Vatican City, Mar 23, 2018 / 05:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal John Tong Hon has voiced support for a proposed deal on the appointment of bishops between the Vatican and China, saying he believes the Chinese government has generally become more tolerant, and an accord would help bring further openness and unity to the Church.
Tong is the Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong, and spoke at a March 22-23 conference titled “Christianity in the Chinese Society: Impact, Interaction and Inculturation” taking place at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University.
Tong is one of two Chinese cardinals, the other being his predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Zen. While Zen has consistently been an outspoken critic of the proposed deal, Hon holds a different opinion.
In an interview with a small number of journalists, one of which was CNA, Hon said opposition to the accord is “unreasonable,” because the deal aims at unity. He called the agreement “far-sighted” and said at times, sacrifice is necessary in order for Catholics to become “members of one family.”
The deal – which would allegedly follow the model of the Vatican’s agreement with Vietnam, allowing the Holy See to pick bishops from a selection of candidates proposed by the government – is rumored to be “imminent.”
In a recent blog post, Cardinal Zen indicated that the agreement could be signed as early as March 23 (tomorrow) or March 27. If the deal is reached, Zen said he would “retire in silence” and would “hide and pray,” but that he would not oppose the pope.
In his interview with journalists, Cardinal Hon said he didn’t want to speculate about when the deal might come, but said he was “optimistic” it would eventually happen.
Below are excerpts of Cardinal Hon’s conversation with journalists:
Q: This conference is addressing the presence of Christianity in China. From your perspective, what is the current situation for Christians there? Some say there is persecution and an increase in restrictions for religions, but others say the situation has improved. What is your take?
I am a Hong Kong citizen. Hong Kong belongs to one country, is a part of China, yet Hong Kong, after 1997, is one country run under two systems, meaning Hong Kong still continues to be a capitalistic administration, and China is under the socialist system for 50 years. So we are doing the same things as before. Regarding China, I am also a foreigner, so that means I’m not an insider. I can offer my impression with a limited knowledge of China…In a general picture I think China has already greatly improved, so sometimes you find this tightening in this part or that part, but China is huge. You cannot use this to describe…If we have a very far-sighted vision about China, I think China is [becoming] more civilized, closer to the outside world. And then I think the general situation, in the present, is better. Those would be my remarks.
Q: So your perception is that China is more open to religion, is more tolerant?
In the future also it should be, not the other way. Because the people can come out from China, now most of the people like to come to Hong Kong or outside of China for a week, so their eyes are opened after seeing the outside world. So they of course have higher expectations. And also the officials, knowing, they are not stupid, they know the expectations of most of the common people, and although on one hand they want to exercise their authority over the common people, but at the same time they have to compromise. So from time to time, sometimes [there’s] a tightening, but other times [there’s] a loosening policy. But in the long run China will be more and wider open, there is no other way. If I were the officials, I would do similar things. So I am optimistic.
Q: In your opening remarks you spoke about the importance of dialogue and communication between Chinese authorities and Christianity. This reminded me of your remarks in February about a deal between the Vatican and China on the appointment of bishops and allowing the Church to be registered in China. You said you were optimistic if it followed the Vietnamese model. Some say it won’t follow this model. Are you still optimistic?
Yes, I’m still optimistic, because I always, this is my belief, whatever is reasonable can last for a long time. Whatever is unreasonable will fade out or has to be changed. You can see from the whole of human history, even the history of China. Even Mao, Mao was so cruel, so strong, but finally…and also the cultural revolution created a lot of chaotic situations in China, but finally those situations have been changed. So there is no other way.
Q: So in this case ‘reasonable’ would be the deal, and ‘unreasonable’ would be against it?
Yes.
Q: A lot has been said in the media about your predecessor, Cardinal Zen, who has spoken out a lot against this deal. What is your opinion about this and what it says about the current dynamics in China?
This is a free world, everybody can express their own opinion. Everyone can use their own mind, their wisdom, to discern. So when you open your eyes and also open your ears, you can hear many, many different voices. So this is a free world. What can you say? We, as persons, we respect everybody as a person. So different opinions, up to your own wisdom to discern. That’s my [opinion], which I received from my teacher, it’s the lesson I learned.
Q: How is Pope Francis received in China? In the West he’s very popular even among non-Catholics. Is it the same in China?
Yes. Generally speaking, he’s loved by Catholics and non-Catholics.
Q: What’s the appeal?
