a mysterious ending
During the winter of 1990, Monsignor Fan was
arrested without notice for the fourth time. Two years later, the Ministry
of Public Security sent for the priest Quai Xing Gong. In the course of an
interview, he was made aware that if Monsignor Fan died, his remains should be
removed without causing a stir.
When the news of this strange interview reached
the town, the Catholic faithful seized the spokesman for the Ministry of Public
Security by force and asked him many questions. Above all, they wanted to
know if Monsignor Fan was still alive or if he was seriously ill. His
insistence on clear answers was unsuccessful, so they bolted the doors and took
the keys in an attempt to prevent the agent from returning to his house.
Finally, the agent, very embarrassed,
confirmed the death of Monsignor Fan. As Monsignor Fan's residence had
been demolished after his departure in 1990, the Ministry did not know who to
hand over the remains to. It was decided that they would be transported to
the home of a member of the Underground Church.
At eleven o'clock that night, when the
ambulance arrived with the body of Monsignor Fan, there were already more than
150 faithful waiting. Before the ambulance opened the door, the crowd
asked about the cause, time and place of the bishop's death. Receiving no
clear answer, the crowd prevented the driver from opening the vehicle
door. The struggle went on for hours. At dawn, more than ten police
vehicles arrived amid shouts and exchanges of hostile gestures and
words. Finally, the police told the crowd that if they failed to deliver
the bishop's body that day, they would proceed to cremate it.
Violence broke out. By force of kicks and
pushes, some policemen deposited the body of Monsignor Fan, wrapped in a heavy
plastic bag, at the entrance of the house. Parishioners discovered that
Monsignor Fan's limbs were bound with surgical tape. A town doctor said
that the deceased had been heavily medicated. He found lacerations behind
the ears and around the neck. Bruises were detected on the hips. His
mouth, nose and ears were filled with cotton.
The police arrested several worshipers and
brought them to the station. The next day, more than five hundred faithful
from the underground Church arrived to pay their last homage to the
bishop. The Ministry of Public Security sent four trucks from the armed
forces. Despite this, parishioners from distant cities and towns continued
to arrive to watch over the deceased.
The police did not intervene, but very soon
government vehicles arrived and parked outside the town. Several days
later, the number of visitors surpassed three thousand. The government
declared martial law and no more vehicles were allowed to enter the outskirts
of the town. The deployment of PLA soldiers created an atmosphere of
war. Police and military personnel were posted every ten meters around the
town. All passers-by were subjected to searches and
interrogations. The priests who guarded the body received the order from
the police to proceed quickly to the burial.
On the eve of the scheduled day, another
altercation with the police took place, during which several people were injured
and some were thrown into the pits. All the visitors from outside slept
outdoors, while the villagers helped cook simple meals, all silently waiting
for the outcome of the confrontation with the police.
When the burial could finally take place, the
procession formed by those who followed the body extended for a distance of
more than three kilometers
Rome after Vatican II
Since the Second Vatican Council, the decrees
on ecumenism have been scrupulously applied and bridges established with
dissident communities, not to bring them back to the bosom of the Church and
teach them the truth, but to practice "enriching exchanges", to " cooperate fraternally», finally,
to let die in condemnation souls that perhaps would have been ready to receive
the word of salvation. (From his S. Leo XIII to his S. Pío they condemned
atheistic communism, but since the Second Vatican Council they stopped
condemning communism and, even, modernism entrenched in the Church as always,
not only do I not condemn it, but I I betray the Chinese Catholics by “pacting”somehow
with the Chinese Communist Party giving it powers over these Chinese Catholics
who, with good reason, distrust the current "hierarchs" of
the Church)
When Rome began to act like this with the
bishops of the Chinese Patriotic Church, the Catholics of the underground
Church experienced a bitter feeling of abandonment. The main raison d'être
of the Chinese Underground Church is the rejection of an "episcopal"
schism. To this end, its members suffer persecutions that are difficult
for us to estimate. Many Catholics of the underground Church have not
known the torment of Vatican II, since communications were
interrupted; this has been a blessing to them. In many places, they
remain faithful to the traditional rites and the Latin liturgy. We can
imagine why they were tormented by the vertigo knowing that they were
implicitly rejected, or at least ignored by those to whom they have professed
allegiance at the cost of blood and torture.
In the year 2000, Bishop Jin, Bishop of the
Patriotic Church in Shanghai, was tacitly recognized by Rome. A cry of
anguish arose from the Kung Foundation in the United States, a foundation whose
aim is to champion the cause of the Christians of the Chinese Underground
Church. On March 28 of the same year, those in charge of the foundation
wrote a letter to various members of the Roman Curia. This letter begins
like this:
«The leaders and many of the members of
the underground Church are people of immense and imperishable faith; they
have suffered heroically for their commitment to Christ. To a large
extent, they adhere to a theology that has changed significantly over their
years of isolation. They know little or nothing about the new theological
perspectives stemming from the Second Vatican Council, as well as the impact
this council has had on the universal Church. Their conviction about the
zero trust that must be had in the current regime condemns them to a
marginalized existence, to the sphere of the day in which they can practice
worship without interference from the State. But, while they wait, they
discover that the "official" church is gaining more and more
recognition and importance. For them, it is particularly humbling to
see that bishops and priests who have apparently compromised their faith are
gaining public prestige in China and receiving increasing international
recognition." "We have written this letter because we are
astounded by all that the Roman Curia has done for the Chinese Catholic
Patriotic Association. What the Vatican has done shows that it favors the
Patriotic Association, but also that it completely ignores the underground
Church that has suffered for fifty years and has testified to its fidelity to
the papacy. The Catholic faithful in China and abroad cannot understand the
behavior of the Vatican. (It is a vile betrayal that, everywhere you look,
they benefit because,
(Tilomas Gahan, In China, Appearances
CanBeDifferent, in The Catholic Church in Modern China (E. Tang & J. -P.
