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Catholic Church in China
Persecution and Confusion
By Joseph M.C. Kung
 On
July 5, 1999, we issued a press release. An underground Roman Catholic
seminarian, Wang Qing, was arrested in May 1999. He was tortured, hung for
three days by his hands with his toes barely touching the ground. He was
severely beaten. He suffered extensive injury. In addition, he was force-fed
with filthy fluid causing serious gastric-intestinal illness and severe
diarrhea. Three days later, he was let go without any medical care.
On May 13,
another underground priest, Father Yan Weiping, was not that "lucky." Father
Yan went to Beijing to offer a secret Mass. He was arrested during the Mass by
the government's security force. Shortly afterwards, he was found dead on a
street in Beijing at eight o'clock on the same evening. He was only 33. As
there was no autopsy performed, the circumstance of Father Yan's death could
not be determined. Many underground Catholics have reached a consensus that
Father Yan was pushed out of a window after he was killed.
On September 13,
we issued another press release. Three priests and one Bishop were arrested.
Bishop Lin Xili was under an arrest warrant for several months before he was
arrested on September 7. He is 81 years of age.
Some of you may
have heard of Cardinal Kung's anniversary celebration two months ago. On July
31 in Stamford, CT, His Eminence Cardinal Kung observed the 50th anniversary of
religious persecutions in China. At the same time, he also celebrated his 98th
birthday, 70th anniversary of priesthood, 50th as a bishop, and 20th as a
Cardinal. One of the priests arrested on August 3 was Father Chu. He also
celebrated Cardinal Kung's birthday in Shanghai by simply treating his
parishioners to a simple noodle dish. In China, noodles symbolize long life.
Upon learning of this noodle celebration, the Chinese Security Bureau indicated
its displeasure to Father Chu. Three days later, he was arrested. He was
released after two days. Then, his living quarters were thoroughly searched and
ransacked. Thirteen days later, on August 16, he was re-arrested. The fact that
he was first arrested only three days after the simple celebration of birthday
noodles led the faithful in the underground Church to believe that the arrest
and his celebration of Cardinal Kung's birthday were closely related. You
cannot even have a simple noodle dish in China.
In China, one of
the most famous Marian shrines was the Shrine of Our Lady of Dong Lu in Hebei
Province. This shrine dated back over a hundred years. Each year, in spite of
the religious persecutions, tens of thousands of pilgrims would visit this
shrine continuously during the month of May.
On April 23,
1995, as witnessed by 30,000 pilgrims and testified by the underground Diocesan
Bishop, a spectacular transformation of the sun, very similar to what happened
in Fatima, took place during a Mass concelebrated by four underground Bishops
and about 110 underground priests. A year later in April or May 1996, 5,000
soldiers, supported by dozens of tanks and helicopters, sealed off this tiny
village called Dong Lu. The soldiers destroyed that shrine. They confiscated
the Statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They arrested the Bishop of this Marian
Shrine, Bishop Su Zhimin, along with his auxiliary Bishop, many of his priests,
and laypersons. Many of them are still in jail or in hiding, or under house
arrest, or under severe surveillance.
Please try to
visualize this: 5,000 soldiers, tanks, helicopters, beatings and arrests —
all against unarmed, defenseless villagers. Doesn't that sound as if it's
Tiananmen Square repeated all over again in a smaller square, in that tiny
village? The only difference is that there were no reporters, and no cameras.
My
friends, while hundreds of millions of Catholics celebrate Christmas, Easter,
and Sunday Masses around the world, there is no public Mass for the underground
Roman Catholic Church across China. It may be a surprise to you that even today
Roman Catholics have no open churches in China because they are illegal, and
underground. A Holy Mass, a prayer service, and even praying over the dying are
all considered subversive activities if done without the government's
permission.
Religious
services for the underground can only be secretly conducted in private homes or
deserted fields. The Chinese government deems these private gatherings of Roman
Catholics as illegal, unauthorized, subversive and punishable by exorbitant
fines, detention, house arrests, jail or labor camp.