He’s a humble person. The first thing is that he is really humble, and a humble person will be loved by many people. If you are proud you get a lot of enemies. This is also biblical teaching by our Lord Jesus. So we have to be humble. Jesus humbled himself and came down to earth and finally received crucifixion, suffering. So humility is important, that’s one thing. And second, he has a far-sighted vision. He’s not only seeing [now], but how to achieve the reign of God. The reign of God is to make humanity whole, to be one family, and we are all brothers and sisters, the whole world. Also through the negotiations promoted and advocated by the Second Vatican Council…Sometimes we can lose something so we can achieve friendship and set an example for all others and all other people, so finally we become friends, and then eventually we become all members of one family. At that time the reign of God will be implemented on earth…I was trained here 50 years ago at the Urbanianum. At that time the Second Vatican Council was being held, and I witnessed the grand closing ceremony. And right away I was ordained a priest with more than 60 classmates by Pope Paul VI. So that is what we were taught, and we have also what we were taught to believe in. So if you don’t believe that, that it’s only looking for [certain] things, that’s your business, that’s not my faith. And finally, we have to pray for the Church in China.
Q: People have been talking about a deal with China for years, and now it seems that is pretty sure…
I don’t want to make any guess, it’s up to God’s will.
Q: But if it does happen, is there something about Francis’ pontificate or diplomatic style that would allow the deal to happen? Is there something about the way he does diplomacy that would make the deal more likely than in the past?
If there’s any breakthrough, it’s God’s will, I don’t want to make any speculation. I’m not a prophet, I only follow our dogmatic teaching in the Church, and also the teaching of the constitutions issued by the Second Vatican Council. What I have learned in teaching in seminary, we pray for the Church in China, but I don’t want to make any speculations…during the year, almost three years ago, during the year of divine mercy, the Church in China, particularly, during that period, was also very happy to respond to the appeal made by the Holy Father. So it shows that they are very positive about the Holy Father because they follow the instructions given by the Holy Father.
[…]
Pope Francis says “homosexuality is a sin” but is pushing its legalization?
Pope Francis keeps allowing one James Martin to seduce him into these ideas?
Pope Francis and James Martin have a merit to hide who else is involved?
Pope Francis equates buggery with “sexual intercourse outside marriage”?
Pope Francis wants to make this into a “Magisterium” and into acts of piety?
The “conversational tone” of an interview makes up for what really should be taught but isn’t?
Pope Francis says if you do not join in you are Pelagian and/or Jansenist?
Pope Francis calls this clarification? …. when …. James Martin asked for it?
James Martin merits this welcome and specific clarification, but not the four cardinals who authored the dubia?
I think there’s an abiding ambiguity in the Pope’s thinking on the relationship between sin and culpability. According to the Church, my lack of full knowledge or deliberate consent may mitigate or nullify my culpability for an objectively disordered act, but this does not mean that the act is permissible for me even in a qualified or provisional sense, even for the sake of avoiding a greater evil.
Pope Francis suggests just the opposite in his response to the Argentine Bishops’ Letter, which argues I could discern that it is not presently possible for me to avoid sex outside marriage if to do so would lead to a greater sin, though it may become possible in the future with the help of grace. The issue here is not really a lack of full knowledge or deliberate consent. On the contrary, I have deliberated on my options, and have decided that it is necessary for me to consent to sex outside marriage in order to avoid some consequence that I judge to be a greater evil (e.g., subjecting my children to divorce, etc).
This is not the Church’s teaching. It is consequentialism with a smiling face. No matter how difficult my present circumstances may be, I can keep God’s law with the help of His grace. To say otherwise is not Christian mercy, but moral determinism. It is to strip us of agency and dignity, to deny the share Christ gives us in the victory of the Cross.
All this, of course, is old news, but it makes it difficult for me to take the Pope’s much-welcome correction of James Martin at face value. Francis tends to stretch the Church’s teaching on mitigated culpability from something like a distinction between degrees of murder to a distinction between murder and self-defense. If it is sometimes impossible for divorced and remarried couples to avoid sex outside marriage, and if we must treat all sexual sins alike, could it sometimes be impossible for gay couples too? If so, what is the point of re-affirming that homosexual acts are always sins?
“…of course, one must also consider the circumstances, which may decrease or eliminate fault.”
Yes, in individual cases, but from this will James Martin now manufacture the endorsement he needs to proclaim that LGBTQ as a category (!) is exempt from the natural law, the dubia and the Magisterium’s Veritatis Splendor?
What would such an endorsement mean when, instead, the homosexual tendency is triggered or locked in by early sexual abuse, by random sexual experimentation, by the trauma of absentee or abusive fathers, by cultural victimization? Ought the Church to truly affirm the victim persons and call for confronting and healing the entire package of such background abuses–at, say, the “aggregated, compiled and synthesized” Synod on Synodality? Fat chance. But perhaps James Martin will supply Cardinals Hollerich and Radcliffe with the needed wording!
