain close to his heart. In his 21 May 2017 Regina Caeli prayer, he stated: Next May 24 we will all be united spiritually to the Catholic faithful of China, on the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary “Help of Christians,” venerated at the Sheshan Shrine at Shanghai. To Chinese Catholics I say: Let us raise our gaze to Mary Our Mother, so that she may help us to discern the Will of God regarding the concrete path of the Church in China and support us in accepting her plan of love with generosity. Mary encourages us to offer our personal contribution towards communion among believers and for the harmony of the society as a whole. Let us not forget to bear witness to faith with prayer and with love, always remaining open to encounter and dialogue.

Pope Francis has generously opened the path for dialogue with China’s authorities, while also remaining committed to China’s unique Catholic landscape. I will conclude with an announcement of an event few American Catholics are aware of, a biannual gathering of Chinese and American Catholics sponsored by the US Catholic China Bureau. This year’s national conference will be in New York, from 11 to 13 August 2017, at St. John’s University, and the theme of the gathering will be understanding the Chinese Church of the twenty-first century. I mention this gathering because when I ask Chinese Catholics what they wish most of American Catholics, they quickly reply: “I wish to have a chance for them to get to know us, to know that we are also part of the Church.” One of the two keynote speakers is a Chinese priest, Father Joseph Zhang, a

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biblical scholar from China, who will deliver a talk entitled, “Contemporary Chinese Catholicism: Present and Future Realities.” Events such as this are a remarkable opportunity for Americans to encounter the religious culture and identity of Chinese Catholics, whose dedication to pope and the faith they have inherited is a strong sign of their resilience through eras of challenges and change.

4.13 Essay 4.13 Remembering China’s Eminent Catholics (January 2018) The little-known stories of Father Ma Xiangbo, Princess Yu Deling, Ying Lianzhi, Abbot Lu Zhengxiang, and Bishop Fan Xueyan. After Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, missionaries and Chinese clergy flooded out of mainland China to escape the coming years of turbulence. There were some clergy, however, who remained with their beleaguered flock, such as the American Jesuit, Father Charles McCarthy, and the Chinese Jesuit, Father Zhu Shude (1913–1983). In 1949, Father Zhu was in Hong Kong receiving his fellow Jesuits fleeing the mainland, and he decided that the Christians in Shanghai needed him to remain with them through the storm. Despite the entreaties from his fellow priests to stay in the safety of Hong Kong, Zhu boarded a plane for Shanghai. In a poignant letter left to his brother, he wrote: Every day many people are escaping from China to Hong Kong. Yet I cannot find anyone, apart from myself, who is preparing to leave Hong Kong for China. Everyone laughs at me for being a fool. In the eyes of the world I am indeed the biggest fool ever born! When a merchant cannot make a profit in one place, he will move somewhere else. Yet I am a priest, and the life of a priest is to serve his flock. As long as there are Christians left in Shanghai, I must return there.78

Zhu was arrested in 1953, and later died in a labor camp in 1983 after thirty years of hardship and torment. He remains a hallowed example of a Chinese priest who was committed enough to those Christians in China that he was willing to bear fear and imprisonment in order to stay there when needed. In October 2017, Christianity Today posted a tribute to Chinese Protestants entitled “10 Chinese Christians the Western Church Should Know” with the subtitle “Meet the men and women who have

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rooted the gospel message within the Chinese soul.”79 I would like to offer here a few examples of Chinese Catholics who also exemplified the resilience and perseverance of Christians who have filled China’s churches for nearly five centuries. It is a good time to remember some of these Chinese Catholics whose names are seldom discussed in print, but who have transformed the landscape of Chinese Christianity and Chinese society. 4.13.1

Father Ma Xiangbo

Few people know that one of China’s most prestigious universities, Shanghai’s elite Fudan University, owes its existence to the vision of the Jesuit priest, Father Ma Xiangbo (1840–1939) (Fig. 4.6). Ma was born into one of China’s most prominent Catholic families at a time when the

Fig. 4.6 Father Ma Xiangbo (second row, far right, with beard) with Shanghai Catholics, 1935 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

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empire was collapsing under the strain of transition and modernity. Along with Ying Lianzhi (1867–1926), another devout Chinese Catholic, Ma Xiangbo viewed himself as a reformer of a society he believed was frail and obsolete; his life was spent largely in a state of frustration that he could not fully inspire the kinds of major changes he envisioned. Toward the end of his life he was often heard saying, “I’m like a dog that only knows how to bark—I’ve been barking for a century and I still haven’t been able to awaken China!”80 As a man acutely dedicated to the Catholic ideals of social equality and the value of human dignity, Ma was exasperated that China was slow to change. His father, Ma Songyuan (n.d.), was a Confucian scholar, and so Ma was raised in the tradition of classical learning, discipline, and a strong attachment to virtuous behavior. After receiving a rigorous Western education in Shanghai’s Jesuit-run St. Ignatius School, Ma entered the Jesuits in 1864 and was ordained a priest in 1870. Finding the arrogance of the French clergy in Shanghai unbearable, Ma Xiangbo left the order in 1876; it did not help matters that many of the European Jesuits then displayed contempt for traditional Chinese culture. While maintaining strong ties to the Catholic hierarchy in China, Ma left active ministry as a priest to help reform an embattled China, though he returned to the Jesuit community at Xujiahui in 1919.81 In 1903, he founded the Jesuit-operated Aurora University, which ceased being a Catholic university in 1953 when communist authorities forced it to secularize. In 1905, he founded Fudan University, and in 1926 he co-founded Beijing’s prestigious Fu Jen Catholic University with Ying Lianzhi. He spent most of his later years attempting to influence China’s political climate, and he died in 1939 while traveling to Kunming to escape the horrors of the Japanese invasion of his native Shanghai. He died an “old patriot” of his native homeland, and left a legacy of some of China’s most elite universities. His spiritual writings and example of Catholic patriotism remain a strong witness to the particular traits of the Chinese Church. In 1932, Ma Xiangbo wrote an impassioned essay, titled “Using Scholarship to Spread Religion,” wherein he called China’s Church to spread the teachings of the Catholic faith through a modern and rigorous education.82 Ma’s plea to his fellow Chinese Catholics was simple: “Whatever scholarship or ability Chinese members have, they must use it to undertake the work of evangelism.”83

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Princess Yu Deling

Among the most colorful characters of Chinese history was Yu Deling (Der Ling, 1885–1944), a court lady during the late Qing dynasty. Yu Deling served as the Empress Dowager Cixi’s first lady in waiting in the Forbidden City, married an American, Thaddeus White (1878–1953), and finally moved to the United States, where she taught Chinese at the University of California, Berkeley. Yu’s legacy revolves around the eight books she wrote about the inner-workings of Beijing’s Forbidden City during the era of Emperor Guang Xu (1871–1908) and the “Old Buddha,” the Empress Dowager Cixi, who was hated by foreigners for her support of the Boxers during the Boxer Uprising. Her most famous book, Two Years in the Forbidden City, is among the best accounts of the vanished world of China’s imperial court, replete with descriptions of extravagant meals, elaborate silk gowns, and eunuchs who were often flogged for displeasing members of the ruling family. Yu Deling was highly trusted by the Empress Dowager, and thus she witnessed and heard about events few had access to, though her later writing suffers from occasional embellishment that calls some of her assertions into question. Scholars know much more about Yu’s non-Christian life, such as her studies in Paris with the eccentric American dancer, Isadora Duncan (1877–1927), and her friendship with Ci Xi, than they do about her personal faith as a Catholic. She was baptized by no less than China’s most powerful prelate, the bushy-bearded and large-girthed Frenchman, Alphonse Favier.84 While a young girl, Yu travelled with her father to Rome, where her family was greeted in a private audience with Pope Leo XIII; she recalls that when she knelt to receive his blessing, the pontiff “patted my head and told me I would be a great woman.”85 Yu had to conceal her Christian faith while serving the Empress Dowager in the Forbidden City, but she was perhaps closer to China’s center of power than any other Catholic in the history of imperial China. 4.13.3

Ying Lianzhi

Other than Ma Xiangbo, the most famous Catholic reformer in China during the transition from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries was the layman Ying Lianzhi, founder of the popular newspaper, Dagongbao (L’Impartial ). Ying was the son of a Manchu bannerman, and thus a member of the imperial military system devised by China’s ruling

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Manchus. He was, as D. E. Mungello writes, “athletic and studious. He lifted weights, was a good swordsman, and could shoot an arrow accurately from horseback.”86 Ying Lianzhi was not only interested in martial arts; he also immersed himself in the Chinese classics and writings on religion, such as books on Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, and Christianity. When his fiancée grew severely ill and Chinese physicians could not cure her, Ying took her to a hospital run by the Sisters of Charity. At the hospital, he encountered Western medicine (his fiancée was cured) and the selfless dedication of the sisters. He converted to Christianity. After his baptism in 1895 at Beijing’s famous West Church, his entire family followed him into the Church. He moved to Tianjin and founded his newspaper there in 1902. Ying’s new periodical was a pioneering venue for social and political reforms in the turbulence that precipitated the collapse of Qing rule, passionately criticizing the imperial court’s resistance to change and such dehumanizing cultural practices as subjecting young girls to the agony of footbinding. After the 1911 Revolution that brought an end to the Qing dynasty, Ying turned his attention to increasing the influence of Catholic education in China. In 1917, Ying wrote an essay that exposed the cultural chauvinism of the French missionaries in China at that time; he criticized them for obstructing the growth of Chinese bishops and flouting the Chinese priests who clamored for reform.87 His essay was translated into French and sent to Rome, where it influenced the decision of the pope to push for greater indigenization of the clergy and hierarchy in China. Ying’s essay also argued in favor of opening more Catholic schools in China, beginning with, as Ernest Young puts it, the assertion that education is “not a substitute for the virtues necessary for salvation,” but that “the church has gloried in its learned saints, … and the neglect of education and the mistrust of learning do not serve the church well.”88 Largely responding to this essay, Pope Benedict XV supported the opening of Fu Jen University in the center of Beijing. 4.13.4

Abbot Lu Zhengxiang

It is not hyperbole to identify the Chinese diplomat Lu Zhengxiang as the most influential Chinese Christian to have lived during the Republican Era. Not only was he appointed the premier and prime minister of foreign affairs, he was also the diplomat who led the Chinese delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where his resistance to

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foreign bullying made him an instant hero among the people of China. Article 156 of the Treaty of Versailles transferred German colonial territory in Shandong to Japan without consulting China or recognizing China’s sovereignty as an independent government. When addressing the assembled world delegates, Lu chastised them for, “giving (no) due regard to the consideration of right, justice and the national security of China.”89 The Western powers did not support Lu’s request to deny the transfer of Chinese land to Japan, and so he refused to provide his signature, making China the only country that did not sign the Treaty of Versailles. Earlier, while serving at St. Petersburg, Russia, he met and married a Belgian Roman Catholic woman named Berthe Bovy (1855– 1926), whose abiding commitment to the Catholic faith inspired Lu’s conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism in 1912. The same priest who had witnessed their marriage in 1899 received him into the Church in 1912. In his personal memoir, he wrote about his conversion: “The last division between her and me had disappeared.”90 He received first Holy Communion and was confirmed by the Catholic archbishop of St. Petersburg. After his wife’s early death, Lu Zhengxiang retired from political service and became a postulant at the Benedictine abbey of Sint-Andries in Bruges, Belgium. He was ordained a priest in 1935, and in 1946 Pope Pius XII appointed him the titular abbot of the Abbey of St. Peter in Ghent (Fig. 4.7). China’s Catholics know him best for his writings as a Benedictine monk, especially for his stirring autobiography, Souvenirs et Pensées, first published in 1945 while China was straining under the burden of a ruthless Japanese occupation and a civil war between nationalists and communists. This intimate memoir outlines his long political career and his transition to the religious life and priesthood. What makes his writing particularly appealing to Chinese Christians is his insistence that Christianity is a fulfillment of Confucianism and, furthermore, that Benedictine monasticism could be the fulfillment of Buddhist monasticism in China. After acknowledging the successful implantation of Buddhism in China through monasticism, he suggests that it could be Catholic monks who finally infuse into China the teaching and influence of the Catholic faith. In his memoir, Lu Zhengxiang recalls some advice given to him by another Chinese statesman: “Europe’s strength is found not in her armaments, nor in her knowledge — it is found in her religion. … Observe the Christian faith. When you have grasped its heart and its strength, take them and give them to China.”91 Lu’s loudest exclamation

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Fig. 4.7 Abbot Lu Zhengxiang (wearing a dragon-covered chasuble), titular abbot of St. Peter Abbey in Ghent, Sint-Andries in Bruges, Belgium, 1946 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

to the people of China has been that despite the hackneyed refrain that “Christianity and Chinese culture do not mix well,” exactly the opposite is true. For Abbot Lu, Christianity is the most effective way to complete the insights of Chinese philosophy and bring harmony to his native China. 4.13.5

Bishop Fan Xueyan

China’s most admired modern bishop is Fan Xueyan, an “underground” prelate who defied the state and, according to the Chinese faithful, helped preserve Christianity during an era when many thought the Church had vanished. Pope Pius XII appointed Fan the bishop of Baoding (Hebei Province) in 1951, while anti-Catholic campaigns were at a fevered pitch. When the CCPA was established by the communist party in 1957, Bishop Fan asserted his loyalty to the pope and refused to join, after which he was arrested and sent to a labor camp.92 He remained there until 1979, when he was released to return to Baoding. Some Catholics expected

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him to be more conciliatory with the Beijing government, but instead he remained persistently opposed to communist rule and was arrested again in 1984 and condemned to another ten years of imprisonment. In November of 1987, he was again released on parole, and in 1988 he wrote a pastoral letter denouncing Catholics in China who attended Mass at churches sanctioned by the Patriotic Association. He also consecrated additional bishops, and according to Father Jean Charbonnier, because “he was charged with unofficially consecrating bishops for the underground Church, he was committed to strict surveillance in Baoding and died of ill treatment on 13 April 1992.”93 The circumstances of his death are alarming, and China’s Catholic community is still troubled by how he was treated by the state authorities. On 16 April 1992, local police delivered his body in a plastic bag to his relatives’ home, claiming that he had died of pneumonia, though his family reported that his body showed signs of physical abuse. Officials ordered that he be given a small private funeral, but in defiance more that 40,000 people attended the Requiem Mass and China’s bishops and priests offered novenas for Bishop Fan, who they insist was a martyr for the Christian faith. Online photographs of the funeral are easy to find, and Chinese Catholics are fond of recounting that on 3 June 1976, Pope Paul VI (1897–1978) sent a letter and blessing to Fan Xueyan on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his consecration: “Your Excellency is a loyal son,” the letter exclaimed, “and a worthy example to the flock of a most lovely part of the Universal Church, a good leader and pastor.” When still a priest, Fan Xueyan is reported to have said, “Obedience [to the pope] is the vocation of priests.”94 Chinese Catholics, both in the sanctioned and unsanctioned communities, proclaim Bishop Fan as an example of both obedience to Rome, as well as dedication to his pastoral duties as a bishop. 4.13.6

The Survival of China’s Catholic Church

When Father Zhu Shude decided to travel to Shanghai rather than remain in the safety of Hong Kong, he returned “to let the communist party know that the Catholic faith is still alive.” In large part, the Chinese Catholics I have discussed here have contributed to keeping their faith alive in China, a faith that has been often challenged by authorities who insist that Christianity is incompatible with Chinese culture and Maoist ideals. When I met with the now-deceased “underground” bishop of

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Guiyang, Hu Daguo, nearly a decade ago, he told me that he was grateful to God for allowing him to suffer under persecution for his religious faith. It was precisely that suffering, he insisted, that taught him to rely on God’s support. Anguish, Chinese Catholics insist, has become one of the marks of being a Catholic in China, but so has consolation.

