Each generation must fight the battle anew. After watching the Berlin Wall fall in 1989, it seemed like Communism was on its heels. Today, it continues to spread and has become more assertive through China’s economic growth. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) knows how resistance began in Catholic Poland under the moral leadership of Pope St. John Paul II, which inspired the rise of the Solidarity Movement, and has strengthened its grip on the Church there, unfortunately with the Vatican’s acquiescence.
The CCP imposes a program of Sinicization on religious groups, ostensibly seeking to bring them into conformity with Chinese culture, though in reality, forcing them to conform to Communist ideology. The idea of Sinicization is not problematic per se, as it can become an expression of legitimate inculturation, the process through which the Gospel penetrates culture, purifying and enlivening it by drawing forth its best fruit. Matteo Ricci and his fellow missionaries engaged in this work in the 17th century, seeking to express the Christian faith using Chinese culture, though their legacy began to fade in 1704 with the Rites Controversy that banned the important practice of honoring ancestors.
Missionaries returned in the 19th century, which led to a new wave of converts and persecution, though the flock always remained a small minority. Nonetheless, significant conversions did occur, such as Lu Zhengxiang, a Chinese diplomat who briefly served as Premier of the newly founded Republic of China in 1912.
He became Catholic while serving his country’s embassy in Moscow, where his mentor encouraged him to study the source of Europe’s spiritual strength, looking to her oldest Church and, even within it, her oldest religious order. He married the daughter of a Belgian diplomat and spent much time in Western Europe, including protesting the peace terms of World War I, which harmed China, where he eventually settled. After his wife’s death, he became a Benedictine monk at St. Andrew’s Abbey in Belgium.
Zhengxiang’s great work, Ways of Confucius and of Christ, recently reprinted in a new edition from Ignatius Press, teaches us how genuine Sinicization, following in the footsteps of Ricci, could occur. He continued to uphold the principles of the natural law he found within Confucianism, which he perceived as the providential preparation for his faith, akin both to the Old Testament prophets and the Greek philosophers:
I am a Confucianist because that moral philosophy, in which I was brought up, profoundly penetrates the nature of man and traces his line of conduct toward his Creator, toward his parents, and toward his fellows, individuals, and society. I am a Christian and a Catholic because Holy Church, prepared from the beginning of mankind, founded by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, divinely enlightens and sustains the soul of man and gives the conclusive response to all our highest thoughts, to all our best desires, to all our aspirations, to all our needs. (100-101)
Getting more specific, he noted that “filial piety,” which stands at the heart of Confucius’s teaching, finds its perfect fulfillment in Jesus Christ. “Redemption is the great meeting-place of the ways, the unique point where the filial piety of children and of men is opened upon a divine filial piety that Jesus Christ has shown us, to which he gives us the right, and which reunites the human creature with our Father who is in Heaven” (152).
Zhengxiang truly believed that the Catholic faith could introduce into Chinese culture a new spiritual vigor, reinforced by Benedictine monasticism structured, as it is, around familial relations under an abbot, strengthening the connection to Chinese filial piety.
The CCP, however, adamantly opposes genuine Sinicization, seeking its own destructive version infused with atheistic ideology. Steven Mosher, who has dedicated his life to fighting murderous population campaigns, has described the singularly destructive power of the CCP in his new book, The Devil and Communist China: From Mao down to Xi (TAN Books, 2024). He describes in great detail how Mao overthrew the Republic of China and tightened his totalitarian grip on the country, becoming the deadliest man in all of human history. It was Mao who insisted that religious groups in China fall under government control, leading to the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association meant to govern the Catholic Church there. Though the underground Church valiantly resisted for many decades, the Vatican has now insisted on reintegration as part of the Vatican-China deal with the CCP.
The Communist version of Sinicization, Mosher tells us, “means replacing the worship of God with the worship of the CCP and its ‘core leader,’ Xi Jinping” (242). 2017 marked a turning point in a new religious crackdown, with Xi “insisting that the party ‘exercise overall leadership over all areas of endeavor in every part of the country” (227). Practically speaking, “according to a priest of the underground church, the new rules state that ‘all religious sites must be registered, no religious activities can be held beyond registered venues, non-registered clergymen are forbidden to host religious liturgies, and that minors and party members are forbidden from entering churches’” (Ibid., quoting UCA News). The CCP has insisted that it is the only legitimate cultural force in China to which all others must conform.
The CCP is a deadly virus that has killed at least 65 million people, has forced the abortion of many more children, continues to oppress minorities, especially Uygur Muslims, placing them in prison camps, illegally harvests organs from political prisoners, and currently holds Catholic bishops and priests under arrest for failing to conform to its ideology and control.
There is no genuine future for the Chinese people and their great cultural legacy under this inhuman and godless regime. China needs a genuine engagement with Christianity more than ever, starved as it is for spiritual vitality and a new direction. Despite this current persecution, hope remains for the Church, inspired by the first fruits of the faith, including a long list of martyrs and brilliant public figures, like Zhengxiang, who prophetically point to a future blossoming of the faith in the great Chinese civilization.
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The moral question for Cathoĺics where the Church seeks to enter into relationships with governments is this: “Is the government under question one that is founded on and that promotes the Good for the people it governs.” So, in the case of China, is it unmistakable that the Chinese government seeks only the Good for its people. If it does not, agreements with it are inimical to what it means to be a follower of Christ.
I’m not sure if you’re being facetious or not.