But then there’s also the science–a literature review, plus the lab finding of a few genome “markers” of little explanatory value, and no gay gene:
One recent STUDY in the mix is a review of two hundred peer-reviewed studies on sexual orientation and gender identity. The conclusion: gender identity is not an innate, fixed property of human beings independent of biological sex (Mayer/McHugh, The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society, Ethics and Public Policy Center, No. 50, Fall 2016).
Other GENOME RESEARCH points to some genetic markers—it does not find a gay gene— and concludes that these markers do not account for same-sex behavior. https://news.yahoo.com/no-gay-gene-study-finds-180220669.html
Well to have clarified his remarks, although Pope Francis apparently doesn’t distinguish between sexual sins in the natural order, and those moral injustices that are a form of hostility to the natural order. Such are homosexual sins. Why the difference?
God ordained human sexual behavior exclusive to a man and woman. The sin then offends God as a sin outside marriage, and a sin against natural law. Also, the common opinion of late is that the predilection toward same sex is not sinful described as such ‘attraction’. The error in this while it’s apparently true that some have a deep seated same sex attraction that of itself may not be sinful -similarly, the historical evidence shows homosexuality behavior can be an acquired sexual dysfunction.
Francis clouds this distinction. That leads many to assume a form of liceity in that sodomy is no less grievous than natural sexual activity between a man and woman, adding to the willingness to engage in unnatural sex. As well as the Pontiff’s frequent admonition, this is how God made you, he loves you as you are. Hearing this from a pontiff weakens resistance to homosexuality, often for some encourages it.
Well said! The pope’s comment was rather shocking. As we read in scripture God condemns homosexuality which is an abomination to Him and for the pope to suggest that those who choose to disobey God should be given any consideration is wrong and speaks volume for a person in his position.
I could just imagine all the heads exploding in “America” offices all over the land as they hear Pope Francis saying that homosexuality is a SIN.
“He can’t say that!” they all cried out at once. James Martin swooned and had to be helped to the nearest fainting couch.
“We need to get him to issue a clarification right away” all the world’s Jesuits screamed in unison. “No one can know that homosexuality is sinful in any respect! We must have full papal approval of homosexuality, at least in the public mind!”
And so, Pope Francis did what he was told.
Pope Francis says “of course, one must also consider the circumstances which may decrease or eliminate fault.” The catechism, however, clearly states that homosexual acts “under no circumstances can they be approved.” The catechism makes things clear, the pope’s statement does not. Some could claim that love for a same sex partner eliminates the moral fault of homosexual acts,
Agreed. I posted a rather over-longish comment about this above.
Pax
Rene, this conflated concept of mitigation is the lever used in Amoris Laetitia to neutralize intrinsically evil acts. John Paul II warned not to make mitigation [in Amoris as you correctly note mitigating circumstances] a category, as a classification of moral acts. Grace is what’s absent in Ch 8 Amoris Laetitia, a surreptitious omission. When the Apostle Paul complained of Satan’s thorn in his side [Aquinas considered Paul’s affliction a moral temptation] Our Lord answered him, ‘My grace is sufficient. My power is perfected in weakness’.
Dear, dear Francis,
I stopped listening to anything you say or write a long, long time ago. Issue an encyclical or make pronouncements ex cathedra on a matter of faith and moral and then I’ll listen and obey. But your day to day remarks are not only confusing but you’re forever contradicting yourself.
Absolutely! Thank God that Francis hasn’t made any doctrinal ex cathedra edicts and pray that he doesn’t.
Up against the abyss, Pope Francis?
The Holy Spirit protects the Deposit of Faith.
I am deeply concerned over this pontiff and his comments.
I wish there was a way, outside of prayer, that we can address our concerns in a spirit of filial love and correction to this Holy Father, similar to St Paul’s rebuke of St Peter, or that of an adult son to his elderly father.
An interesting, albeit sad,turn of events. James Martin left his two audiences with Francis feeling encouraged and supported, probably due to his sense that the pontiff was on his side. But this is just another example of Francis doublespeak. Homosexual acts are sin. The church has taught this for centuries. There really is no need for clarification. Martin needs to either repent or be laicized.
I vote for laicization, as repentance seems to be off the table.
Last time I checked (okay, I never did, but still) mixing ammonia and bleach is not a crime, or even a sin as far as I know, but it is still an incredibly stupid thing to do, and carries with it the possibility of very, very scary breathing difficulties, if not death.
.
Maybe sodomy should be looked at that way. Not a crime, but incredibly stupid and harmful on many, many levels. Not something that can ever be approved of and should always and everywhere be discouraged–including in marriage–an institution that is exclusively between and man and woman.