4.14 Essay 4.14 This Is Not a Movie Theater! A View from the Pews in China (January 2018) I have always preferred attending Masses for local Chinese Catholics while I am in China rather than those that are celebrated in hotels and only allow those with non-Chinese passports to attend; this is where China’s Catholic faith is experienced most authentically. In order to better survey the Catholic landscape in China I visited four churches—one in a remote area of Shanxi province and three in China’s bustling capital, Beijing. Catholic life in China looks pretty much the same a decade after the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, but I would say the fervor in the pews is more vibrant than I have witnessed in a long time. Pews are more crowded than in the past, parish tables are stocked with more “Why you should be a Catholic” brochures than I have ever seen, and crowds of welcoming personnel suggest that China’s Church is on a mission to insert a stronger Christian presence into what has become an overpoweringly secularized and materialistic society. After Mass at Beijing’s famous St. Joseph’s church, in the center of the hurried Wangfujing shopping district, the priest leaned into the microphone and asserted: “God gives us many opportunities in life; none is more important and special than Holy Mass. Remember, faithful, this is not a movie theater—this is a church! You are in a holy place, so behave like holy people!” And clearly directed toward the swarms of young Chinese millennials in the pews, the aisles are occupied with banners bearing such messages as, “In ancient times, God spoke to His people many times and in many ways, but never by cell phone. Please turn off your phone when entering the church.” During Communion, the celebrating priest took great care to assure that everyone who approached him was a Catholic and understood the implication and responsibility of receiving Communion. Apathy is hard to find at China’s Catholic altars and in China’s pews; being Catholic in the Middle Kingdom is, as the growing number of young Catholics assert, serious business.

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After the final blessing, I chatted with a few Catholic women who were purchasing an image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to place in their homes for their daily family devotions. One woman looked at me and said, “We Chinese admire you Americans; you have more freedom to be Christian there! You Americans love God, so we love you.” Noticing the amount of Chinese faithful around me buying religious objects for their homes, I could not help be respond to her, “No, it is I who admire you!” 4.14.1

Anjia Street Catholic Church, Pingyao

While accompanying fourteen American students to the small, remote ancient town of Pingyao, in Shanxi province, I visited the historic Anjia Street Catholic church, which rests in a mostly non-Catholic area and clearly survives with very little funding. There are small Catholic churches like this all over China, and they represent how the majority of China’s Catholics live their faith. Entering the small church, one is greeted with a large photograph of the pope, and below the photo is an exhortation to “Study the bible and transmit the Gospel.” And posted beside the church entrance is a sheet of paper asking, “What kind of Catholic are you?” with such questions as, “Do you take the faith with you when you leave the church?” and “Does my faith truly change how I treat people?” And, finally, like so many Chinese Catholic churches, there is a massive barrel of Holy Water near the altar where faithful collect blessed water for their homes. 4.14.2

Holy Savior North Church, Beijing

Among the highlights of this visit to China—during the north’s coldest month—has been a private tour of Beijing’s North Church, organized by Father Simon Zhu, the kind and enthusiastic vicar for external affairs for the Archdiocese of Beijing. Over the past several years, the Chinese authorities and local Catholics have funded the complete restoration and renovation of what will soon be Beijing’s cathedral again after nearly a century. Father Simon and Father Matthew, North Church’s pastor, walked me through the ambitious construction project, which has already cost more that twenty-five million RMB, and is scheduled for completion during the summer of 2018. Originally built in 1887 by the French bishop and architect, Alphonse Favier, North Church has suffered from several misfortunes. The façade

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was terribly damaged by Boxers in 1900, it was attacked with sledgehammers by Red Guards in 1966, and from 1966 until the early 1980s the monumental Gothic church was closed to worship and used as a kitchen. Finally, enormous funds are being spent to restore and improve the church’s façade, stained glass windows, and interior. Some who think that the Chinese martyr saints canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000 are offlimits in modern China will be surprised to learn that many of the newly installed stained glass windows in North Church feature those saints in lively colors. And, two stained glass windows dedicated to Pope John XXIII (1881–1963) and Pope John Paul II now reside in the cathedral’s restored sacristy. 4.14.3

St. Michael’s, Beijing

Walking through the old foreign legation area in Beijing, one eventually arrives at the Gothic French church named after St. Michael the Archangel. St. Michael’s is a little-known church nestled among old Western-style buildings near the Forbidden City in what was formerly the French Concession. It is a small church that functions as the spiritual home to a large Chinese Catholic community and a smaller group of Korean Catholics who live in the city. Small white boards on the church columns broadcast short aphorisms about how to be a good Christian, such as “Lord, instruct in Your ways.” As I passed the front door of this old French church, the huizhang, “church elder,” welcomed me with the kind greeting, “You can always come here to our church.” Behind the church rests the rectory, where the priests live in a humble residence cushioned from the outside world by tall walls and a courtyard filled with trees and singing winter birds. St. Michael’s represents well China’s Catholic response to modernity—churches preserve solitude within the chaos of the world around them, providing a sanctuary wherein the voice of the divine is more easily apprehended. 4.14.4

St. Joseph’s Church, Beijing

St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Beijing’s most chic shopping area stands as a strong counter-narrative to the standard Western quip that Christianity is merely a persecuted and oppressed religion in contemporary China. This historic church is not only a state-protected monument in what could be another high-rise shopping mall; it is a celebrated

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emblem of religious practice just a few blocks from the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square. Certainly, religion has suffered at points of Chinese history and still has its challenges, but Catholics attending Mass at St. Joseph’s do not talk of “state oppression” or even “state support.” They are too busy praying, buying rosaries and images of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart, and promoting their faith on tables by the roadside after Mass, to talk of such things. Just an hour before writing these concluding lines I shared coffee with a Chinese Christian who was baptized just two-and-a-half years ago. I asked him, “Do find your freedom impeded here by state policies?” And he very quickly answered, “No. Anyone is free to believe and practice Christianity here. A few incidents may arise now and again, but what we really face here as a great challenge to Christianity is materialism. Everyone wants nothing more than to make money, but they don’t know that you can’t take that with you when you die.” “Chinese people know at some level that there is a God,” he insisted, “but modern culture makes it difficult to accept that.” It is not difficult to find news reports that emphasize the struggles of being a Catholic in China, but the view from the pews is often less histrionic. China’s Catholics are praying their rosaries, raising their children, and attending Mass. Pews and malls are growing more crowded, and it is easy to see that more smiles occupy the pews … and fewer cell phones.

4.15 Essay 4.15 China’s Catholics: Context and the Current Situation (March 2018) Chinese Catholics—“above” and “underground”—view themselves as part of “one suffering Catholic Church.” Will the Vatican’s present negotiations with China help or hinder those struggling to practice their faith under China’s current authorities? Not since the Boxer Uprising in 1900 has world media given as much attention to Christians in China as it has in recent weeks. One can barely keep up with the deluge of reports and articles, not to mention numerous works of punditry and commentary attempting to explain the Vatican’s recent negotiations with China’s government. It brings to mind a warning from Marshall McLuhan (1911– 1980), who once wrote: “All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.”95 That is to say that media accounts, however necessary, are not always reliable sources of information, especially when they are laden with rumors and speculation. Only those who

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are in the private meetings in Rome with Pope Francis and his advisors are entirely privy to what, precisely, is being discussed between the Holy See and Beijing’s political leaders. But what is certain is that negotiations are indeed underway, and that leaders of the Catholic Church are negotiating with a government that is communist and a state that has openly professed its aim to eradicate religious faith, having time and again employed both “soft” and “hard” techniques for attaining that aim. Anyone who presumes that China’s party cadres have changed their attitudes and behaviors toward Christianity should pay closer attention to what has transpired over the past several months. Now is an appropriate time to review the historical contours of the Church in China, and to provide some remarks on the present SinoVatican negotiations between Beijing and the Holy See. I shall preface my comments with a disclaimer: I have spent many years of my life living in China, and I deeply admire the culture, history, and people I have encountered there. That said, I have sat on church doorsteps in Beijing and many other places listening to story after story of how much suffering China’s political authorities have sometimes inflicted upon China’s Christian faithful. I once sat in a small room, which was probably wired by the state authorities, while an elderly bishop whispered in my ear accounts of Catholic hardships suffered under state policies, both during the Maoist era and in recent decades. I have written in an earlier essay about how communist soldiers under the command of General Zhu De, seized a Trappist monastery in 1947 near Beijing, at an area called Yangjiaping. What I did not mention in that essay was that some of the military leaders who took the monks on a death march, leading to the deaths of thirtythree monks, stood near Chairman Mao at the gate of Tiananmen when he founded the People’s Republic of China only two years later. Having taught Chinese history—especially the history of Christianity in China—for two decades, it has become evident to me that a simple timeline of China’s Catholic history can be helpful for readers seeking to understand the issues that continue to define China’s Church. 4.15.1

The Catholic Church in China: The Numbers

It is impossible to assess exactly how many Catholics there are in China since there remains a very large number of unregistered “underground” faithful; scholars estimate that unregistered Chinese Catholics account

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for one-third to two-thirds of the total population of Catholics actively attending Mass in the People’s Republic of China. According to the Holy Spirit Study Center in Hong Kong, there are approximately ten million Catholics in China, which includes both registered and unregistered faithful.96 In informal scholarly meetings, however, estimates range from ten to thirty million Catholics in China. Perhaps the most contentious issue today regarding the Church in China is the situation of its bishops; this is so because the state authorities have insisted that all priests eligible to be ordained bishops be selected by the party-controlled CCPA, rather than the pope. In China today there are around seven bishops who are not in communion with the pope, and are recognized only by the CCPA. There are around sixty bishops who are both in full communion with the pope and are also recognized by the CCPA. And finally, there are around thirty bishops who are recognized only by the Holy See, and operate as “underground” prelates under constant risk of punishment and arrest. I intentionally use the word “around” when providing these numbers, because precise accounts are difficult to discern due to the somewhat chaotic administrative structure of the Church in China. There were many bishops who were clandestinely consecrated during the Maoist era, for example, and the Holy See was unable at that time to identify how many bishops actually existed in China, though their secret ordinations were considered both valid and licit since they were conducted under a state of ecclesial emergency. What this means is that the Vatican must rely on Chinese state numbers, which are unreliable, and “underground” numbers, which are dangerous to circulate, in order to assess the demographic landscape of the Chinese Church. 4.15.2

The “Aboveground” and “Underground” Churches

The most common question I receive about the Catholic community in China is, “Aren’t there two communities in China: a ‘true Church’ that exists underground and a ‘false church’ that is run by the communist party?” This assumption has been disseminated for several decades, and it has served more to confuse than clarify the reality of one, but somewhat divided, Catholic Church in China. There is no such thing as a “staterun Catholic Church” in China, but rather there is a state-monitored association, the CCPA, that was established to oversee how Catholics worship and structure the local hierarchy. The tension in China, if there

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is much tension at all nowadays, between the so-called “underground” and “aboveground” Catholic communities has not been about whether one community is more or less “Catholic” than the other, but rather around the question of “surrendering” to state influence over the dayto-day operations of Catholic life—especially regarding the issue of how bishops are selected and ordained and assigned to their dioceses. Chinese Catholics view themselves as part of “one Church” that is still working out how its two communities can come to an agreement about how to best practice the Catholic faith under a communist government. Few outside of China know that priests and bishops in many—perhaps most—Roman Catholic dioceses in China collaborate in the administration and evangelization of their regions. One example will serve to illustrate how this operates. In the diocese of Guiyang, the staterecognized ordinary of the diocese was Andrew Wang Chongyi, who died last year as the administrator of the diocese at the age of ninetyseven. The unregistered, “underground” bishop during Wang’s service was Bishop Augustine Hu Daguo. When I met these two bishops—one “aboveground” and the other “underground”—I merely had to cross the hall at the bishops’ residence; both men lived in the same building and served their respective communities in a spirit of fraternal collaboration. In addition, it is common that the CCPA offices attached to diocesan chanceries or cathedrals are a diversion and are not used for any official Catholic business. CCPA offices are often identified with exterior signs, but those entering the front door discover that the interior space is merely a storage area. That is, the CCPA is in many places little more than a sign, and is essentially ignored by the bishop and his clergy. Even the CCPA office at the cathedral in Kunming, administered by the excommunicated bishop Joseph Ma Yinglin, is nothing more than a sign with an empty room inside. Again, it is important to know that the “line” between the sanctioned and unsanctioned Catholic communities is often nonexistent, and that even the state-run CCPA is often no more than a façade at the officially sanctioned cathedrals of Roman Catholic dioceses. 4.15.3

China’s Church Under Pope Francis

After Pope Francis’ election in 2013, China’s Catholics wondered if the situation for them might edge closer to normalization. A Sino-Vatican rapprochement seemed closer than ever in 2014, when the Chinese government allowed Pope Francis to fly over Chinese airspace. Yet when

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Pope Francis invited China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to visit Rome, Xi refused the invitation. The pope’s continued attempts at reconciliation with China’s government have been met, for the most part, with sardonic appreciation. Xi Jinping’s policy vis-à-vis religion has been consistent and effective. During his address to the Central Conference on United Front Work in May 2015, Xi proposed the “sinicization of all religion” in China. He argued that the party should tighten its control over religion, which he suggests is “a dangerous political threat to party legitimacy.” China’s Catholics are now observing what “sinicization”—that is, conforming to Chinese characteristics—looks like for churches. A recent article published by UCAnews on March 1, featured images of cranes removing the Christian symbols from a Catholic church in Xinjiang province. Local party officials ordered workers to remove and destroy the crosses and bell towers of the church because these symbols were “incompatible with sinicization.”97 Pope Francis’ current maneuverings in China appear to align with the Church’s previous success at attaining ecclesial independence in Vietnam under its communist government, but China is much larger than Vietnam, and Xi Jinping has a more resolved anti-religious view than the recent officials in Vietnam. To be fair, Pope Francis esteems China, and certainly hopes that his strategies will improve matters for Chinese Catholics. In a 2016 interview with Francesco Sisci, he stated: For me, China has always been a reference point of greatness. A great country. But more than a great country, a great culture, with inexhaustible wisdom. For me, as a boy, whenever I read anything about China, it had the capacity to inspire my admiration.98

No one can doubt the sincerity of his sentiments toward this great culture, but one wonders, as does Cardinal Joseph Zen, if the Holy See’s present negotiations in China might somewhat naïve and, perhaps, might engender confusion rather than clarity and reconciliation. The Holy See has entered into an intricate situation in China by ordering two unsanctioned bishops to render their obedience to two bishops who are not in formal communion with the pope, and who are in fact excommunicated. Unless these bishops were indeed accepted into communion with the Holy See in secret beforehand, the Holy See has contradicted the stipulations set out by Pope Benedict XVI in his letter to the Chinese Church in 2007. In his letter, Benedict XVI insisted that:

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Concerning bishops whose consecrations took place without the pontifical mandate yet respecting the Catholic rite of episcopal ordination, the resulting problems must always be resolved in the light of the principles of Catholic doctrine. Their ordination—as I have already said—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.99

In other words, directing Bishops Peter Zhuang Jianjian and Joseph Guo Xijin to step down in obedience to two excommunicated bishops, as the Holy See has done, is to require Chinese Catholics to receive the sacraments from illicit prelates when licit ones are already serving the Catholic communities in their dioceses. This has caused considerable bewilderment among the Chinese faithful, especially those who worship in the unregistered community. Many perceive what appears to be the Holy See’s betrayal of China’s “underground” Catholics. I recently spoke with a bishop I deeply admire about the Vatican’s current negotiations in China, and he noted, “The Holy See must consider long-term realities—perhaps it knows what it is doing.” Perhaps. The scholarly community that both studies China’s past and observes its present cannot help but see two distinct contours of the Vatican’s recent entente with Beijing; there have always been negotiations between China’s post-1949 government and the Holy See, but there has yet been a suitable agreement. The “long-term realities” are precisely what worries China’s Catholics who await the results of these negotiations, and they tend to, as I have heard some say, “temper their pessimism with prayer.”