Since the
beginning of this religious persecution in China fifty years ago, hundreds of
lay Catholics, priests, nuns, seminarians, novitiates, and Bishops are still in
jail or labor camps because they continue to refuse to renounce our Holy
Father. It happens throughout China, in villages and in major cities, in the
north and in the south.
The Chinese
government has apparently adopted a terrorist policy to prevent religious
celebrations by underground Catholics. This terrorist policy includes, but is
not limited to, savage beatings, heavy fines, detentions, suspension from
schools for children, confiscation of farmland, and suspension of water and
power supply to homes. Any five families found praying together in the
underground Church are now liable to be charged with illegal gathering. Any
three families found gathering together are liable to be fined or have their
water and power supply cut off. These are not isolated incidences of abuse of
power of some local officials. These are the results of the policy of the
Chinese government.
In January 1997,
an internal document of the Chinese government detailing procedures how to
eradicate the underground Catholic Church was smuggled out of China, and was
released to the news media by the Cardinal Kung Foundation.
This document
was very long but, among other declarations, urged the leadership to employ
"resolute, decisive and organized measures ... to eradicate the illegal
activities of the underground Catholic Church." All in black and white.
Religious Freedom
China insists
that it has religious freedom. Yet, the fact that underground Catholics are
treated as criminals strongly suggests otherwise. If the Chinese government
truly advocates religious freedom, then it should demonstrate this intent by
investigating the above-mentioned brutal incidents and punishing those
responsible by law. Inasmuch as such horrific behavior of government officials
is not prosecuted and punished, one must reasonably conclude that these brutal
acts are state-sponsored or tolerated terrorism against religious activities in
China, and that the Chinese government is plainly lying to the international
community regarding its policy of religious freedom and religious rights in
China. I am not the only one talking about this.
On September 5,
the State Department of the United States Government released a list of seven
countries characterized as “particularly severe” violators of
religious freedom. Among them is China.
Who Is Cardinal Kung?
No account of
persecutions in China is complete without a few words about His Eminence
Cardinal Kung.
Cardinal Kung
(Note: This is taken from a speech given at the Bishops Conference, October,
1999. Cardinal Kung died this year, 2000.) was born in Shanghai in 1901. He
is now 98 years of age. In China, he is already 99 — one year older,
because we count our age from the date of our conception. He remains as the
only legitimate Bishop of Shanghai. He is also the spiritual leader of the nine
million underground Roman Catholics in China.
Cardinal Kung
began his seminary studies when he was 19. Ordained a priest at the age of 29,
he was consecrated a Bishop fifty years ago last week on the Feast of Our Lady
of the Rosary, AFTER the Communists had already taken over China. He was 48 at
that time. He was created a Cardinal in Pectore without himself knowing it, in
1979, at the age of 78, when he was serving a life sentence in isolation.
Twelve years later, Cardinal Kung received his Red Hat.
Bishop Kung had
only five years as the Bishop of Shanghai and Apostolic Administrator of two
other dioceses before he was arrested. In just five short years, Bishop Kung
would become one of the most feared enemies of the Chinese Communists — a
man who would command the attention and devotion of the country's three million
Catholics and who would inspire thousands to offer their lives up to God.
In defiance
of the Catholic Patriotic Association, Bishop Kung personally supervised the
Legion of Mary. As a result, many members chose to risk arrest in the name of
their God, in the name of their Church, and in the name of their Bishop.
Hundreds of Legion of Mary members, including many students, were arrested and
sentenced to 10, 15, 20 years or more of hard labor. My own sister, Margaret,
was one of them, serving in hard labor for something over 24 years.
In the midst of
persecutions, Bishop Kung declared 1952 as the Marian Year in Shanghai. During
that year, there was to be uninterrupted 24 hours of daily recitation of the
Rosary in front of Our Lady of Fatima's Statue which toured all the parishes of
Shanghai. The Holy Statue finally arrived at Christ the King Church where a
major arrest of the priests had taken place only a month before. Bishop Kung
visited that church and personally led the Rosary while the armed police looked
on. At the end of the Rosary, leading the congregation, Bishop Kung prayed:
"Holy Mother, we do not ask You for a miracle. We do not beg You to stop the
persecutions. But we beg You to support us who are very weak."