A sound and sensible take on the issue.
These are not equal comparisons as mixing bleach & ammonia are not known from research or millenia of human experience to be a “dysfunctional behavior against Natural Law” – as IS sodomy and all homosexual sexual behaviors. The ramifications of homosexual sexual behaviors are immediately harmful both naturally & eternally to the people involved, and the consequences of harm and destruction from even one encounter can expand like an algae bloom in summer, and from the common on-going behavior (“gay culture”) explode with far-reaching and forever consequences like the radiation from nuclear explosion/melt-down.
A very good analogy there, the mixing of ammonia and bleach. Unfortunately, with sodomy some have apparently to learn the hard way or, worse yet, never do.
As soon as you read “Pope Francis clarifies comments” you know it is safe to stop reading.
You got it!
I get your point and agree in part. However, I’m not sure it’s ever safe. He is rather like the old uncle or grandpa who keeps coming to family reunions and embarrasses (almost) everyone with his inappropriate comments and behavior. It’s egregious stuff, but nobody seems to be able to stop him. So he keeps roiling things up and fouling the air until, finally, he falls asleep in a rocking chair. Then, then we have a moment of peace and sanity.
God said homosexuality is a sin both in the old and new testament LONG before any pope meekly mentioned it. It’s really sad that you all rely on a catechism made up by sinful men that doesn’t correspond exactly to God’s word. The world is watching as the Catholic church crumbles before their very eyes.
The Old and New Testaments were written by sinful men.
Inspired by the Holy Spirit
Still sinful (the men, that is).
Sinful men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so God’s word that the Catholic Church took liberty with and altered it to suit their purpose.
The Pope is implying the realities of voluntary and involuntary homosexuality. The former are sinful and the latter possibly not, as especially when in youth under non-cognitive exploration, a person discovers sexual response though no one taught him nor did one learn it from a source (i.e. ‘it just happened’). If one does not know, then culpability is indeed mitigated. But the one who has already gained full knowledge of disorder (has taken the eternal curriculum of heterosexuality and chastity) and acts out still, ‘will be severely beaten’, in consequence.
Dr/Fr Ripperger has covered this area called ‘involuntary vice’. But someone should write an entire book on this topic, because the tendency of the creature who has already voluntarily or involuntarily wired or configured his body to same-sex attraction (or any other disordered intoxication) preference, searches for every cognitive instance that will legitimize his configuration, to make licit the acting out in the preference. Addicts and compulsives do the same gymnastic of malaprop ‘understanding’ of commentary.
The pope is plying mercy to these vast grey areas, but unawake sinners/the misconfigured accept only what conforms to intoxication preference. Scripture often gets misinterpreted in the same way, in a twilight before facing the fact of disorder.
It is a very complicated area, arriving at actual moral culpability, because inner physical/psychological adolescent maturation often lacks guidance and occurs in total secrecy, and gets ‘locked’ into disordered patterns before cognition, reason or knowledge can undo them.
Conversion is a slow awakening to what got misconfigured, how it should have been configured, and where to get the desire to desist the old and find a home in the new: to change, to be reconfigured: redemption. For many it will take a lifetime of struggle to overcome the Beast who wants to gain the interior permanent upper hand. Which many do not want to make since the misconfiguration is not their fault and because there is deep unfortunate attachment to the intoxication preference.
These are some things the Pope could share with the press, which would have the impossible(!) effect of awakening, remorse, shock, release, amazement, understanding. That’s my prayer. Speak actual truth from the inner world of the sufferer, so he can come to freedom.
Very sad and disappointing that the Holy Father was so quick to clarify his comments in response to the inquiry of Fr. Martin; yet… 4 Cardinals of the Church asked for clarification of the Holy Fathers writings over 6 years ago (the dubia) and these have still not been addressed.
The lackadaisical “clarification” only compounded confusion about what constitutes a sin by persons experiencing same sex attraction. Sexual misbehavior is often a mortal sin, particularly such acts between persons of the same sex. While there are always mitigating circumstances, and only God can judge any particular soul, the Church should always strive to emphasize the “narrow gate” and that obstinate ignorance is not an excuse. Moreover, this would have been a most opportune occasion to strengthen the understanding of what is a God recognized marriage and Holy Matrimony. Instead we received a nuanced response from the Pope that “sex outside marriage” is a sin without soul saving instruction on either. Is there any wonder that Biden and Co Catholics may really believe that same sex “marriage” and funded abortion is supported by the Church?
Pope Francis said the homosexual act is not a crime. Well in some Muslim countries it is a crime.