4.16 Essay 4.16 Cardinal Joseph Zen and China’s Catholic Condition (March 2018) Over the past several days Cardinal Zen and I have corresponded about pressing issues related to the current Sino-Vatican negotiations that are underway. I first met Zen several years ago at his modest residence with the Salesians in Hong Kong, where we spent more than an hour discussing the state of China’s Church. Since then, Catholics in China

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have encountered new pressures from state authorities. Their situation has become even more unpredictable, as the Holy See appears to be redirecting its strategy in China in directions that have left much of China’s Church confused and wondering if Rome is about to strike a deal with a government that has proven itself hostile to religious belief. Time and again, Cardinal Zen argues, China’s government has employed dishonesty and manipulation to attain its ends. The communist intellectual Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) once wrote, “Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures.”100 In light of the apparently quickly shifting sands of Sino-Vatican negotiations, His Eminence Cardinal Zen has offered some candid remarks about the present status of China’s Church. Cardinal Zen, in other recent interviews, has suggested that Pope Francis is not well-informed regarding the actual circumstances of the Church in China. And so, I asked him directly: “Do you think that your recent visit with Pope Francis and the letter you gave him has influenced the current negotiations between the Holy See and Beijing?” Cardinal Zen appeared pessimistic that his message to the pope has actually been considered; he noted, “It is understandable—Pope Francis does not have very wide and strong experience with communist regimes, and all the time I am trying desperately to give him some insight.” What is concerning most Catholics—both inside and outside of China—is how the unregistered Chinese faithful are interpreting such recent developments as unregistered (“underground”) bishops being asked by the Holy See to step down and guarantee their obedience to state-supported, and excommunicated, bishops, in order to appease China’s authorities. When asked if the “underground” Catholic community in China feels betrayed by the Vatican’s overtures to Beijing, Cardinal Zen answered simply, “Definitely.” I told His Eminence that I recently returned from a month living in Beijing, and that I had gathered from discussions with registered clergy that the CCPA is interested in an agreement with the Holy See in order to facilitate a papal visit to China. To this, he remarked, “Obviously, the people in the Patriotic Association feel happy that their illegitimate position shall be legitimized, and they surely would also welcome a possible visit by the pope. But the visit will be manipulated by the Government and it will cause much sadness in the people of the underground community, who will not be able to see the pope (just as what happened in Cuba).” In Zen’s view the current Holy See has adopted an adverse

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approach to dealing with China’s authorities, I asked if the current Vatican Ostpolitik with China is undermining the work done previously by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. More to the point, I asked if the current pontificate is contradicting the aims expressed in Benedict XVI’s 2007 letter to the Chinese Church. “Even under Pope Benedict XVI the Roman Curia wasted his many efforts to help the Church in China,” replied Cardinal Zen. “The difference is in that while Pope Benedict XVI knew very well the situation, the people in the Vatican did not follow his directives, and now while Pope Francis does not know much about the Chinese communists and is so optimistic, the people around him are pushing him further in his optimism, and avoiding informing him about the very negative side of the present reality.” American Catholics have recently seen photographs of party officials destroying the crosses and bell towers of a Xinjiang church. I asked: Does it appear to you that the previous sacrifices of China’s faithful Catholics and their current struggles are being adequately acknowledged by the Holy See? “Tearing down the crosses and demolishing churches are only the more visible episodes,” he insisted, “the continuous harassments and humiliations [endured by China’s Catholics] would take volumes to be narrated.” In the end, one discerns that Cardinal Zen is calling for a more informed, measured, and cautious approach by Pope Francis and his advisors in the Roman Curia. Much is at stake for those in both communities of the Chinese Church. For the registered community, a Sino-Vatican agreement could mean a sense of legitimacy and Vatican endorsement, while for the unregistered community such an agreement could potentially mean estrangement, fear, and more conflicts. The Russian Orthodox author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), who understood communism well, once wrote: “The communist regime in the East could stand and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who felt a kinship and refused to see communism’s crimes. When they no longer could do so, they tried to justify them.”101 Cardinal Zen has spent much of his life as a priest and bishop in mainland China and Hong Kong witnessing and hearing about the continued challenges faced by the Chinese Church since 1949, and it is clear that he is expressing his views with such adamancy today because he is attempting to insert a voice of warning into a dialogue that appears to have forgotten what communism had done, and is doing, to the Church in China.

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4.17 Essay 4.17 Retrospective on the 2018 China--Vatican Agreement (November 2019) It has been more than a year since the Sino-Vatican agreement was signed on 22 September 2018, and the situation of China’s Catholics continues to appear in an extraordinary number of news reports. In my long career of researching and publishing works on China’s Catholic history, I have never before received so much attention from the mainstream media and scholarly community than I received during the last year—everyone in the Western world, it seems, has concluded that China’s Catholic community has entered its most concentrated era of transformation. There has been a rather impassioned movement to depict the Vatican as “naïve” regarding the true situation for Catholics in China, or even more pointedly as a “betrayer” of the Chinese Church. Only recently I met a Chinese nun after a talk I delivered at Seton Hall University, and she again confirmed the confusion many Chinese Catholics feel over how the Holy See appears to be negotiating with state authorities that are, as many news sources announce, demolishing Christian churches throughout China. Reports about state discrimination against Chinese Christians have been dramatic. A 2018 New York Times headline, for example, sensationally read, “Chinese Police Dynamite Christian Megachurch,” and included a photograph of a Shanxi church collapsing in clouds of billowing smoke.102 I am not a journalist; I am a professor, and academics by nature are less inclined to indulge what they perceive as the melodramatic and often exaggerated impulses of some media sources. My own impulses are to analyze Sino-Vatican relations from the detached position of a historian with an eye fixed through the lens of the longue durée, which is to view the Vatican’s relationship with China within a larger and more nuanced context than one generally reads in media theatrics. To better understand the past year of China–Vatican relations, one must have a general sense of China–Vatican relations since they began in around 1294. One must thus resist the usual sound bites generated by most media sources and more judiciously analyze how China’s complicated present derives from its long and complicated past. My remarks here, then, shall describe the history of Sino-Vatican relations in what historian Paul Cohen has called, “a history in three keys,” so that we can better contextualize the recent agreement into a sensible framework.103 These “three keys” are: first, the Sino-Vatican relations as represented in the mainstream media; second, the Sino-Vatican relations as represented in official Chinese and Vatican

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documents; and third, the Sino-Vatican relations as they are recorded in archival files that are not openly available to the general public. 4.17.1

First Encounters

Even before the Holy See had begun sending Jesuits to China in the 1500s, it had dispatched Franciscan friars there in 1294 to establish relations with the empire’s ruler, when Paris’ monumental Notre Dame cathedral had just been built.104 Sino-Vatican relations of a sort had thus begun as early as the thirteenth century, picked up again in the sixteenth century, and by 1922 the Vatican was at last trying to establish official diplomatic ties between the Holy See and China’s state authorities. The first Vatican official appointed to operate as an apostolic delegate in China was the Italian bishop and art historian, Celso Costantini, who served in that role from 1922 until 1933.105 His efforts to mediate between the Holy See and China’s government were troubled by French interference due to both France’s diplomatic dominance over the Church in China as the “Protector of the mission,” and the Vatican’s acknowledgment that without France’s protection the Church would be vulnerable to discrimination.106 The Holy See was the weakest link in a tripartite contest for political and religious influence in China’s Catholic community—the Republican government under Chiang Kai-shek sought cultural hegemony over the fragile nation; the French Third Republic (1870–1940) sought diplomatic and economic hegemony over all of the Western powers then in China, and the Holy See sought administrative independence to govern its own missionary enterprise in this three-way competition that resulted in an almost powerless Vatican influence over Catholic affairs in China. When discussing Sino-Vatican relations before 1949, one should note an important person with a connection to the American Church, Dr. John C. H. Wu, who was appointed by Chiang Kai-shek to serve as China’s ambassador to the Vatican from 1947 to 1949 (Fig. 4.8). When most writers discuss the history of Sino-Vatican relations they train their attention on Vatican diplomats who lived in China, such as Archbishop Costantini and his successors, but Wu’s legacy within the history of China’s relations with the Holy See was centered on his service while living in Rome, almost in the shadow of the dome of St. Peter’s. When Wu submitted his diplomatic papers to Pope Pius XII on 16 February 1947, both he and the pope understood well that China was amidst a

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Fig. 4.8 Dr. John C. H. Wu (left) with Bishop Yu Bin (center) at the Vatican as China’s ambassador to the Holy See, 1947 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

furious civil war between the nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek and the communist forces of Mao Zedong. After receiving John Wu’s papers, the pope announced: As the colonnade of the Vatican basilica opens its large arms towards the East, so We now lift our hands towards the Orient and invoke the protection of the Almighty over the rugged and arduous journey of the Chinese

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people from twilight to dawn, which we hope will soon shine forth in a secure internal and external peace.107

Sino-Vatican relations were as tenuous then as they are now, and Wu’s contribution to those relations, while significant and impressive, came at a time when China was amidst overwhelming transitions that relegated Sino-Catholic matters to the distant margins of global attention. To summarize the pre-communist era of Roman Catholic history in China: The Holy See had certainly been aware of, and was involved in, China since the medieval era, but official political ties were unimagined until the early twentieth century. From the 1920s until the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, China–Vatican relations were tentative at best. And, in my estimation there has never been an era of truly settled and operational Sino-Vatican relations. The term “SinoVatican relations” is little more than a common phrase used to describe what has historically amounted to centuries of diplomatic overtures, missteps, conflicts, and occasional and fragile rapprochements. We now turn to the era of Sino-Vatican relations after 1949, looking especially at the “first key”—how this era has been represented in the mainstream media. 4.17.2

“First Key”: The Media

After 1949, Western newspapers, especially in the United States, portrayed communist China as a place of peril for Catholics. A 1955 New York Times headline is typical of China-Catholic reports of that era. “Vatican Sees Peril to Church in China,” the headline read, and the text announced that “In six years the communists have destroyed all schools, churches and other works that Catholicism had built in decades of persistent effort.”108 The article speaks of the “danger” confronted by Catholics still behind what was then called the communist “bamboo curtain.” Immediately after Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949, the New York Times began to run headlines expressing anxieties about China’s treatment of Roman Catholics. An article on 14 October 1949 was entitled, “Chinese Prelate Tells of Red Rise,”109 and on 21 October 1950, another headline declared, “Peiping [Beijing] Executes Two Chinese Priests: Roman Catholics Are Shot on Charges of Espionage,”110 and on 8 August 1954, another article was published with the title, “Freed Priests Cite

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Red China Purges.”111 The tenor of Western news sources from 1949 until the early twenty-first century has decidedly been anti-communist and has engendered an overall Western disdain for China’s post-1949 government. On its side of the Great Wall, China’s news sources were equally antiWestern and were orchestrated to both weaken the Vatican’s authority over the Chinese Catholic Church, as well as encourage a common suspicion of an imagined insidious Vatican control over China’s Catholics and a sense of ecclesial independence from the Holy See. The 1 November 1951 edition of the Shanghai-based China Monthly Review represents the customary narrative disseminated after 1949. An article entitled, “The Patriotic Movement of the Catholics in New China,” asserted that “Foreign missionaries followed the foreign gunboats into our country … [and] imperialism has always used ‘protection of the Church’ as an excuse for attacking and encroaching upon China.”112 The article continues to inform its readers that “the Communist Party of China has led the people’s liberation” from such devious forces as a “Catholic spy ring” that works for China’s national enemies, and the Legion of Mary, which, according to the article, resisted China’s reforms that had, “released millions of peasants from bondage.”113 In other words, China’s Catholics who remained loyal to the Holy See after 1949 were accused of being spies, saboteurs, and obstacles to improving the lives of China’s vast peasant population. During the Maoist era, the only manifestations of Sino-Vatican relations represented in the mainstream media were those of villainization, fear, and melodramatic news spectacles intended less to provide nuanced and accurate accounts of China’s Catholic condition than to stir public sentiment into a consciousness of Sino-Western and Sino-Vatican enmity. The “first key” of history of Sino-Vatican relations, then, was one of media theatrics crafted to provoke antagonism. 4.17.3

“Second Key”: The Documents

The “second key” in the history of Sino-Vatican relations moves us away from the popular media and into the domain of official documents published by China’s post-1949 authorities and those that have been published by the Holy See. For its part, China’s communist party has produced several documents regarding its policies regulating religion, most of which remain guarded from public scrutiny. Roman Catholicism in China has traditionally been monitored by three state agencies—the

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RAB, the United Front Work Department (UFWD), and the PSB. It is important to understand this structure because from China’s side of the relationship, these three agencies, especially the RAB, have functioned to produce the consistent voice of the party when communicating with the Vatican. The RAB was changed into the SARA in the 1990s, and in order to better control religious activities in China, the party dissolved the SARA in 2018 and absorbed all matters of governing and monitoring religious activities into the party-controlled UFWD. So, to make this clearer, what was once a bureau somewhat independent of the party before 2018 is now entirely governed by the Chinese Communist Party. China’s Catholic leaders now have far less room to navigate, and state policies have grown more precise since the SARA was abolished. Within this historical context of state regulation, a stream of party documents has been produced to articulate its aims regarding China’s Catholic Church. Among the most influential documents generated was a statement entitled, “The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question during Our Country’s Socialist Period,” disseminated by the Central Committee of the Communist party of China on 31 March 1982. Three positions regarding the Roman Catholic Church are outlined in this official document: first, that all religions are part of a “historical phenomenon … [subject to an inevitable] cycle of emergence, development, and demise”; second, that Roman Catholicism in China is historically connected to “foreign colonialist and imperialist forces”; and third, that while China’s authorities should “safeguard the freedom of religious belief,” the party must patiently work toward a time when “the Chinese people, on Chinese soil, will have thoroughly rid themselves of all impoverishment, ignorance, and spiritual values. … and no longer have any need for recourse to an illusory world of gods to seek spiritual solace.”114 Beyond the party’s Marxist view of religion and how those views inform its policies regarding Christianity in general, two areas of disagreement between China’s government and the Holy See have persisted as the most igneous points of tension—China’s self-consecration of bishops and the state’s policy that the Chinese Catholic Church remain independent of any authority beyond the Great Wall. Starting in 1958, China’s government implemented a policy of self-selection and consecration of Chinese bishops without the prior approval or mandate of the Holy See, and one report disclosed that when a new bishop is consecrated in China he is required to “swear to break off all relations with imperialism and any