According to reports I’ve read, certain groups have been/are targeted for organ extraction, on an involuntary basis. (one example)
knowall, I was being very direct about the criterion I offered regarding Church contracts with government. And, in the case of China, the Church has no business entering into deals with killer regimes.
Sexual and social libertines have little interest in discrediting Christianity. They’re far more interested in refashioning it—in claiming Christ, and his vicar, as their supporters. The secularist social agenda is more palatable to impressionable young people if it complements, rather than competes with, the residual Christianity of their families. The enemy has no interest in eradicating Christianity if he can sublimate it to his own purposes.
The greatest trick of the devil isn’t convincing the world he doesn’t exist—it’s convincing the world that Jesus Christ is the champion of his causes.
The greatest trick of the devil is convincing the world that Jesus Christ is the champion of his causes. Exactly.
This is why nothing can justify the recent actions of Mons Vigano and Lefebve, and it is always wrong to follow them into rebellion against the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.
GF, the causes of liberalism, modernism, marxism are not of Christ and His Church.
They are of an apostate ape of the Church, squatting the throne of St Peter. When the history is writ, Roncali to Bergoglio and his dreaded successor are Popes during the Great Apostasy. It is their inforunate period of Church History.
Pope John XXIII who opened the Council with this:
“What above all concerns the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine be safeguarded and taught more effectively (…) Therefore, the principle purpose of this Council is not the discussion of this or that doctrinal theme . . . a Council is not required for that . . .(but) this certain and immutable doctrine, which is to be faithfully respected, needs to be explored and presented in a way which responds to the needs of our time” (Opening Address, 1962).
As St. Augustine also said: “We can say things differently, but we can’t say different things.”
Praxis of modernism, with the disjunct between declarations and actions – which is Freemasonic and not Catholic- begins there. Roncali had refused to publish the third secret and made a pact with communist devil to exchange zero Condamnation of Marxism in echange for a couple of delegates.
We read: “Missionaries returned in the 19th century, which led to a new wave of converts and persecution, though the flock always remained a small minority” and about the Catholic “Zhengxiang, a Chinese diplomat who briefly served as Premier of the newly founded Republic of China in 1912.”
The 19th Century also brought an indigenous and bizarre variant of Sinicization, which also bears some resemblance to the current CCP.
Intent on upending the fading Manchu Dynasty centered in Beijing, Hung Hsui-ch’uan led the unsuccessful Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864: T’ai-p’ing t’ien-kuo: the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace). The insurrection began in central China and is credited with the deaths of between 12 and 20 million Chinese (warfare, broken dikes and flooding, chaos and starvation). A big number as under Chairman Mao (or Stalin or Hitler), but still far short of 65 million.
Unlike today, instead of adapting the anti-Christian Karl Marx, Hung adapted the message of the Protestant missionary Issachar J. Roberts who then was prohibited from working with Hung’s troops. Reportedly, the troops were baptized with a fire hose, which sounds a little like Chinese Christians today being flooded with Communist propaganda and spiritual starvation. And, again compared to the current regime, while not thinking the state to be God, Hung reported a vision that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. (One of his unruly generals later claimed to be the Holy Spirit.)
We hear from the Vatican, who recently renewed the Provisional Agreement, that to be in step with Chinese culture, Christian inculturation in China requires “the long view.” Indeed. Too bad that the head honcho in China is more in step with imported Karl Marx than with Confucius and long-term Chinese culture.
The Chinese «biretta» and inculturation.
https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2018/08/the-chinese-sacrificial-hat-and.html#disqus_thread
Having offered Mass in missionary settings in Africa and our Southwest personal experience was favorable regarding inculturation of Native American and African cultures. Drumming was typical to both, liturgical songs quite beautiful particularly Africa. Franciscans in NM and AZ were careful to employ an understanding to the people of Catholicity evident in liturgical forms. Art and music. Similarly, the Missionaries of Africa, Holy Ghost Fathers [Spiritans] engaged in codesigned liturgy that was fully Catholic though visually, audibly specific to the culture.
Confucianism differs in that we’re addressing a cultural quasi religious philosophy that doesn’t entirely comply with Christianity both doctrinally and culturally. Dom Pierre-Célestin Lu OSB is essentially a transition from Confucianism to Catholicism. Similarly, we may envision myriad transitions from myriad thought patterns inalienable and non transferable to Christology. Missionary Matteo Ricci broke ground in incorporating Chinese cultural peculiarities, nevertheless the Church perceived a need to set limits. The reason is complex but true.
With the acceptance of Christianity there’s a requirement to adopt those cultural habits that are exclusive to and consistent with Christ discipleship. That includes thought at its deepest level, comportment in its manifest level. We must be able to experience an inculturated liturgy to immediately apprehend that it is Christ oriented and not pagan.
Thank you for the article.
To fully capture Christianity in his image, Xi could build a massive LA like Cathedral with slave labor from underground Church dissenters. This monument would provide a fitting stage for Xi to gather the relics of the Apostles to surround his sarcophagus like Constantine planned in Constantinople. This reliquary would highlight the renaming of Beijing to be the new religious world Capital: BeiXing!
Deacon, occupied Rome – in the name of V2 – asked Catholic States to change their constitutions, Cancel-Culturing the reign of Christ the King. New “Rome” ordered religious anarchy to replace Catholic States. No State which follows this Freemasonic V2 principle is acting for the good of its people.