Courage in a Time of
Uncertainty
Aristotle famously wrote
that, “Hope is a waking dream.”
Hope, to indeed be hope, must awake; it must be a dream that is made
real. China’s dreams for religious freedom and tolerance have for nearly a
century been slumbering under a strong anesthetic, but recent months have shown
slow but tangible signs of waking. China’s Catholics have embraced the “new
evangelization,” and have decided that, as J R. R. Tolkien once said, “There is
some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”
As I write this column 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:
brainwashing. 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 more often
than they conflict. Despite official exhortations, “above ground” clergy are
more interested in converting non-Christians than in the playing ideological
games with their fellow Catholics. The state continues its old antics, and the
world watches critically as it coerces and controls the Catholic Christians who
desire little more than freedom to love and serve God, as well as love their
country.
But I shall focus my
remarks here on more optimistic news.
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 American Catholics, some of whom it seems are
unaware such encyclicals exist. The Holy Father’s 2005 encyclical, Deus
Caritas Est, has had a weighty
effect on the routine lives of Chinese Catholics, and its opening line, “天主是爱” (God
is love), has inspired a renewal of charity and evangelization 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 long suffering Church. 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 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 Scripture, praying together, and in prolonged
adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. As one Catholic asserted, “耶稣的到来，不仅是贵宾、医生、而且还是家长” (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 over fifty households have
invited God into their homes during this Lent.
Not only is family
Eucharistic adoration becoming popular, 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, wherein adoration of the
Blessed Sacrament is held four days a week, and echoing the sentiments of the
humble Saint Francis, China’s Christians exclaim, “What wonderful majesty! What
stupendous condescension! O sublime humility! That the Lord of the whole
universe, God and the Son of God, should humble Himself like this under the
form of a little bread, for our salvation.” 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 as they say, the
battle cannot be won without the supernatural aid of Christ in the Sacrament
and constant prayer to his Sacred Heart.
China’s Catholics often
remark, “Outsiders already know about our struggles, but do they know about how
God has blessed us? There are victories, too.” Believing in the salutary
results of prayer and adoration, China’s Church trusts that God will help it
survive. Indeed, recent months have proven that God is more than assuring the
Church’s survival, he has also facilitated its growth. Vocations are rising, as
are ordinations, and as the government turns impatiently toward the lure of
fiscal hegemony, more and more young Chinese are turning toward the waters of
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 mother
church of 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 Catholic Orders are officially
banned in Mainland China, forty Shaanxi Catholics joined the Franciscan Third
Order in a ceremony officiated by Father Xia Changzhou, OFM. 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: permit the distinctive sign of our
order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for
the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.”
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 disobedience to the Holy Father, 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.” While some dioceses boast growing numbers of
priests and converts, others like the one under Bishop Ma continue to foster
division and suspicion among the faithful. Before the ordinations one Mainland
blogger appealed to Ma to “repent and avoid making another mistake.” As Emerson
once said, “Obedience alone gives the right to command,” and Bishop Ma has
demonstrated little obedience to the pope he claims to follow.
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 Peoples’
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 Peoples’ 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 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.
My objective in this
month’s column is not to downplay the real conundrums facing religious liberty
in China, but like everyone else who reads 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 experiencing relative freedom and support. In
his play, Les Misérables,
Victor Hugo wrote that, “even the darkest night will end and the sun will
rise.” This, after all, is the meaning of the Paschal mystery; Christ is the
God of hope, and grace, and resurrection. For some reason lies have always been
more popular than the truth; that is, unless the truth appears somehow
unbelievable. Mark Twain once said that, “A lie can travel half way around the
world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” China’s official line on Christian
missionaries has been built more upon lies than truth, and it was refreshing
indeed to see, for the first time, an official exhibit praising the works of
missionaries who came to China in the name of Christ; and it is encouraging to
see the Church, at least for now, awakening a dream of hope.