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control by the pope of Rome” (Fig. 4.9).115 Such a pledge contradicts the canonical expectation that anyone being consecrated a bishop in the Catholic Church, “take an oath of fidelity to the Apostolic See.”116 And in addition to this oath requirement, the CCPA national convention held in Beijing in 1983 published a resolution that affirms: The Chinese Church is rooted in Chinese soil and among Chinese people. Therefore, its existence and development should conform to China’s actual

Fig. 4.9 The first consecration of bishops in China without papal approval in the Wuhan cathedral, 1956 (Source Whitworth University Library Collection)

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conditions. … To run our Church independently will remain an unchangeable foothold, in the future as in the past. … Any encroachment on the sovereignty of the Chinese Church by the Roman Catholic Church is illegal and invalid.117

The wording in this document not only conveys the official state requirement that China’s Catholic Church maintains its independence from outside governance, but noticeably suggests a separation of the “Chinese Church” and “Roman Catholic Church,” a conspicuously un-Catholic ecclesiology. For its part, the Holy See has routinely issued China-related documents of its own in the wake of the 1949 establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Pius XII published a wave of agitated responses to China’s religious policies affecting Chinese Catholics, perhaps because it was during his pontificate that many of the most intense years of SinoVatican disagreement plagued dialogue between those near the Yellow River and those beside the Tiber. Four major themes are woven through the Holy See’s documents responding to China during the reign of Pope Pius XII, and these themes have remained embedded in the overall character of Vatican discussions with the People’s Republic of China. These themes include: 1. A rhetoric defining China’s Church as a “suffering Church” under its communist government. 2. An insistence that China’s Catholics are indeed patriotic. 3. A reminder that union with the pope is necessary to be authentically Catholic. 4. An adamant critique of the state-mandated establishment of the CCPA and its ideal of “three-selfs,” along with the practice of self-elected and consecrated Chinese bishops. These themes surfaced in Pius XII’s 1952 apostolic letter, Cupimus Imprimis, wherein he lamented what he perceived as a “holocaust … [of] sorrows and … sufferings” afflicting the Church in China since it had become a communist nation.118 The pope emphasized how the post1949 era continues a pattern of martyrdom and persecution. In rather dramatic prose, he wrote that “down the ages, your Church had to undergo the fiercest persecutions; the soil of your country has already been empurpled by the sacred blood of martyrs.”119

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In addition to this first theme of suffering, Pius XII insisted in Ad Sinarum Gentem, issued in 1954, that Chinese Catholics are “second to no one in their ardent love and ready loyalty to their most noble fatherland.”120 In this document, the Holy See attempted to refute the accusation that due to their connection to the pope in Rome, Chinese Catholics are disloyal to their native country and are thus bad citizens. This same encyclical also insists that China’s Church must be in union with the bishop of Rome to remain part of the Catholic communion. He warned that: [The] Church in your nation, as in all others will not be able to be ruled with ‘autonomy of government,’ as they say today. … In fact, even then, as you well know it will be entirely necessary for your Christian community, if it wishes to be part of the society divinely founded by our Redeemer, to be completely subject to the Supreme Pontiff.121

This 1954 papal encyclical was largely motivated by documents and news coming from China, for the pope also cautions that the so-called “threeselfs” ideal—self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation—being promoted in China at that time would result in a “national” church, “which would no longer be Catholic because it would be the negation of universality” that marks the fundamental nature of the Roman Catholic Church.122 In yet another encyclical, Ad Apostolorum Principis, Pope Pius XII in 1958 responded to the situation in China by reasserting his criticisms of the Three-Self Movement, and also condemned the establishment of the CCPA, which he maintained, “aims primarily at making Catholics gradually embrace the tenets of atheistic materialism, by which God himself is denied and religious principles are rejected.”123 While subsequent popes considerably softened the tenor of their writings related to the Church in China, these four themes remained the principal framework of their remarks. To summarize this “second key” to the history of Sino-Vatican relations: the official documents circulated by both the Chinese government and the Vatican begin from two very disparate staring points, one from the assumptions of a Marxist ideology and another from the assumptions of a systematic religious tradition. These two conflicting worldviews represent a stark dialectic between a purely materialistic ontology and one motivated by metaphysical assumptions; it is no wonder that the history of Sino-Vatican relations after 1949 is one of enduring tension.

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4.17.4

“Third Key”: The Archives

The third and final historical “key” in the score of Sino-Vatican relations is expressed in the documents held within official Chinese and Vatican archives, both of which are difficult to access given political sensitivities and embargoes. Archival materials disclose a far more complicated pattern than one discerns in both the general media and the official policies and statements issued directly from China’s government and the Holy See. A few significant examples shall serve to illustrate what such sources contain: first, an example of a Vatican document from 1783 dealing with the ownership of Beijing’s monumental Gothic cathedral, and other materials from the early twentieth century that disclose the complexities of Sino-Vatican diplomacy; and also, examples of archived state documents from China that reveal the party’s program for dealing with the Catholic Church. These examples offer a useful lens through which to analyze the Sino-Vatican negotiations that have unfolded during the past year. It may at first seem curious for me to cite a 1783 Vatican document when discussing Sino-Vatican relations today, in the twenty-first century, but this archival document serves well to show how many diplomatic vectors can intersect a political issue that might at first glance seem straightforward. When China’s imperial court provided valuable Beijing property to French Catholic missionaries in 1693, China assumed that while the land was to be used by the European Jesuits, it nonetheless was Chinese soil. The Holy See’s position in this matter was extremely byzantine; for example, the French crown then viewed the property as belonging to France. Three different diplomatic powers viewed the land’s ownership in three different ways: China believed the land to belong to China; France believed the land to belong to France; and the Vatican simply wished to preserve its use for its religious mission without perturbing either China’s court or the crown of France. Then as now, the Vatican’s religious mission was pressed between opposing political powers that could, at a whim, seriously threaten the aims of the Church. The archives of the Holy See reveal a pattern that remains interwoven through the long history of Vatican interactions with China’s ruling authorities. The document dating to 7 December 1783, by Cardinal Leonardo Antonelli (1730–1811) pronounced the Holy See’s final judgment on who owned the property in Beijing: while the huge Gothic cathedral in the shadow of the Forbidden City was to be used by the Church, the king of France was given ostensible control over the church

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property, and the Chinese emperor was left to assume his final ownership of the property.124 My point here is that Vatican archival materials related to its dealings with China show a history of open negotiation with China’s authorities while at the same time being forced to navigate through negotiations with other interested powers with a stake in the same areas occupied by the Church. Vatican archives continue to represent this pattern of internal deliberations regarding the Chinese Church that reveal the challenges often faced by the Vatican when operating within waters already fraught with multiple national players, each with different agendas and policies.125 Diplomacy is a subtle art, and as the famous French diplomat for the Holy See, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand (1754–1838), reportedly asserted, “A diplomat who says ‘yes’ means ‘maybe,’ a diplomat who says ‘maybe’ means ‘no,’ and a diplomat who says ‘no’ is no diplomat.” Archival documents may at times reveal a somewhat shrewd Vatican approach to negotiations with China, but I have yet to discover anything that represents the Holy See as anti-China or anti-Chinese, or in any way conspiratorial. China’s post-1949 archival materials show an adamant anti-foreign and anti-Catholic approach to Sino-Vatican exchange. I shall note two such documents before concluding with some remarks about the 2018 provisional Sino-Vatican agreement and how that agreement fits into the longue durée of exchange between China and the Holy See. These dramatic examples of party documents detail the state’s strategy for dealing with the Roman Catholic Church. The first one was drafted in 1949 to summarize the party’s tactics: “When the political struggle and the forces of production have reached a high rate in the stage of their power, then it will be possible for us to destroy the Catholic Church. This is what we aim to do, and it is for this objective that we struggle.”126 And in a 1953 document from the same archive, the party articulates its conviction that the Roman Catholic Church serves as a venue for clandestine imperialist forces to infiltrate China and control the nation: “Shanghai is going to start to expel the imperialists within the Shanghai Catholic Church. This is an intensive and fierce struggle. We will make a decisive attack on the imperialists hidden within the Catholic Church, … completely cleaning up imperialist influence in China.”127 China’s party authorities had early on defined the Catholic Church as one of its principal opponents, committing itself to protecting its national sovereignty from what it viewed, and still generally views, as an imperialist threat.

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Party documents reveal an evolution of policies; no longer do we see such impassioned anti-Catholic language in archival materials, nor do we see such explicit proposals to “destroy the Catholic Church” as we read in the 1949 brief. We do, however, see a persistent tenor of concern that embedded within Catholic Christianity is an imperialist and cultural threat to Chinese society, and policies are consistently articulated to prevent this perceived danger. Among the strategies employed by state officials to help assure that religious allegiance does not supplant patriotic loyalty is to assert that religions should be made to “adapt” to China’s socialist society. The Chinese term used for “adapt” is shiying, which first appeared in an important document generated by the UFWD in 1990.128 This document represents an important distinction between what Catholic documents suggest about religious practice in a particular society, and how China’s authorities presently understand this question. While Vatican sources suggest that authentic Catholic practice serves to promote patriotism and serves to improve social peace in general, this party document contends that religious practice must conform to socialist ideals before it can be considered an innocuous part of Chinese society. As Chan Kim-kwong puts it, “religion should use its doctrines, practices, and certain positive elements in morality to serve socialism. … In other words, ‘adaptation’ required religious bodies to reform themselves to conform to the mode designed by the civil authority.”129 Former president of the People’s Republic of China, Jiang Zemin, strongly supported this ideal, and approved of strengthening state control of religion so that religious belief adapts to the state’s socialist system. To return to my outline of Sino-Vatican relations within Paul Cohen’s notion of “three keys of history,” it is clear that what we know of China’s relations with the Holy See is represented in very different ways. While the media often provides a rather histrionic, and thus myopic view of Sino-Vatican negotiations, openly disseminated documents issued by the Vatican and China, as well as those more carefully guarded within archival collections, more accurately reveal their respective opinions and policies. In my own reading of these “three keys” of historical information, the Holy See’s attentions are typically centered on its religious mission, and China’s communist party is quite otherwise focused upon the materialist aims of its socialist enterprise. There is nothing really novel in this assessment, but how these disparate views are manifest into documents and actions can help us better apprehend the Sino-Vatican agreement to which I now turn.

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Making Sense of the 2018 Provisional Sino-Vatican Agreement

When Pope Benedict XVI issued his 2007 letter to Catholics in China, he preserved some of the previous patterns of post-1949 Sino-Vatican exchange, while also inaugurating some new approaches. Among his statements that conform to what previous popes have said about the Church in China was his assertion that Chinese Catholics have remained faithful, “sometimes at the price of grave sufferings.”130 But in addition to the acknowledgment of Christian suffering in modern China, the letter expresses the Holy See’s wish that “underground” Catholic bishops are permitted by the state to openly practice their ministry in Chinese society. The letter requests China’s authorities to allow “that these legitimate Pastors may be recognized as such by governmental authorities.”131 In essence, Pope Benedict XVI’s letter asked for something inconceivable during the Pius XII era, that Roman Catholic bishops openly administer their dioceses under the official sanction of China’s communist authorities. One striking difference between Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 letter and the 2018 provisional agreement between the Vatican and China’s authorities is the nature of how they were put forth. Benedict’s letter was conducted in the open, while the 2018 agreement was negotiated and signed in secrecy. Given the flood of leaked Vatican documents, such as the 2012 VatiLeaks and the recent leaks of internal documents revealing financial corruption within the Holy See, it is difficult to imagine how the 2018 secret agreement has remained so effectively undisclosed. I am, myself, reluctant to indulge in uninformed speculations about the details of the agreement, but Vatican sources have provided clues regarding the document’s contents. Since the agreement’s signing, we have been informed, for example, that the pope has regained two abilities previously denied him in China; he now has the power to approve or disapprove all selections of candidates for ordination as bishops, and he has formally accepted all of China’s bishops into full communion with the Holy See, even those who had been excommunicated for their “illicit consecrations.” I shall conclude with a brief account of what has transpired since the agreement was signed more than a year ago, and provide a few observations on China’s strategy of what it calls “Sinicization,” a policy that has grown more assertive than it was before the provisional agreement

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was signed. I should note here that one of the most habitually discussed topics among scholars of Sino-Western exchange is what missiologists call “accommodation,” or “inculturation.” There are many merits to the missionary ideal, as the early Jesuits articulated it, of incarnating Christianity into China’s extant culture rather than merely grafting onto or replacing its indigenous cultural sensibilities. China’s government views this ideal from an entirely different angle than the one held by the Jesuits who occupied seventeenth-century China. Examining the Chinese communist view of adaptation helps explain why the post-agreement months were particularly fraught with media reports of church demolition, clergy arrests, and new policies forbidding under-eighteen-year-old Chinese from attending church services across China’s provinces. The Chinese term for Sinicization is zhongguo hua, or as Yang Fenggang renders it, “Chinafication.” In the areas of religious belief and practice, Sinicization implies domestication rather than adaptation. Unlike the missiological idea of adapting the non-essential characteristics of Christianity to China’s indigenous culture, the official state expectation is that Catholicism be domesticated to the current socialist political system. China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, has made the Sinicization of religions one of the state’s principal goals. Since Xi became China’s highest-ranking party leader in 2012, he has tirelessly insisted that as he stated in his keynote speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Conference in 2015, all religions in China must follow the path of Sinicization and adapt to the state’s political principles. The number of party-supported publications in China that focus on the government’s Sinicization campaign has climbed precipitously in recent years, and no religion has been targeted more for Sinicization than Christianity. During the so-called 2014 “cross-demolition campaign” in Zhejiang province, one of China’s most adamant party intellectuals in favor of state control and Sinicization of religion, Zhuo Xinping, took a team to Wenzhou’s Liushi Church, China’s largest Protestant church building. Zhuo and his team of party intellectuals conducted a conference there on the importance of the state-promoted zhongguo hua, or Sinicization, campaign. The team extolled Buddhist success in adapting and conforming to the state’s political reality in order to endure and flourish in China’s socialist system. In other words, the present Sinicization campaign has grown more determined since Xi Jinping’s rise to power in 2012, and the government control of Catholicism has reached its highest level since the death of

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Mao in 1976. Thus, the largest challenges the Chinese Catholic Church confront now in the wake of the 2018 Sino-Vatican agreement are those related to opposing ambitions and expectations; while the Holy See is hopeful that the agreement will improve the life and aims of the Church, the policymakers in Beijing are enshrouding those hopes in a bureaucratic morass that makes it difficult, even for the most informed experts, to discern whether China’s Catholics should celebrate what lies ahead or remain still and observe the landscape with prudence. One of my favorite passages in the Analects of Confucius is located in the fourth book, where the Master imparts an important lesson to his gathered disciples: “Those who are prudent seldom err.” One of the principal marks of all previous interactions between China and the Vatican was prudence; one wonders if Beijing and Rome still regard the advice of Confucius with the same reverence as has been the case since the thirteenth century.