Knowing that he
and his priests would soon be arrested, Bishop Kung trained hundreds of
Catechists to take over his diocese after his arrest. It was through the
efforts and the martyrdom of these Catechists, and other brave faithful,
together with the grace of God, that the Roman Catholic Church in China
survived. Bishop Kung also ordered his dentist to pull out all his teeth and
quit his 2-packs-a-day smoking habit shortly before he was sent to jail so that
the Communists could not use his toothache problem or the agony of withdrawal
symptoms to extract information from him.
In a New Year's
greeting to their Bishop, the Catholic youth in Shanghai said: "Bishop, in
darkness you light up our path. You guide us on our treacherous journey. You
keep up our faith and the traditions of the Church. You are the foundation of
our Church in Shanghai."
On September 8,
1955, Bishop Kung, along with over 200 priests and Church leaders, was arrested
and sentenced five years later to life imprisonment.
The night before
he was brought to trial, the chief prosecutor asked Bishop Kung once again to
denounce the Holy Father and to cooperate with the Communist-created Patriotic
Association's Church. His answer was: "I am a Roman Catholic Bishop. If I
denounce the Holy Father, not only would I not be a Bishop, I would not even be
a Catholic. You can cut off my head, but you can never take away my duties."
Bishop
Kung vanished behind bars for 30 years. The world almost forgot him. In 1985,
he was released from jail to serve another term of 10 years of house arrest
under the custody of those Patriotic Association bishops who betrayed him and
took over his diocese. In an article immediately after his release from jail,
the New York Times said that the ambiguous wording of the Chinese news
agency suggested that the authorities, not the bishop, might have relented.
However, after he served two and one-half years of house arrest, he was
officially released. His charge of being a counterrevolutionary was never
exonerated. I went to China twice in order to escort him out of China to
receive proper medical care in the United States. And he's still here.
When Pope
John Paul II presented Cardinal Kung with his Red Hat in ceremonies on June 29,
1991, at the consistory in the Vatican, Bishop Kung raised himself up from the
wheelchair, threw aside his cane and walked up the steps to kneel at the foot
of the Pontiff. Visibly touched, the Holy Father lifted him up, gave him his
Cardinal's hat, then stood patiently as Cardinal Kung returned to his
wheelchair to the sounds of an unprecedented seven-minute standing ovation.
The
story of Cardinal Kung is the story of a hero and of a faithful shepherd. When
he received his honorary degree from the Sacred Heart University in
Fairfield, CT, Cardinal Kung was characterized as a man who refused to renounce
God and His Church despite dire personal consequences; a man who inspired
millions of his countrymen to follow his example and preserve the Roman
Catholic Church in a Communist country; a man who kept the faith even though
confined in solitary cells for 30 years; a man who became a symbol for world
leaders in their fight for human rights in all countries.
In his
Mission magazine in 1957, Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote: "The West has its
Mindszenty, but the East has its Kung. God is glorified in His saints."
Persecution Increases
The persecution
of Roman Catholics is obviously not ancient history. The persecution continues
and gets worse, at a time when China is making significant economic progress,
and at a time when China is working towards becoming an important member of the
international community. Why? To understand it, we must put these current
events into perspective.
China turned
Communist in 1949. Almost immediately, the new Communist government started
putting pressure on the Catholic Church. By 1953, many Chinese priests and
laypersons were arrested and dying in jail. Examples of these early martyrs
only encouraged and reinforced the Catholic faith and fidelity. Failing to
stamp out the Catholic Church, the Chinese government created, in 1957, its own
church called the "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association".
The objective of
the Communists to create the Patriotic Association is to replace the Roman
Catholic Church and to control the church entirely by the government. In doing
so, they not only underestimated the power of the Holy Spirit, but also
underestimated the power of the blood of the martyrs which is the seed of the
Church. Instead of being destroyed, the population of the Roman Catholic Church
in China increased from about 3 million in the early 1950s to about 9-10
million now.
No matter what
the circumstances are, Roman Catholics cannot accept any other church as a
substitute without abandoning their own faith and status as a Roman Catholic.