WieSt), Wipf ¿X Stock, 1013, pp. 107 & s.)) This letter was addressed
between others, Jozef Ratzinger, Ángelo Sodano, Jozef Tomko and Giovanni
Batista.)
It is followed by twelve tight pages in which
the principles taught by Pius XII in his various encyclicals are
recalled. The conclusion of the authors of the letter is that the
Patriotic Church is schismatic. Next, a series of
demonstrations of public support from other Roman Catholics who benefited the
Patriotic Church are criticized and they are asked why the underground Church,
faithful to the tradition of the universal Church, has not enjoyed the same
support.
Under the gaze of Our
Lady of China
In the year 1900, the faithful of the village
of Donglu implored the protection of Our Lady to defend them from a band of ten
thousand ferocious Boxers (These were an anti-Christian organization that
emerged in the year 1900 that martyred 6,000 Christians among Chinese and
foreign missionaries and were under the orders of Empress Cixi.) who attacked
the town. It is said that the boxers were terrified when they saw a
splendid lady hovering in the air. To one side of her was a powerful
knight, perhaps Saint Michael the Archangel, who signaled for them to leave
her.
After the miracle, the Catholics built an
imposing church dedicated to Our Lady Help of Christians. In 1924, the
first synod of Chinese bishops proclaimed Our Lady of Donglu as the
"Empress of China" or "Queen of China." She is more
commonly called "Our Lady of China" and "Our Lady of She
Shan".
Every year, especially around May 24, the
feast of Mary Help of Christians, thousands of faithful from all corners of the
country converge on the sanctuary.
In 1941, the shrine was destroyed during
the war against Japan. In 1992, Catholics from the Underground Church
dared to rebuild it after a three-year fundraiser.
On May 23, 1995, when the assembled crowd
reached fifty thousand people, the communist government became
concerned. They deployed public security forces to block the entrances to
the town and to force the pilgrims to leave. In April and May 1996, up to
5,000 soldiers were mobilized, as well as some thirty armored vehicles and some
helicopters, all with the aim of isolating the town.
Still today, during the annual pilgrimage,
Catholics are not allowed to come by car. However, they frustrate the
efforts of the "law enforcement" by reaching the shrine on foot (On
the maps, the name of the village appears as "Donglvxiang". But a
local agency has replied that "given the delicate situation of religion in
China", the indications are very scarce. The GPS coordinates of the
sanctuary are: 38.684176,115.5617143.)
The decline of the
Chinese Patriotic Church
The intentions of loyalty and obedience to
Rome of the first authors of the Chinese consecrations, as we have seen, were
sincere. However, it happened that these prelates, or at least their
successors, little by little transgressed other laws of the Church: many
priests have married and soon a very servile attitude was adopted towards the
government.
Yet they were warned from the start that they
were "paving the way for a deplorable schism."
After Paul VI and his successors and some
canonists have tried to clear the name of the Chinese Patriotic Church, using,
after the fact, the teachings of Vatican II and the new code of Canon Law to
excuse Chinese consecrations. But these attempts do nothing but fuel the
problem of the underground Church which finds itself rejected by those to whom
they have wanted to profess allegiance.
By trying to amalgamate the members of the
underground Church with those of the Patriotic Church, without taking into
account the reality on which the Roman Church is founded, they lock Catholic
China into an insoluble problem. (See on this subject: André Athenoux, Le
Chriíl crucifié au pays de Mao, Alsatia, 1968, pp. 88 & 89. «Naturally, it
is not excluded that some may have acted out of opportunism or even ambition,
but it is necessary to have evidence of We know very well that they are
irreproachable people of some clergy in particular. Ecclesiastics may also have
feared that their refusal would have worse consequences for the Church of God,
for example, that their place would be taken by completely unworthy people.
[... ]
» You have to put yourself in the place of the
Church in communist China. The ecclesiastical personalities are under the
strict and severe surveillance of the State and cannot maintain any link with
the Holy See. Therefore, they cannot but abide by the decisions of their
own conscience and, for the moment, there seems to be no other escape for them»
(My Vision of the Patriotic Association, in The Catholic Church in Modern China
(E. Tang&J.- P. Wiest), Wipfdr Stock, 2013.)
CONCLUSION
There remain many obscure questions to be
elucidated about the history of the Chinese underground Church, especially
about what took place after the Cultural Revolution (1979). There are few
books on the subject: most are published in Hong Kong or the United
States. Some contemporary historians and journalists have wanted to answer
some of our questions, but the facts do not always add up.
This silence and this lack of clarity come to
a large extent from the fact that the underground Church still exists and is
still suffering from persecution. Chinese Catholics cannot afford to make
public facts that endanger the lives of their pastors. Added to this is
the fact that the facts reported in the official newspapers, and even in
foreign newspapers, do not deserve great credit: the Party uses everything,
including the truth, to achieve its goals.
Therefore, this work has something
unfinished. Do not bring him down, we can summarize some points,
especially the following:
1. Good intentions are not enough: there are
acts that, from the outset, seem excusable, but that end in schism because they
entail in themselves an infraction, to laws that are the sublime and mysterious
expression of the very structure of the Church.
2nd The conception of what is the unity of the
Church and of what things pertain to it has completely changed since Vatican II
3o There are still a large number of souls
oppressed by a communist government and helpless by a religious authority that
denies them. These souls believe and pray, no doubt also for us, waiting
for us to offer God a prayer for them as well.
END OF THE SUBJECT: THE PERSECUTION OF THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH IN CHINA
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