Notes 1. Quoted in China Missionary Bulletin IV (V), no. 3 ( March 1952): 442– 443. 2. Quoted in Stephen M. DiGiovanni, Ignatius: The Life of Cardinal Kung Pin-Mei (Stamford: Msgr. Stephen M. DiGiovanni, 2013), 34. 3. Mariani, Church Militant, 40. 4. “Guanyu Tianzhujiao Jidujiao wenti de zhishi” [Concerning the Problem of Catholic and Protestant Christians], Shanghai Municipal Archives, B22-2-1; Quoted in Mariani, 39. 5. Jiefang ribao [Liberation Daily], Shanghai, 12 October 1951. 6. Jiefang ribao [Liberation Daily], Shanghai, 13 October 1951. 7. Mark 14:27 RSV. 8. DiGiovanni, Ignatius, 61. 9. Quoted in China Missionary Bulletin VII, no. 9 (November 1955): 821. 10. John Casey, “Felon No. One,” in But Not Conquered, ed. Bernard T. Smyth (Westminster: The Newman Press, 1958), 165. 11. Jean Monsterleet, Martyrs in China, trans. Antonia Pakenham (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1956), 61. 12. Monsterleet, Martyrs in China, 16. 13. Monsterleet, Martyrs in China, 16; for more on the martyrdom of Father Zhang Boda, see Lefeuvre, Les enfants dans la ville, 92–99. 14. A “draft manuscript” of this booklet is retained in Yangquandao (Liuhecun) Village and is yet unpublished, as the nature of its narrative remains sensitive in mainland China; See Wang Jingshan, Yu gaoge

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15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33.

zhu: Wang (Leisi) Shiwei shengping xiaoji [High Praise to God in Prison: A Small Record of the Whole Life of Wang (Leisi) Shiwei] (Liuhecun, Shanxi, 2000). Lian Xi, Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 204. Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 167. Mao Zedong, “The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party,” 312. Photographs of Brother Zhou’s crippled arms can be seen in the middle signature of his book. Brother Peter Zhou Bangjiu, Dawn Breaks in the East: One Spiritual Warrior’s Thirty-Three Year Struggle in Defense of the Church (Maria Stein, OH: Serenity, 1992). Zhou, Dawn Breaks in the East: One Spiritual Warrior, 110–111. Jeremy Clarke, “Our Lady of China: Marian Devotions and the Jesuits,” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 43, no. 1 (Autumn 2009): 38–39. See United States Department of State, “2014 Report on International Religious Freedom—China,” 14 October 2015. Tom Phillips, “China on Course to Become ‘World’s Most Christian Nation’ within 15 years,” The Telegraph, 29 April 2014. Phillips, “China on Course to Become ‘World’s Most Christian Nation.’” United States Department of State, “2014 Report on International Religious Freedom—China.” United States Department of State, “2014 Report on International Religious Freedom—China.” United States Department of State, “2014 Report on International Religious Freedom—China.” Quoted in Anthony E. Clark, “Catholic Seminarians Boycott Graduation from Beijing Seminary,” The Catholic World Report, 19 July 2014. Quoted in Clark, “Catholic Seminarians Boycott Graduation from Beijing Seminary.” Jeremy Clarke, The Virgin Mary and Catholic Identities in Chinese History (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013), 12. Quoted in Tyron Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (Detroit: F. B. Dickerson, 1908), 583. Quoted in Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, “Church-State Accommodation in China’s ‘Harmonious Society’,” in A Voluntary Exile: Chinese Christianity and Cultural Confluence Since 1552, ed. Anthony E. Clark (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2014), 188. See D’Elia, Catholic Native Episcopacy in China; a photograph of these six new Chinese bishops appears after page 86. Quoted in Ernest P. Young, Ecclesiastical Colony: China’s Catholic Church and the French Religious Protectorate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 134.

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34. DiGiovanni, Ignatius, 206. 35. For a description of the spectacular growth of the Shanghai Diocese after the Maoist era, see Jinri Tianzhujiao Shanghai jiaoqu [The Roman Catholic Church in Shanghai Today], ed. Roman Catholic Diocese of Shanghai (Shanghai: Roman Catholic Diocese of Shanghai, 2008). 36. Asia News, 10 July 2014. 37. See John K. Fairbank, “Patterns Behind the Tientsin Massacre,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 20, no. 3/4 (1957): 480–511. 38. See Annales de la Congrégation de la Mission (Lazaristes) 63 (1898): 80. 39. Young, Ecclesiastical Colony, 4. 40. Interview with Father Leo Zhang Liang, at Xikai Cathedral, Tianjin, China, 26 October 2011. 41. Sunday Examiner, 12 January 2012. 42. Celso Costantini, Con i missionari in Cina (1922–1933): memorie di fatti e di idee, Vol. 1 (Rome: Unione Missionaria del Clero in Italia, 1946), 484. 43. Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China (New York: MacMillan, 1967), 727. 44. See Madsen, China’s Catholics, 45–46. 45. See Carol Huang, “Under China’s Xi Jinping, Freedom Is More Remote than Ever,” UCA News, 10 July 2014. 46. Quoted in Clark, China’s Saints, 152. 47. Richard Madsen, “Beyond Orthodoxy: Catholicism as Chinese Folk Religion,” in China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future, eds. Stephen Uhalley Jr. and Wu Xiaoxin (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2001), 233. 48. See Michael Forsythe, “Questions Rise of the Fate of Chinese Bishop,” The New York Times, 13 February 2015. 49. “China Detains Zhejiang Christians Amid Cross Removal Dispute,” BBC, 5 August 2015. 50. Quoted in “China Ordains First Catholic Bishop in Three Years,” La Croix, 5 August 2015. 51. Quoted in Anthony E. Clark, “Meet Bishop Joseph Zhang Yinlin, First Chinese Bishop Since Pope Francis Elected,” Catholic World Report, 7 August 2015. 52. Quoted in Li Xiaobing and Fang Qiang, Eds., Modern Chinese Legal Reform: New Perspectives (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013), 98. 53. Father Edward MacElroy, “God and the Atheists,” in But Not Conquered, ed. By Father Bernard T. Smyth (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1958), 59. 54. Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 39.

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55. “Hong Kong Bookseller Mystery Deepens After Letter Appears,” BBC News, 5 January 2016. 56. “China’s President Xi Jinping Say Religions Must Be Free from Foreign Influence,” The Guardian, 20 May 2015. 57. See Robert Marquand’s, “Xi Jinping State Visit: China’s Arrest of Southern Christians Intensifies,” The Christian Science Monitor, 25 September, 2015. 58. See “Chinese Catholics Appeal for Release of Long-Imprisoned Bishop,” UCAnews, 1 September 2015. 59. Winston Churchill, “The Russian Enigma,” BBC Broadcast, 1 October, 1939. 60. See David V. Barrett, “Chinese Bishop Shocks Faithful by Recanting Position on State-Run Church,” Catholic Herald, 17 June 2016. 61. Bernardo Cervellera, “Chinese youth and Priests Prevented from Attending World Youth Day,” Asia News, 17 July 2016. 62. “Beijing, Vatican Reach Initial Accord on Appointment of Bishops, Hong Kong Cardinal Says,” South China Morning News, August 5, 2016. 63. Quoted in Anthony E. Clark, “China and Vatican Make Preliminary Agreement on the Election of Bishops,” The Catholic World Report, 7 August 2016. 64. Clark, “China and Vatican Make Preliminary Agreement on the Election of Bishops.” 65. Clark, “China and Vatican Make Preliminary Agreement on the Election of Bishops.” 66. Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, “My Concerns Over China-Holy See Dialogue and Repercussions on Chinese Church,” Asia News, 4 August 2016. 67. L’Osservatore Romano, 17 and 18 February 1947. 68. L’Osservatore Romano, 17 and 18 February 1947. 69. L’Osservatore Romano, 17 and 18 February 1947. 70. Peter Zhou Bangjiu, Dawn Breaks in the East: A Time Revisited (Valyermo, CA: St. Andrew’s Abbey, 2017), 154–155. I have translated the poem slightly differently from the original Chinese than appears in this book. 71. “Hebei Province Tops China’s Baptism Rankings,” UCAnews, 8 May 2017. 72. “Hebei Province Tops China’s Baptism Rankings,” UCAnews. 73. “China’s Crackdown on Mass in Underground Community,” UCAnews, 27 April 2017. 74. Joseph Jiang, “Catholocism in 21st Century China,” La Civiltà Cattolica (2017), 3. 75. Jiang, “Catholocism in 21st Century China,” 5.

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76. Jiang, “Catholocism in 21st Century China,” 8. 77. Jiang, “Catholicism in 21st Century China,” 9. 78. Father Zhu Shude, quoted in Kim-Kwong Chan and Alan Hunter, Prayers and Thoughts of Chinese Christians (Boston: Cowley, 1991), 22–23. 79. Andrew T. Kaiser and G. Wright Doyle, “10 Chinese Christians the Western Church Should Know: Meet the Men and Women Who Have Rooted the Gospel Message Within the Chinese Soul,” Christianity Today, 3 October 2017. 80. Zhang Ruogu, Ma Xiangbo xiansheng nianpu [Chronology of the Life of Mr. Ma Xiangbo] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1939), 234. 81. Ruth Hayhoe and Lu Yongling, Eds., Ma Xiangbo and the Mind of Modern China (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), 4. 82. This essay is translated in Hayhoe and Lu Yongling, Eds., Ma Xiangbo and the Mind of Modern China, 269–271. 83. Ma Xiangbo, “Using Scholarship to Spread Religion,” in Ma Xiangbo and the Mind of Modern China, eds. Ruth Hayhoe and Lu Yongling (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), 269. 84. Discussed in Grant Hayter-Menzies, Imperial Masquerade: The Legend of Princess Der Ling (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008), 26. 85. Hayter-Menzies, Imperial Masquerade, 117. 86. D. E. Mungello, The Catholic Invasion of China: Remaking Chinese Christianity (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 51. 87. See Ernest P. Young, Ecclesiastical Colony: China’s Catholic Church and the French Religious Protectorate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 175–176. 88. Young, Ecclesiatical Colony, 176. 89. See Lu Zhengxiang’s address before the diplomatic assembly at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, in Why China Refused to Sign the Peace Treaty (New York: Chinese Patriotic Committee, 1919), 4–5. 90. The English translation was published as Lu Tseng-Tsiang (Dom PierreCélestine), Ways of Confucius and of Christ, trans. Michael Derrick (London: Burns Oats, 1948), 27. 91. Lu, Ways of Confucius, 12. 92. Edmond Tang and Jean-Paul Wiest, Eds., The Catholic Church in Modern China, Perspectives (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2013), 134, n. 3. 93. Charbonnier, Christians in China, 526. 94. Quoted in Anthony E. Clark, “Chinese Catholics Who Changed China and the World,” The Catholic World Report, 16 January 2018. 95. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 199.

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96. “Provisional Statistics of the Catholic Church in China 2018,” Holy Spirit Study Center, Hong Kong, 31 December 2018. 97. “Church in China Has Religious Features Forcibly Demolished,” UCAnews, 1 March 2018. 98. Francesco Sisci interview with Pope Francis, “Pope Francis Urges World Not to Fear China’s Rise: AT Exclusive,” Asia Times, 25 February 2016. 99. Benedict XVI, Letter to the Catholic Church in China, 10. 100. Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, ed. Saurobijay Sarkar (Shahdara Delhi: Aakar, 2006), 111. 101. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Commencement Address at Harvard University, 8 June 1978, in Chris Abbott, 21 Speeches that Shaped Our World: The People and Ideas That Changed the Way We Think (London: Rider, 2010), 98. 102. Russell Goldman, “Chinese Police Dynamite Christian Megachurch,” New York Times, 12 January 2018. 103. See Paul A. Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). 104. See Arnulf Camps and Pat McClosky, The Friars Minor in China, 1294– 1955 (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1995), 1–4. 105. See Bruno Fabio Pighin, Il Cardinale Celso Costantini: L’anima di un missionario (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2014), 65–89. Costantini was replaced by Archbishop Mario Zanin (1890–1958), who served in China from 1933 to 1946, and Zanin was replaced by Archbishop Antonio Riberi (1897–1967), who served as the apostolic nuncio to China from 1946 to 1951. 106. See Young, Ecclesiastical Colony. 107. Quoted in John C. H. Wu, Beyond East and West (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1951), 330–331. 108. “Vatican Sees Peril to Church in China,” New York Times, 4 September 1955. 109. “Chinese Prelate Tells of Red Rise: Catholic Archbishop Yu-Pin Starts on Good-Will Tour of Latin America,” New York Times, 14 October 1949. 110. Henry R. Lieberman, “Peiping [Beijing] Executes Two Chinese Priests: Roman Catholics Are Shot on Charges of Espionage,” New York Times, 21 October 1951. 111. “Freed Priests Cite Red China Purges: 3 U.S. Roman Catholics Say Brutality Left Populace Ready for Revolt,” New York Times, 8 August 1954. 112. Hu Wenyao, “The Patriotic Movement of the Catholics in New China,” China Monthly Review, 1 November 1951. 113. Hu, “The Patriotic Movement of the Catholics in New China.”

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114. Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, “The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question during Our Country’s Socialist Period,” 31 March 1982. This translation is taken from Donald MacInnis, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 8–26. 115. China Update, no. 7 (Spring 1984): 146. 116. Code of Canon Law, Latin-English edition (Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1983), 141, canon # 380. 117. Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), 26 April 1983, p. K14. 118. Pius XII, Cupimus Imprimis, 18 January 1952, in Elmer P. Wurth, Ed., Papal Documents Related to the New China, 1937 –1984 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985), 35. 119. Wurth, Papal Documents, 36. 120. Pius XII, Ad Sinarum Gentem, 7 October 1954, in Wurth, Papal Documents, 40. 121. Wurth, Papal Documents, 41. 122. Wurth, Papal Documents, 43. 123. Pius XII, Ad Apostolorum Principis, 29 June 1958, in Wurth, Papal Documents, 53. 124. Sacra Congregazione per l’Evangelizzazione dei Popolo (De Propaganda Fide), “Décret de la S. C. de la Propaganda du 7 Décembre 1783.” 125. See, for example, the records held in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Segretaria di Stato, 1900–1930. 126. Shanghai Municipal Archives, “Guanyu Shanghai Tianzhujiao gongzuo de jieshao.” A22-1-233, 1949. 127. Shanghai Municipal Archives, “Guanyu daji he quzhu Shanghai Tianzhujiaonei diguozhuyifenzi” A22-1-119, 1953. Translated in Mariani, Church Militant, 121. 128. United Front Work Department, “Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Notification Concerning Strengthening the United Front Work,” 14 July 1990. 129. Chan Kim-kwong, “Bringing Religion into the Socialist Fold,” China Review (1995); 17.5. 130. Pope Benedict XVI, “Letter to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons, and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China” (27 May 2007), 2. 131. Benedict XVI, “Letter to the Bishops.”