These 9 million Roman Catholics in China, therefore, cannot keep their faith
and at the same time follow their government's instruction to reject the Pope's
supreme authority, even at the risk of persecution. By remaining loyal and
obedient to the Pope, and by remaining fully in communion with the Holy Father
and with the Universal Church, the Roman Catholic Church is outlawed in China
and is known as the "unofficial" Church or the underground Church. In his
speech on December 3, 1996, the Holy Father proudly proclaimed the underground
Church as "a precious jewel of the Catholic Church".
As soon as the
government-sponsored Patriotic Association was created in 1957, all properties
of the Roman Catholic Church were confiscated. Later in the 1980s as China
opened up, many of the churches and other properties were transferred —
not to the original owner, the Roman Catholic Church, but to the
government-sponsored Patriotic Association. As a result, the Roman Catholic
Church remains penniless, and without churches.
Many of you have
been in China. Many of you may have been to the Cathedral in Shanghai, the
Cathedral in Beijing, and other churches elsewhere. However, what you may not
have realized was that you were not in a Roman Catholic church. You were in a
church belonging to the Patriotic Association. These churches look Catholic.
The vestments are the same, so are the prayers and the hymns. But they are not
Catholic. Why? Let me explain.
The most
important article in the constitution of the Patriotic Association is its
autonomy from the Pope. It does not recognize the supreme administrative,
legislative, and judicial authority of the Pope. Theology 101 teaches us that
no one can possibly claim communion with the Pope while simultaneously denying
the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff. Therefore, the Patriotic
Association is NOT in communion with the Pope. Communion with the Pope is a
basic Catholic doctrine, not a discipline.
During the World
Youth Day celebrated in Manila in January 1995, the Pope stated very clearly:
“A Catholic who wishes to remain as such and to be recognized as such
cannot reject the principle of communion with the successor of
Peter.”
Without such
communion, the Patriotic Association could not possibly be a Roman Catholic
institution. Without such communion, the Patriotic Association could not
possibly be the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. In his speech on
December 3, 1996, our Holy Father apparently referred to the Patriotic
Association as "a church which does not respond either to the will of the Lord
Jesus, nor to the Catholic faith."
In addition, the
teaching of the Patriotic Association directly violates the teaching of the
Catholic Church. For an example, in its pastoral letter on the dignity and
responsibility of women, the bishops of the Patriotic Association openly
advised women to implement "China's platform for the development of
women." This platform includes birth control, sterilization, a one family -
one child policy whereby women who are pregnant after having one child are
forced by the Chinese government to abort their unborn babies, the second
child. Such is the platform that the Patriotic Association bishops support in
their own pastoral letter.
The bishops of
the Patriotic Association are not appointed by the Holy See. They are appointed
by the Chinese government and are consecrated without the approval of the Holy
See. They are illegitimate. They could also be illicit if the bishops
consecrating them are themselves illicit. Before assuming office, the new
Patriotic Association bishop swears to observe its Constitution. As I mentioned
before, their constitution contains a section on autonomy from the Holy See.
During the consecration of the Patriotic Association bishops, communion with
the Roman Pontiff is not even mentioned. Instead, they take an oath to uphold
the principle of an autonomous church and to cut off all control from the Pope.
However, the Patriotic Association calls themselves "Catholic". Patriotic
Association members introduce themselves as Catholic priests or Catholic
bishops, without disclosing that they are members of the Patriotic Association,
and without disclosing that they have no ties to the Vatican.
This deceptive
terminology produced predictable results. Since then, numerous articles have
appeared in the media, including our own diocesan newspapers, Catholic
magazines, and Catholic radio about the "Catholic Church in China". These
articles were, in fact, describing the Patriotic Association Church. Numerous
tours to China have been organized by Roman Catholic institutions such as China
Bureau headed by a Maryknoll nun. These tours were to visit the churches and
seminaries of the "Catholic Church", but in fact they visited the Patriotic
Association's facilities without even mentioning this fact. Many conferences
have been sponsored by Roman Catholic institutions ostensibly for the "Catholic
Church in China", but in effect are for the Patriotic Association's church.