CHAPTER 5

Conclusion

Writing about China is sometimes an exercise in useful superfluity—as one completes a line of commentary on an historical moment, even if it bears utility in understanding trends and events, one realizes that the vicissitudes of China’s historical trajectories are so varied that any single interpretation seems canceled by the era that follows. The essays in this volume may at first appear overly varied, as if one essay proves the previous one outmoded, but even so, such transformations in the historical tableau accurately represent the rapid fluctuations that describe China’s past, and its present. It was recommended to me that I provide a brief conclusion to this compendium of research essays and reflections, and the first thing that came to mind was the now hackneyed, but still useful, Chinese saying, hua she tian zu, or “When drawing a snake, add a foot.” The Chinese hearer of this saying immediately knows the implication; one should avoid ruining the effect by adding something superfluous. There is no need, I first assumed, to add concluding remarks to the essays included in this volume about the long history of China’s Catholics and their place within the history of Sino-Western intellectual and religious exchange. But as I pondered what I might say by way of a conclusion, I observed the swaying branches of the blossoming cherry trees outside my office window, where I spend long hours reading due to the “shelter in place” rules enforced as the COVID-19 virus sweeps across the globe. I recalled that several years ago I was in Wuhan, the origin of this virus, conducting research © The Author(s) 2020 A. E. Clark, China’s Catholics in an Era of Transformation, Christianity in Modern China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6182-5_5

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on two Catholic missionaries who died there in 1820 and 1840, respectively. It struck me that both of these missionaries, François-Régis Clet (1748–1820) and Jean-Gabriel Perboyre (1802–1840), were executed in a fashion uniquely relevant to the way in which this particular virus attacks those whom it infects, and that their stories might help explain how the contours of China’s Christian history connect to our own time. Clet and Perboyre were executed by slow strangulation—they died because they could not breathe. It occurred to me that China’s Catholic history bears deeper relevance to China’s present than many assume. In fact, many of the COVID-19 patients treated in Wuhan were admitted into hospitals that were founded by Roman Catholic missionaries. Research often carries scholars to unexpected locations, locations that few people have heard of. While I was in Wuhan conducting research on the French Lazarist martyrs of that area, I was certain that almost no-one from my native US had ever heard of that city, and I also assumed that they never would hear of Wuhan. I was mistaken. “Wuhan” is now in the common lexicon of everyone who has followed the disquieting history of the COVID-19 virus and its origin in Wuhan. To be precise, the Catholic missionary martyrs of Wuhan died in Wuchang, the urban core of the thirteen districts of the large prefectural-level city of Wuhan. In my essay of December 2008, included in this compendium, I recount my time in Wuhan, during which I met with priests who complained of tapped phones and unremitting interference in diocesan affairs by local officials. In that essay I also describe the deaths of Clet and Perboyre and my search for the execution ground where they died, but in these concluding remarks I would like to offer a few more reflections on how their lives and deaths largely echoes the situation that emerged from Wuhan in November of 2019. François-Régis Clet and Jean-Gabriel Perboyre lived in considerable anxiety because of the political chaos that churned around them, they were isolated, and they died from strangulation. They are among the few canonized Catholic saints who died because they could not breathe. Accounts of their martyrdoms were disseminated widely throughout France, and when the famous Carmelite nun, Thérèse of Lisieux (1873– 1897), read about them she was so transfixed what they endured in Wuhan that she kept in her personal prayer-book a holy card of Perboyre. Four characteristics of their lives attracted the interest of French Catholics during the late nineteenth century, and these same characteristics have attracted the interest of scholars presently living through the suffering

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and social unrest caused by what in China is known as the Wuhan ganmao, or “Wuhan flu.” First, they lived within politically fraught times; second, they expressed a great deal of fear and anxiety in their epistolary exchanges; third, they spent their final months in forced isolation; and fourth, they experienced remarkable agony due to strangulation as they died on the Wuhan execution ground during the late Qing dynasty. François-Régis Clet was born tenth in a family of fifteen children, and when he was twenty-one years old he entered the Lazarists because of his admiration for Saint Vincent de Paul’s (1581–1660) affection for the poor and overlooked. He was in Paris when intense anti-clericalism erupted during the French Revolution (1789–1799), and when priests were being exiled from their native France he volunteered to go to China where he felt certain he would confront more of the same oppression. As anticipated, once he was in China Clet encountered disagreements between the missionaries and local officials, but what most exasperated him during his early years within the Qing empire was his initial struggle to learn Chinese. In one letter home, he wrote quite pejoratively of the Mandarin dialect: “No word except barbarous describes the Chinese language. Its written characters represent, not sounds, but thoughts, and their number is incalculable.”1 He began his life as a missionary in China in 1789, and three decades later he was tied onto a wooden pole in Wuhan; a rope was wrapped around his throat and he was slowly deprived of the air his body required to remain alive. Jean-Gabriel Perboyre, like his confrere, Father Clet, was born into a large French Catholic family, and four of his siblings, like him, became Lazarists because of their desire to serve others following the pattern of Saint Vincent.2 He entered the Lazarists when he was only sixteen years old, and while he was in the seminary he displayed the usual French piety that was common in nineteenth-century France. Perboyre spent long hours in front of the tabernacle in prayer and kneeling in thanksgiving after receiving Holy Communion. His brother, Louis, was also a Lazarist, and Louis was sent to China before Jean-Gabriel. The two brothers were very close, and thus when the news reached Jean-Gabriel back in France that Louis had died of illness en route to China it was a painful shock. While on his deathbed, Father Louis Perboyre (d. 1831), wrote a letter to Jean-Gabriel: “I am dying before I can accomplish my goal—I hope that my priest brother can come and take my place.”3 Jean-Gabriel did take his brother’s place; he left France five years after Louis’ death, and

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in 1835 he took his first steps as a missionary on Chinese soil. For JeanGabriel, his time in China was short. He was tied to a pole and strangled, just as François-Régis Clet was, only five years after his arrival. While Clet and Perboyre served as missionaries in China, the empire was strained with social disorder, and among the popular uprisings that afflicted several provinces was a rebellion led by a millenarian sect called the White Lotus Society.4 Unfortunately for the Lazarists in Hubei, local officials lumped Christians into the same category as the White Lotus followers, that is as a “heterodox religious sect.” The result was terrifying for both the missionaries and Chinese faithful; Christians were loathed and attacked both by the White Lotus group, as well as many magistrates within the provincial government. As Catholics were accused of the same religious agenda as anti-court societies such as the White Lotus adherents, anti-Christian intrigues also precipitated official decrees ordering the suppression of Christians. One such incident in 1818 forced François-Régis Clet into hiding. On 25 May, the imperial palace in Beijing was suddenly enveloped in “strong winds and torrential rains, while the sky turned red as thunder pealed above the city.”5 The emperor’s advisors suggested that the strange occurrence was caused by the spiritual interference of the Christian missionaries, and thus Yamen runners were dispatched to arrest Father Clet. He was forced to remain in seclusion, hiding in small caves and remote places in the woods, and he eventually sought refuge in the home of a Catholic family, where he “sheltered in place” for six lonely months. Clet’s location was revealed by an apostate Christian and he was locked in chains, after which he was delivered to a local court where he was made to kneel on chains while his face was beaten with a leather strap.6 When he was later transferred to the prison at Wuhan, his clothes were, as one witness described them, “stained with blood from cuts and wounds caused by the blows and ill-usage to which he had been subjected during the journey.”7 He was condemned to death by slow suffocation on 17 February 1820, and he was taken to the execution ground in the Wuchang district of the city, where he endured strangulation when a cord was tightened around his neck in three stages. His remains were collected by pious Chinese Catholics, and they were eventually sent to Paris where they are today reserved at a side altar in the Lazarist motherhouse. Perboyre’s arrest and execution in Wuhan were quite similar to what François-Régis Clet had undergone two decades previously. An antiChristian movement emerged in 1839 that compelled Jean-Gabriel to live

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in a state of isolation, and through this time he was hidden and protected by Chinese Christians who sheltered him despite the danger of losing their own lives if Perboyre was discovered. After offering Mass on 16 September 1839, a local Christian arrived to inform Perboyre that two officials and a large band of troops were quickly approaching the church. He fled only a few moments before the church was besieged and razed, and he survived temporarily by hiding in forests and the secreted rooms of Chinese Christian homes. He was eventually discovered and seized by patrolmen who dragged him away by his Qing-style queue to be interrogated in tribunals.8 Jean-Gabriel Perboyre was summoned from his cell on 11 September 1840, and led to his execution while carrying a sign announcing his sentence. A Lazarist record of his final moments is difficult to read, though the section that describes how he was executed in the Wuchang district of Wuhan provides the details regarding the particular nature of his martyrdom. The executioner then placed a cord around his neck and slipped a piece of bamboo into the knot. With a strong twist, he tightened the cord around the convict’s neck, and then he loosened the cord to give the poor sufferer a moment to catch his breath. Then he tightened the cord a second time, and relaxed it again. Only after the third twist did he keep the cord tightened until death followed.9

Local Christians bribed the officials to acquire the rope and clothes that remained on Perboyre’s body after his strangulation, and his corpse was interred beside the grave of François-Régis Clet at a place called Hong Mountain near Wuhan. I discuss Clet and Perboyre here in my concluding remarks because of their relevance to the present situation of China’s Catholic community, especially the “underground” and “aboveground” Christians in and around Wuhan, afflicted by the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Local Chinese Catholics still remember and commemorate the martyrdoms of Clet and Perboyre, and the detail that they were executed by strangulation, in the minds of some, serves as an historical precursor to the way the virus afflicts the infected by attacking their ability to breathe. Wuhan’s nineteenth-century Catholic history has been compared with the city’s twenty-first-century pandemic. Seminarians now preparing for the priesthood in the Wuhan seminary affectionately care for the two tombstones that formerly adorned the graves of Clet and Perboyre on

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Hong Mountain; the stone monuments are often seen surrounded by fresh flowers and seminarians praying for their intercession. These gravestones were previously relocated to the home of a local Catholic where they were concealed and protected during the destructive years of the Cultural Revolution. The Franciscan bishop of Wuhan, Bernadine Dong Guangqing, OFM (1917–2007) conducted a search for the gravestones after the Cultural Revolution had ended, and had them restored and installed at the Huayuanshan Catholic Seminary. Presently, they are displayed in the seminary courtyard and Clet and Perboyre are viewed as sympathetic intercessors as hospitals receive patients who bear such infectious diseases as the Coronavirus. As I write this conclusion to the essays included in this volume, the Catholic seminary, churches, and other Catholic sites of Wuhan are places of fervent prayer as many members of the Christian community have suffered and died from COVID-19. If anything, I trust that this compendium of research essays underscores how systemic was, and is, the Roman Catholic presence within the larger mass of Chinese society. Sino-Christian exchange has at some level influenced the overall history of China since the appearance of Franciscan mendicants during the Yuan dynasty, but Catholics were certainly not the only participants in China’s early modern and modern transformation. Secular diplomats and Protestant missionaries, too, were lively interlocutors within the Sino-Western dialogue. The English explorer and naturalist, Thomas Wright Blakiston (1832–1891), serves as a good example of a non-Catholic Westerner who participated in Sino-Western exchange in China. Blakiston made his way of the Yangze River in 1861, and when he encountered the Catholic missionaries around Wuhan, he believed a “disguised priest or two of the Romish Church” had surreptitiously concealed themselves within the Chinese population.10 As William T. Rowe puts it, “Roman Catholic missionaries were not the only Europeans who made their presence felt in Hankow [district of Wuhan] in pre-treaty-port days.”11 The cultural connections between Westerners and Chinese during the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries are ubiquitous and complex; these essays represent only a small portion of intellectual and religious encounters between East Asia and the West. Cultural dialectics are never homogenous, and I trust that this volume supports that assertion. To make one final point: while the word “conflict” has appeared throughout these essays, I do not suggest that conflict has monolithically defined Sino-Western encounters. Far from it. Just as often the word

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“friendship” appears throughout this compendium, and this is a much better term to describe the general nature of China’s long relationship with the West. Beatrice Leung and William T. Liu authored a fine book on the history of Catholicism in modern China, and they chose to entitle their study, The Chinese Church in Conflict, emphasizing the antagonisms that China’s Catholic Christians have experienced with the state, as well as Vatican tensions with Beijing’s post-1940 government.12 Other works in recent decades have sought to downplay the theme of conflict in their narratives, choosing instead an alternative nomenclature in their titles. Such works use such terms as “cooperation” and “common ground” to depict the Sino-Christian and Communist-Christian dialogue.13 In my own work I have attempted to portray the history of Christianity in China as existing somewhere between what is implied in the terms, “conflict” and “cooperation.” In 2015, I published a study of the Catholics in Shanxi, entitled Heaven in Conflict: Franciscans and the Boxer Uprising in Shanxi, and two years later, in 2017, I published an edited volume centering more on the theme of cooperation than conflict, entitled China’s Christianity: From Missionary to Indigenous Church.14 The essays in the present volume, I hope, tread cautiously between representing Christianity in modern China as a Church of mostly conflict, or one of mostly cooperation; it has historically been, and continues to be, a religious community that rests between these extremes. In his reflections on the end of the excruciating years of the Cultural Revolution, the now-deceased bishop of Shanghai, Aloysius Jin Luxian, wrote that while human beings are capable of “hatred and delighting in destruction, they are also able to preach benevolence, amity, and harmony. Human progress is like the tides of the sea—waves advance and recede; we recede a single step, but we advance two steps.”15 This is an optimistic view of humanity, one that most of China’s Catholics, at least the ones I know, agree with. In several ways I remain an “outsider” of the Church in China, but what I have observed over the decades is more advance than retreat, and in that way, I suppose, I am more inside than outside the mind of China’s Catholic community.

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Notes 1. Quoted in G. de Montgesty, Two Vincentian Martyrs: Blessed Francis Regis Clet, C.M., Blessed John Gabriel Perboyre, C.M., trans. Florence Gilmore (Maryknoll, NY: Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, 1925), 23. 2. For an exhaustive biography of Jean-Gabriel Perboyre, see Life of Blessed John Gabriel Perboyre: Priest of the Congregation of the Mission, Martyred in China, September 11th, 1840 (Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., 1894). 3. See André Sylvestre, C.M., Jean-Gabriel Perboyre: Prêtre de la Mission, Martyr en Chine (Moissac, 1994), 10. 4. For various popular movements of the late-Qing, including the White Lotus Sect (Bailian jiao), see Jean Chesneaux, Ed., Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China, 1840–1950 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). 5. See Clark, China’s Saints, 156–157. 6. De Montgesty, Two Vincentian Martyrs, 81. 7. De Montgesty, Two Vincentian Martyrs, 82–83. 8. See Clark, China’s Saints, 162–163. 9. Sylvestre, Jean-Gabriel Perboyre, 26. 10. Thomas W. Blakiston, Five Months on the Yangze (London, 1862), 69. Also quoted in William T. Rowe, Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), 45. 11. Rowe, Hankow, 45. 12. Leung and Liu, The Chinese Church in Conflict. 13. See Diana Junio, Patriotic Cooperation: The Border Services of the Church of Christ in China and Chinese-Church Relations, 1920s –1950s (Leiden: Brill, 2017); Philip L. Wickeri, Seeking the Common Ground: Protestant Christianity, the Three-Self Movement, and China’s United Front (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1988). 14. Clark, Heaven in Conflict; Anthony E. Clark, Ed., China’s Christianity: From Missionary to Indigenous Church (Leiden: Brill, 2017). 15. Jin Luxian, Jin Luxian Huiyi lu shangjuan [The Memoirs of Jin Luxian, Volume One] (Hong Kong: Xianggang daxue chubanshe, 2013), 172.

Archives Consulted

Archive de la Congregation de la Mission (Paris, France) Archive de la Province de France de la Compagnie de Jésus (Vanves, France) Archive de la Société des Auxiliaires des Missions (Brussels, Belgium) Archives des Missions Étrangères de Paris (Paris, France) Archivio Curia Generalizia dei Frati Minori (Rome, Italy) Archivio Segreto Vaticano (Vatican City) Archivio Storico di Propaganda Fide (Rome, Italy) Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (Rome, Italy) Archiwum Polskiej Prowincji Dominikanów w Krakowie (Krakow, Poland) Bibleoteca Antonianum, Order of Friars Minor (Rome, Italy) Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican City) Bibliothèques des Instituts D’Extrême-Orient, Collège de France (Paris, France) China Province Jesuit Archive (Taipei, Taiwan) DeAndreis-Rosati Memorial Archives, DePaul University (Chicago, IL) Franciscan Missionaries of Mary Archive (Rome, Italy) Jesuit Archive of the China Province (Taipei, Taiwan)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 A. E. Clark, China’s Catholics in an Era of Transformation, Christianity in Modern China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6182-5

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History (San Francisco, CA) Shanghai Municipal Archives (Shanghai, China) Tianjin Diocesan Archive and Library (Tianjin, China) Xujiahui Rare Books Collection, Former Jesuit Library (Shanghai, China)

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Index

A aboveground Church, 45, 197 accommodationist methods, 55 adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. See Eucharistic adoration Africa, 17 Alopen, 12 Andlauer, Modeste, 100, 102, 103 Angeli, Rinaldo, 94 Anjia Street Catholic Church, Pingyao, 213 anti -Christian, 14, 16, 26, 40, 44, 72, 84, 91, 102, 158–160, 172, 181, 248 -foreign, 16, 44, 57, 84, 91, 233 Antonelli, Leonardo, 232 Anyang, 182, 183 apostasy, 16, 162 apparitions, 39, 164 Aquinas, Thomas, 71, 197 arrests, 97, 107, 111, 140, 158, 159, 162, 171, 182, 200, 236

798 Art District, 25 Asian Synod, 107 Assunta, Mary, 40 atheism, 25, 75, 158, 172, 231

B Balat, Theodoric, 92 Ban Gu, 6 Banquan Mountain, 39, 40 Baoding, 164, 185, 210, 211 Bao Guohua, 182 baptisms, 7, 108, 112, 208 statistics of, 114, 199 Baroque-style, 23 Bauer, Andreus, 92 Beauvoir, Simone de, 150, 156 Beda Chang. See Zhang Boda (Beda Chang) Bégin, Louis Nazaire, 40, 67, 92, 151, 152 Beijing, 1, 6, 20, 22–29, 41–45, 47–50, 53, 56, 63, 67, 68, 76,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 A. E. Clark, China’s Catholics in an Era of Transformation, Christianity in Modern China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6182-5

267

268

INDEX

81–83, 85, 86, 95, 96, 98–101, 108, 112–115, 117, 120, 121, 128–130, 134, 137, 142, 143, 148–152, 155, 156, 161, 167–171, 174, 175, 178, 181, 182, 186, 187, 189, 191–193, 195, 196, 199, 202, 206–208, 211–214, 216, 220, 221, 226, 229, 232, 237, 248, 251 Beijing Communist Administrative College, 50 Beitang. See North Church (Beitang) Belgium, 6, 209, 210 Benedictines, 4, 44, 117, 119, 120, 148, 163, 194, 209 Big Sword Society, 14 birth control, 19, 20 Bishops Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC), 134 Blessed Sacrament, 13, 21, 28, 112, 141, 175 Blessed Virgin Mary. See Virgin Mary Boodberg, Peter, 6 Boxers, 13–16, 23, 26, 40, 42, 49, 57, 58, 92–94, 100, 101, 104, 105, 164, 207, 214 Boxer Uprising, 12, 15, 23, 26, 40, 43, 44, 49, 57, 58, 93, 94, 102, 103, 105, 139, 140, 164, 174, 195, 207, 215 boycotts, 170 brainwashing, 34, 110, 111 British government, 16 Buddhism, 12, 208, 209 Buglio, Ludovico, 117 Bureau for Religious Affairs, 134 buried alive, 46, 76, 161 C Cambourieu, Gulielmus, 140 Camourieu, William, 145 Cangzhou (Xianxian), 89

canonization, 71, 94 canonized martyrs, 71 Cardinal Kung. See Gong Pinmei Ignatius (Kung Pinmei) Cardinal Kung Foundation, 79, 151 cartography, 50, 55 Casey, John, 160, 237 Castiglione, Giuseppe, 26 catechism, 13, 15, 53, 59, 68, 86, 129, 186 Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Nantang. See South Church (Nantang) Catholic Central Bureau, 123 censorship, 37 Cerezo, Daniel, 17–22 Charbonnier, Jean-Pierre, 9, 10, 54, 68, 83, 151, 211, 241 Chardin, Teilhard de, 5, 6, 8, 50 charity, 21, 85, 177, 202, 208 Chen Zelin, 15 Chiang Kai-shek, 201, 224, 225 Chinafication. See Sinicization China Province Jesuit Archives, 61 Chinese Boxers, 13 Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA), 18, 22, 30, 32, 35, 45, 64, 74, 90, 111, 166, 170, 185, 188, 198, 200, 210, 217, 218, 221, 229–231 Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), 180, 181 Christological debates, 12 Cistercian abbey, 43 civil war, 4, 124, 209, 225 Cixi, Empress Dowager, 164, 207 class struggle, 130 Clet, François-Régis, 38, 246–250 clocks, Jesuits and, 56 Comboni, Daniel, 17 Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, 17

INDEX

Communion, 22, 28, 30, 32, 34, 46, 48, 73, 79–81, 83, 84, 88, 109, 115, 133, 137, 170, 171, 180, 182, 193, 198, 203, 209, 212, 217, 219, 220, 231, 235, 247 communist, 4, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30– 34, 36, 37, 41, 43–45, 48, 49, 56, 61, 62, 69–71, 74–77, 81, 84, 86, 96, 99, 100, 110, 111, 115, 120, 122, 124, 129–143, 145–148, 150, 158–160, 163, 166, 168, 169, 173, 174, 180, 183, 184, 189–194, 198, 201, 206, 209–211, 216–219, 221, 222, 225–228, 230, 234–236, 243 troops, 43, 147 confession, 13, 15, 34, 46, 86, 147, 189 Confiteor, 15 conflict, 9, 20, 22, 29, 43, 44, 47, 57, 75, 77, 111, 123, 127, 135, 158, 160, 169, 191, 194, 222, 226, 231, 250, 251 Confucian, 12, 40, 51–53, 55, 56, 116, 119, 206, 209 Congregation of the Mission. See Lazarists Congregation of the Presentation of Mary, 176 consecration, 28, 35, 37, 87, 117, 127, 134, 166, 170, 181, 182, 193, 194, 201, 211, 220, 228, 229, 235 contraception. See birth control Costantini, Celso, 166, 167, 178, 224, 239, 242 countercultural acts, 14 counterrevolutionaries, 76, 99, 121, 143 COVID-19, 245, 246, 249, 250 cross

269

image of, 14 removal of, 180–182, 197, 239 Cultural Revolution, 3, 18, 25, 30, 31, 34, 38, 40, 45–48, 57, 58, 62, 65, 72, 76, 78, 104, 107, 108, 131, 136, 160–163, 171, 187, 250, 251 cultural transformation, 2 D dairy farm, 148, 149 Dalai Lama, 83 Daoist, 14, 201 Daughters of Charity, 177 death march, 42, 43, 142, 144, 216 Dengjiayu village, 147 Deng Xiaoping, 1, 32, 120, 131, 201 Denn, Paul, 101, 103, 105 Destroy the Four Olds campaign, 160, 162. See also Four Olds Dezhou, 101 Diocese of Anyang, 182, 183 of Beijing, 25, 29, 76, 82, 112, 171, 174 of Hong Kong, 113, 181 of Ningxia, 186 of Shanghai, 61, 62, 64–66, 112, 114, 132, 133, 166, 175, 176 of Tianjin, 108, 177–179 dispensaries, 14, 18 Dominicans, 44, 51 Dongergou Village, 40 Dong Guangqing, Bernadine, 81, 250 Dongjiaominxiang Church. See St. Michael’s Church drought, 91 Duan Yinming, Matthias, 107 E East Church, 25, 26

270

INDEX

Eighteenth Party Congress, 120 epistolary exchanges, 247 Espey, John J., 2, 9 Eucharist, 21, 25, 56, 112, 175, 220 Eucharistic adoration, 112 evangelization, 100, 108, 111, 115, 188, 218 execution ground, 38, 92, 246–248 exile, 15, 77, 99, 247 Extraordinary Form. See Tridentine Rite of Mass

F Facchini, Elias, 92 Fang Xingyao, John, 88, 170 Fan Xueyan, 194, 210, 211 Fan Zhongliang, Joseph, 8, 62, 166 Favier, Pierre-Marie-Alphonse, 26, 42, 67, 177, 207, 213 Fides International, 123 Figurists, 54, 55, 68 Fists of Righteous Harmony, 13, 57, 101. See also Boxers Five Harmonies, 60 Fogolla, Francis, 13, 14, 92 Forbidden City, 1, 2, 44, 82, 207, 214, 232 Foreign Missionaries of Paris, 44 Four Olds, 57, 161 Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, 13, 40, 92, 93 Franciscans, 4, 44, 51, 92, 94, 108 Francis (pope), 130, 131, 135, 176, 182, 186, 188, 191, 192, 197, 198, 203, 216, 218, 219, 221, 222 Free the Fathers, 79 Fu, Bruno, 145 Fu Jen Catholic University, 148, 206, 208 Fujian province, 189

G Gao, Clemens, 145 Gate of Heavenly Peace, 196 Gong Pinmei Ignatius (Kung Pinmei), 44, 62, 77, 133, 157, 166, 171, 175, 197 Gospels, 21, 22, 29, 35, 100, 113, 129, 159, 201, 205, 213 Gothic Revival, 25, 76, 187 Grassi, Gregory, 12, 13, 40, 92 Great Firewall of China, 24 Great Hall of the People, 89, 215 Great Leap Forward, 25, 26, 131 Guangxi, 111 Guang Xu, emperor, 207 Guiyang, 2–4, 29–33, 35, 36, 45, 76, 78, 80, 81, 83, 86, 90, 150, 151, 158, 212, 218 Guizhou, 29, 33, 35, 36, 79, 80 Guizhou Catholic Patriotic Association, 33 gunboat diplomacy, 168, 169 Guo Jincai, Joseph, 87 Guo Xijin, Joseph, 220 H hagiography, 171 Hankow, 250, 252 Hebei province, 15, 182, 187, 199, 210 Hebei Study Center of Faith, 114 Heilongjiang province, 199 Henkel, Joseph, 4, 9 heterodoxy, 13, 248 He Zhizhang, 5 Holy Mother Convent, 176 Holy Mother of Mount She, 176 Holy Savior North Church. See North Church (Beitang) Hong Kong, 4, 6, 65, 69, 70, 85, 102, 107, 113, 149, 151, 154, 155, 169, 178, 181, 184, 185,

INDEX

190, 204, 211, 217, 220, 222, 238, 240–242, 252 Hong Mountain, 249, 250 hospitals, Catholic, 18, 44, 57, 114, 139, 195, 197, 246, 250 Hua Ming News Service, 123 Huang, Damian, 146 Huang Shoucheng, Vincent, 189 Huayuanshan Catholic Seminary, 250 Hubei, 36, 81, 248 Hu Daguo, Augustine, 3, 29, 33, 34, 45, 46, 78, 80, 136, 151, 193, 212, 218 human remains, 104 Hu Yaobang, 201 I identity. See Sinicization ideological saboteurs, 3, 76 Ignatius of Loyola, 11, 121 Immaculate Heart of Mary, 58, 102, 213 imperial culture, 4, 114 soldiers, 15 steles, 23 troops, 15 imperialism, 77, 169, 173, 227, 228 imprisonment, 3, 19, 33, 34, 41, 65, 76, 133, 136, 171, 204, 211 inculturation. See accommodationist methods Inner Mongolia, 86 intercessory prayers, 250 invincibility, 14 Isoré, Remi, 100, 102, 103 Italian friars, 43 J Jade Emperor, 14 Japanese, 121, 141, 209

271

invasion, 4, 206 Jen, Stanislaus, 139, 147, 155 Jesuits, 5, 43, 44, 50, 54–56, 100–102, 105, 122, 124, 131, 134, 160, 168, 204, 206, 224, 232, 236 Jiang, Joseph, 200–202, 240, 241 Jiang Sunian, 111, 112 Jiangxi, 18 Jin Luxian, Aloysius, 3, 61–63, 66, 84, 112, 131–134, 136, 154, 166, 168, 175–177, 251, 252 John of Montecorvino, 43 Jubilee Year, 50 K Kates, George N., 2, 9 Kervyn, Louis, 174 Khanbaliq. See Beijing Korean Protestant church, 26 Kung Pinmei. See Gong Pinmei Ignatius (Kung Pinmei) Kunming, 80, 81, 87, 113, 206, 218 L labor camp, 149, 162, 168, 181, 194, 204, 210 Land Reform Law, 76, 197 Lazarists, 44, 195, 196, 246–249 Lebbe, Frédéric-Vincent, 195, 196 Lefeuvre, Jean, 150, 156, 237 Legation Quarter, 25 Legion of Mary, 159, 227 L’Heureux, Alphonse, 147 Li Di, 93, 152 Li, Jerome, 146 Li Liangui, Joseph, 89 Li, Mark, 146, 159, 237 Li Shan, 29, 47, 82, 96, 99, 100, 152, 175 Li Side, Stephen, 179

272

INDEX

Li Suguang, John Baptist, 109, 152 Li Tuishi, 145 liturgical vestments, 15 liturgy, 32, 117–120, 170, 175, 182 Liu, Alexis, 139 Liu Bainian, 65, 74, 85 Liu Dapeng, 40 Liuhecun, 57–60, 237, 238 Liu, Phillip, 145 Liushi Church, 236 Liu Xianjun, 79, 80, 90 Liu Yuanlong, 90 Li Wenyu. See Li Di Li Zhizao, 53 Lord of Heaven, 53, 56 Lourdes, 23, 39 Luo Wenzao, Gregory, 179 Lu Zhengxiang (Dom Pierre-Célestin Lou Tseng-Tsiang), 4, 8, 208–210, 241