Along the way, the loyal underground Catholic Church and its persecutions by
the Chinese Government were almost never mentioned. As a result, these
articles, these tours and these seminars have badly deceived the public.
In the
meantime, Patriotic Association priests and bishops, masquerading as bona fide
Catholic clerics, traveled around the world and solicited donations.
Misinformed Catholic institutions, many of them could indeed be
well-intentioned, donated millions and millions to the Patriotic Association
while the underground loyal Catholics were left with almost nothing. On the
contrary, the loyal Bishops are not allowed to travel outside China to tell the
world their plight. Even in China, their expression is prohibited. This is why
the Cardinal Kung Foundation is here to tell the world the plight of the
underground Church.
In order to
receive those millions of dollars in donations from Roman Catholic
institutions, the Patriotic Association's bishops must convince their overseas
benefactors of their fidelity to the Roman Catholic Church. To do so, the
Patriotic Association bishops, while overseas, never fail to publicly proclaim
their "loyalty" to the Pope "in their hearts". However, these bishops are also
officers of the Patriotic Association, and as officers they have the
fundamental duty to defend the current constitution of these two organizations.
The most important and basic article of these two constitutions which the
Patriotic Association bishops vigorously defend is the autonomy of the
Patriotic Association from the Pope.
In the Universal
Church, according to section 678 of the Canon Law, all religious organizations
working in a diocese must receive the approval from the Ordinary of that
diocese. However, many missionaries, in recent years, returned to China and
started various charitable projects. These foreign missionaries do not seek
permission for their projects from the underground loyal Bishops who were
appointed by the Holy Father. They do not work with the loyal Church. Instead,
they work with the Communists' Patriotic Association.
A recent example
is the opening of a new retreat center in Shanghai by the Patriotic Association
on April 15 last year. This center has three stories with 51 rooms
accommodating 102 persons. It costs U.S. $1.2 million. About one-third of its
cost was donated by the Jesuits. The balance of approximately $800,000 was
contributed by other foreign missionaries. in accordance with section 678 of
the Canon Law, the Jesuits and other foreign missionaries should seek
permission to build this retreat house from Ignatius Cardinal Kung who is the
only legitimate Bishop of Shanghai, but they did not. Instead, they sought
permission of the Patriotic Association's bishop of Shanghai. This project has
to be viewed by the Patriotic Association Church as another sign of approval
from the Free World.
It is very sad
to note that the Roman Catholic missionaries of the Free World ignore their
own brother bishops. Can you imagine some religious order carrying out
an unauthorized project in a diocese of the Free World? It won't happen. If
this unauthorized ministry could not happen in the Free World, why should it
occur in China? Why then the double standards? Because, to these missionaries,
approval of the Communist government appears to be more important than the
approval of the Ordinary of the diocese. Because, to these missionaries,
success of these so-called social projects appears to be more important than
upholding a basic doctrine of faith. Because, to these missionaries, success of
these projects appears to be more important than obeying Canon Law.
These foreign
missionaries appear to be so misguided, and appear to be so naively overzealous
in their search for "unity", and "reconciliation" with the Patriotic
Association that they appear to have disregarded the fundamental Catholic dogma
of "in communion with the Pope". To search for a "justification", it appears
that these foreign missionaries regard any private indication of fidelity from
a Patriotic Association clergy, no matter how dubious that indication is, as an
"acceptable" proof of conversion, although our Holy Father demanded the
strictest observance on communion with the successor of Peter in spite of the
difficult political situation in China.
The Pope in his
message to China on December 3, 1996, said: “The Bishop must be the
first witness of the faith which he professes and preaches, to the point of
'shedding his blood' as the apostles did and as so many other Pastors have done
down the centuries, in many nations and also in China.”
It is very sad
to note that the invalid church called the Patriotic Association has been
embraced by so many Roman Catholic religious and institutions at the expense of
the blood of their own brothers and sisters in the underground Church.
Therefore,
when you receive requests from these organizations for donations to support
their projects in the "Chinese Catholic Church", please determine whether these
projects are for the Patriotic Association Church or for the loyal Church.
Then, you will have to make a decision which church you wish to support.
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