M MacElroy, Edward, 183, 239 Ma, Conrad, 146 Ma Daqin, Thaddeus, 136, 137, 166, 175, 188, 189, 198, 199 Ma Dejiang, 80, 81 Maestrini, Nicholas, 4, 9 magistrates, 13, 40, 51, 93, 248 Maguire, Theophane, 4, 9 Maison Chabanel, 122 malnutrition, 160 Manchu soldiers. See imperial; soldiers Mangin, Léon, 101, 103, 105 Maoist era, 3, 9, 26, 31, 42, 45, 49, 57, 59, 72, 78, 89, 98, 103–105, 108, 120, 121, 123, 130, 150, 157, 158, 160, 163, 164, 166, 169, 174, 176, 177, 216, 217, 227, 239

Mao Zedong, 25, 76, 84, 95, 106, 131, 139, 150, 151, 155, 158, 163, 196, 204, 225, 226, 238 mappus mundi, 53 Marian pilgrimage, 39 shrine, 164, 166, 187 martyrdom, 4, 11, 14, 15, 44, 72, 74, 90, 101, 102, 105, 106, 136, 142, 144, 148, 149, 159, 160, 172–174, 230, 237, 246, 249 martyrs, 11–13, 15, 16, 19, 29, 35, 37–41, 49, 70–72, 75, 76, 78, 90, 93, 94, 101–103, 105, 141, 142, 147, 148, 152, 157, 171, 174, 180, 230, 246 Marxist thought, 34 Marx, Karl, 49, 88, 89, 94, 201 Ma Songyuan, 206 Mass, 15, 20–29, 31, 32, 36, 40, 42, 45, 46, 49, 58–60, 63, 75, 78, 80–82, 86, 90, 97, 101, 102, 106, 107, 110, 112, 114–120, 125, 126, 128–130, 135, 142, 143, 145, 148, 149, 164, 168–170, 175, 186, 187, 189, 198, 200, 202, 203, 211, 212, 215, 217, 249 1900 massacre, 4, 104 massacre, 4, 15, 40, 42, 93, 102, 103, 105, 108, 137, 142, 171 materialism, 20, 59, 61, 69, 94, 112, 169, 197, 200, 215, 231 Ma Xiangbo, 205–207, 241 Ma Yinglin, Joseph, 48, 81, 87, 88, 113, 170, 218 McCarthy, Charles J., 121, 123, 124, 126–128, 137, 142, 145, 146, 148, 153–155, 204 medicines, the making of, 14 MEP. See Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP) Mindong, 189, 200

INDEX

Ming dynasty, 39, 56, 161 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 130 Missale Romanum, 63 Mongol Khan, 43 Monsterleet, Jean, 150, 160, 237 moral teachings, 19, 20, 37, 98 Mullie, Jozef, 6 N Nanchang, 52, 109 Nantang. See South Church (Nantang) National Assembly of Chinese Catholics, 78 national Church. See aboveground Church National Conference of Catholic Representatives, 89 National Day, 71, 95, 96, 98 nationalism, 71, 91, 96, 98, 99, 110 Nationalist armies, 43 National Seminary, Beijing, 183 Navarro-Valls, Joaquin, 87 Needham, Joseph, 50, 68 Nestorians (Church of the East), 12 new evangelization, 108, 111, 115 North Church (Beitang), 26, 42, 45, 82, 108, 115, 117, 161, 169, 175, 199, 213, 214 nuns, 14, 29, 36, 40, 41, 45, 60, 80, 91–94, 108, 111, 121, 158, 160, 174, 182 O 2008 Olympics, 25, 50, 199, 212 Olympics, 22, 24, 85 one-child policy, 19 Opium Wars, 23, 82, 168 Ordinary Rite, 23 ordination of bishops, 74, 109 ordinations, 35, 87, 112, 113, 135, 171, 217, 220

273

orphanages, 18, 44, 57, 114, 195, 197 Our Lady of Banquan, 39 of China, 16, 21, 36, 39, 43, 75, 135, 164, 172 of Consolation Abbey, 142, 143, 147–149, 155 of Donglü, 164, 165, 172 of Joy Abbey, 149 of Lourdes, Pu Dong, 39, 176 of Sheshan, 16, 135, 176 of Victories, 177

P paranoia, 41 Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP), 29 Paris Peace Conference, 208, 241 Passionists, 4 Patriotic Association. See Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) Patriotic Church. See aboveground Church Paulo, Consonni, 17 Pennington, M. Basil, 43, 67, 156 People’s courts, 140, 141, 143–145 People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 42, 139–143, 145, 147 People’s Republic of China (PRC), 17, 30, 75, 76, 78, 80, 82, 95, 115, 129, 133, 148, 159, 163, 183, 184, 186, 192, 194, 195, 198, 204, 216, 217, 226, 230, 234, 243 Perboyre, Jean-Gabriel, 38, 246–250 persecution, 3, 13, 16, 22, 26, 29, 37, 38, 49, 58, 59, 66, 70–73, 76, 78, 79, 88, 90, 91, 98, 106, 107, 133, 138, 142, 147, 148,

274

INDEX

163, 164, 171–173, 175, 178, 181, 183, 186, 191, 212, 230 Philippines, 126, 127 pilgrimages, 164, 166, 175 Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, 44 pope, loyalty to, 18, 19, 77, 79, 185, 194, 195, 210 Portiuncula Shrine for Mary, 13 Pozzo, Andrea, 11 Presbyterian, 2 prison. See imprisonment propaganda, 16, 96, 114, 120, 172 protests, 95, 168, 181, 184 Public Security Bureau (PSB), 168, 228 public security officers, 89 Q Qianlong, emperor, 23 Qin, Bartholomew, 146 Qing dynasty, 23, 29, 35, 37, 91, 195, 207, 208, 247 Qing Pu Catholic Preparatory School, 176 Qing troops. See imperial; troops Qu Rukui, 52 R Red Guards, 30, 34, 45, 46, 57, 59, 78, 99, 104–108, 161, 162, 214 registered church. See aboveground Church religious freedom, 22, 24, 41, 48, 82, 88, 111, 130, 181, 183 liberty, 87, 114 tolerance, 25, 32, 37, 76, 111 Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB), 18, 48, 57, 95, 200, 227, 228 Renai Catholic Church, 17

Ren, Aloysius, 146 Republican Era, 195, 201, 202, 208 Republic of China, 17, 30, 55, 191. See also Taiwan Requiem Mass, 47, 129, 168, 211 1911 Revolution, 113, 208 Riberi, Antonio, 44, 242 Ricci, Matteo, 3, 5, 9, 10, 23, 43, 50–56, 68, 82, 84, 161, 185 Ricci tomb, 44, 49, 51, 82 rituals, 14, 54, 116, 117, 119, 120 Romanesque Revival, 26 Rome, 3, 11, 22, 30, 32, 35, 39, 41, 46–49, 52, 54, 60, 63, 65, 73, 74, 77–80, 82, 84, 87, 88, 90, 95, 97, 98, 100, 109–111, 129, 132, 133, 136, 173, 174, 179, 182, 187, 189, 191, 193–195, 197, 198, 203, 207, 208, 211, 216, 219, 221, 224, 229, 231, 237 loyalty to, 18, 37, 42, 80, 194, 203 rosary devotions, 21, 58, 112 Ruggieri, Michele, 5 Ruowang, John, 111 rural churches, 86 S saboteurs, 121, 227 sacraments, access to, 108 Sacred Heart of Jesus, 17, 21, 39, 112 Salesian House of Studies, 69, 85 Salesians, 69, 220 Sanjiang church, 168–170 Scheut Fathers, 6, 50, 174 schism, 109 Schmidlin, Josef, 54 Second Vatican Council, 63, 132 seminarians, 12, 14, 29, 162, 170, 171, 249, 250 Shaanxi province, 199 Shandong, 199, 209

INDEX

Shanghai, 2, 3, 8, 21, 35, 44, 61–66, 68, 69, 72, 77, 84–86, 112, 114, 115, 121, 123, 124, 131–133, 136, 137, 150, 152, 157–160, 164, 166, 168, 170, 171, 175–177, 187, 188, 199, 203–206, 211, 227, 233, 237, 239, 241, 243, 251 Shangri-La, 41 Shantou, 109 Shanxi province, 12, 36, 60, 91, 94, 186, 199, 212, 213 Shao Zhumin, Peter, 111, 200 Sheshan Seminary, 35, 115, 137, 176 Shi Enxiang, Cosma, 181, 185 Shi Hongchen, Joseph, 179 Shi Hongzhen, Melchior, 178, 179 Shi, Seraphim, 147 Shunzhi, emperor, 23 siege, Boxer, 15, 26, 43 Sima Qian, 6 Sinicization, 202, 203, 219, 235, 236 Sino -Catholic history, 6, 8, 91 -Missionary history, 6 -Vatican rapprochement, 218 -Vatican relations, 190, 197, 223, 224, 226, 227, 231, 232, 234 -Western, 8, 50, 227, 236, 245, 250 -Western religious exchange, 245 sisters. See nuns Sisters of Saint Joseph, 97 Socialist Youth, 159 Society of Jesus. See Jesuits Society of Righteous Harmony, 92. See also Boxers South Church (Nantang), 22, 23, 161 Spain, 17 State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), 88, 169, 182, 228

275

state persecutions, 90, 173, 175 state-sanctioned. See aboveground Church St. Ignatius Cathedral, 61, 115, 137, 199 St. John Bosco, 69 St. Joseph’s. See East Church St. Marie de Sainte Nathalie, 14 St. Marie Hermine, 13 St. Michael’s Church, 25, 76 St. Peter’s Basilica, 187 strangulation, 246–249 struggle sessions, 143, 146, 147 St. Vincent de Paul, 38, 247 suffering Church, 22, 107, 135, 230 Su Zhimin, James, 185 Syrian, 12 T Taipei, 17, 22 Taiwan, 17, 55, 90, 91, 129–131, 184, 187 Taiyuan, 12, 13, 39, 40, 57, 86, 92 cathedral, 40, 94, 113, 162 massacre, 4, 93 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, 233 Tang dynasty, 5, 9, 12 Tanggu district, 179 Tertullian, 11, 16, 49, 70, 75, 148, 173 testimonies, 92–94, 101, 136, 147–149 Thérèse of Lisieux, 102, 246 three great pillars of Chinese Catholicism, 53 Three Rectifications and One Demolition, 180 Three-Self Movement, 77 Tiananmen, 24, 89, 95, 163, 215, 216 Tianjin, 6, 8, 98, 99, 108, 110, 162, 177–179, 208, 239

276

INDEX

Tianzhu shiyi (The True Meaning of the Lord Heaven), 53, 56 Tibetan monks, 42 Tilanqiao Prison, 77 Tong Hon, John, 190, 194 torture, 31, 33, 34, 37, 38, 43, 46, 76, 107, 142, 160, 174, 194 Trappist Abbey at Yangjiaping, 42, 137, 143, 171 Trappists, 138, 140, 141, 143, 144, 146–149 Treaty of Versailles, 209 Tridentine Rite of Mass, 117 Tseng-Tsiang, Dom Pierre-Célesin Lou. See Lu Zhengxiang (Dom Pierre-Célestin Lou Tseng-Tsiang) U underground Church, 41, 45, 78, 82, 85, 211 United Front Work Department (UFWD), 111, 228, 234, 243 universality, 231 unregistered Church. See underground Church urban centers, 20 V Vatican, 6, 22, 24, 27, 37, 39, 41, 44, 45, 47, 48, 62, 63, 65, 71, 73, 77, 78, 81, 84, 87, 88, 90–92, 94, 95, 100, 109, 111, 113, 115, 117, 129, 130, 132, 134, 166, 170, 173, 174, 176, 178, 179, 181, 182, 185–194, 197–199, 202, 215, 217, 220–228, 230–235, 237, 251 Vatican-China relations. See Sino; -Vatican relations

Vietnam Model, 193 villages, 1, 2, 4, 15, 20, 30, 41, 57, 101, 102, 106, 141 Vincentians. See Lazarists Virgin Mary, 12, 23, 36, 39, 40, 58, 59, 101, 107, 133, 159, 162, 164–166, 172, 203 W Wang, Andrew, 93 Wang Chongyi, 3, 29–32, 45, 46, 76, 150, 158, 160, 163, 193, 218 Wangfujing Church. See East Church Wang Jingshan, 162, 237 Wang Shiwei, 162, 171 Wanli emperor, 50 Wanxian Diocese, 107 Ward Road Jail. See Tilanqiao Prison war expenses, 16 Wenzhou Diocese, 112 West Church, 42, 48, 49, 76, 82, 83, 142, 155, 161, 208 White Lotus Society, 248 woodblock images, 14 worship of idols, 16 Wuchang district, 37, 248, 249 Wuhan, 36–39, 41, 81, 86, 229, 245–250 Wuhan seminary, 249 Wu, John C.H., 8, 191, 224–226 Wuyi village, 102 Wuzong, emperor, 12 X Xavier, Francis, 23 Xianxian. See Cangzhou (Xianxian) Xian Yanxia, 80 Xiao Zejiang, 3, 29, 35 Xi Jinping, 180, 184, 185, 192, 219, 236 Xikai cathedral, 99, 162, 239

INDEX

Xinjiang church, 222 Xin Wenxiang, 182 Xishiku Church. See North Church (Beitang) Xitang, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. See West Church Xizhimen, 28 Xi Zhuzi, 15, 180 Xuanwu district, 50 Xu Guangqi Catholic Research Center, 176 Xu Guangqi, Paul, 53, 187 Xujiahui, 206

Y Yangjiaping, 4, 42, 43, 137, 139, 140, 142–144, 147–149, 155, 216 Yang Tingyun, 53 Yihetuan. See Society of Righteous Harmony Ying Lianzhi, 206–208 Yuan dynasty, 250 Yu Deling (Der Ling), 207 Yu Heping, 186 Yunnan, 80, 81 Yuxian, 14, 40, 92

Z Zen, Joseph, 6, 9, 10, 64–66, 69–75, 84, 85, 88, 102, 107–109, 151, 191, 194, 219–222 Zhalan Cemetery, 50

277

Zhang Boda (Beda Chang), 160, 171, 175, 197, 237 Zhang, Chrysostom, 147 Zhang Guangjun, Peter, 89 Zhang Jiashu, Aloysius, 62 Zhangjiazhuang, 187 Zhang Jingfeng, 86 Zhang Jingqing, 39 Zhang Junhai, 58 Zhang Liang, 178, 239 Zhang, Marcel, 42, 81, 143, 146–149, 155, 156 Zhang, Maria, 141 Zhang Yinlin, Joseph, 182 Zhan Silu, Vincent, 198 Zhaoqing, 53 Zhao Yuanren, 6 Zhao Zhendong, Peter, 149 Zhao Ziyang, 201 Zhejiang province, 180, 181, 236 Zhili province, 101 Zhongxin Bridge Church, 179 Zhou Bangjiu, Peter, 163, 194, 238, 240 Zhou Enlai, 148, 150 Zhou Jishi, Joseph, 77, 198, 201 Zhuang Jianjian, Peter, 220 Zhu De, 139, 148, 216 Zhujiahe village, 101, 103, 105 Zhu, Lucia, 103, 105, 106 Zhu, Mary, 101, 103 Zhuo Xinping, 236 Zhu Shude, 204, 211, 241 Zhu, Simon, 213