India’s president praises Church for assistance to the poor

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St. Louis, Mo., Jan 25, 2023 / 14:30 pm (CNA).
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently warned that Japan’s birthrate — one of the lowest in the world — is not sustainable and that the ongoing population decline in the co… […]

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 24, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Part 3 of a three part series examining the situation of the Church in China. Part 1 examined the Church on the mainland, Part 2 examined the situation in Hong Kong.

With negotiations ongoing for an extension of the 2018 Vatican-China deal, the fate of Vatican-Taiwan relations may prove inextricable from the future of the deal – and of the Church in China.

When the 2018 deal was signed, ceding some control over episcopal appointments to the Communist Party, the Holy See stressed that it was a “pastoral” not “political” agreement, aimed at bringing together the underground Church loyal to Rome and the communist-controlled, schismatic Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA). 

But the “pastoral” split among China’s Catholics is rooted in the diplomatic split between Communist China and the Holy See. While the Vatican may insist its goals are purely ecclesiastical, the Chinese government is unlikely to make such a distinction. And with an extension of the deal under discussion, many are now asking if the Holy See is preparing to accept recognizing “one China” as the price of a unified Church.

The Holy See has recognized the government of Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, since 1942, while the Communist People’s Republic of China has had control of the mainland since the conclusion of the Chinese civil war in 1949. While the Church has maintained an embassy in Taiwan since then, it has had no official diplomatic presence on the mainland since 1951, when it was officially expelled – creating the split between the CPCA and the underground Church.

The communist government has always made claim to Taiwan as a rebel province, insisting that there is only one China, and one Chinese government. Isolating Taiwan and curtailing international recognition of it as a sovereign democratic nation was, and remains, a central foreign policy priority.

China succeeded in getting the United Nations to cease recognition of the Taiwanese government in 1971, and since that time the vast majority of member states have severed official ties, often as a condition of increased aid from or trade with China. Taiwan has lost five diplomatic allies since 2016, with developing nations such as El Salvador, Panama, and the Dominican Republic cutting ties under pressure from Beijing.

Although its embassy in Taipei has been led by a chargé d’affairs, not a full ambassador, since 1971, today the Holy See remains the last European government, and the most prominent international body, to recognize Taiwan.

Ever since the 2018 agreement was signed, China and Vatican watchers have waited to see if there would be a further shift in the Vatican’s China diplomacy, and the signs, while subtle, have been there to be seen.

In March 2018, the Vatican-China deal was under negotiations and widely discussed in the media. Taiwan’s Archbishop John Hung Shan-chuan of Taipei voiced his own opinion, saying Taiwan did not anticipate that the Holy See and mainland China would establish diplomatic relations, because to do so requires sharing “common values with each other.”

“The values the Vatican holds are different from those of the Chinese Communist Party. Building ties with the Vatican requires values including freedom and democracy,” he said at the time.

Yet, since then, overt support for these values from Rome has been scant regarding China. The Vatican has not commented on the more than 1 million Uyghurs interned in concentration camps, subject to forced sterilizations, torture, and anti-religious indoctrination. Nor has it spoken publicly on the continued persecution of Christians across the mainland, including the harassment, arrest, and detention of faithful Catholic bishops.

Instead, Cardinal Pietro Parolin has praised Chinese president Xi Jinping’s campaign of “sinicization” of religion and culture in the country, saying it relates to the Catholic concept of inculturation “without confusion and without opposition.”

At the same time, the Chinese government has launched a crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong, first in response to protests against a 2019 law to authorize extradition to the mainland, and more recently following the imposition of sweeping new “national security” measures on the supposedly self-governing territory.

At the beginning of the year, Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, wrote to Pope Francis in response to his message for the 2020 World Day of Peace. The president used her letter to explain the parallels between Chinese attitude to, and actions against Hong Kong and Taiwan.

“I am in complete accord with your statement that walking the path of peace requires us to set aside every act of violence in thought, word and deed, whether against our neighbors or against God’s creation,” Tsai wrote to Francis in January, as she detailed a list of China’s actions that she said constitute “abuses of power” in Hong Kong, the persecution of religious believers on the mainland, and its aggression toward Taiwan.

“The crux of the issue is that China refuses to relinquish its desire to dominate Taiwan. It continues to undermine Taiwan’s democracy, freedom, and human rights with threats of military force and the implementation of disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, and diplomatic maneuvers.”

Yet, as negotiations with the Communist government continue, the diplomatic discourse between the Holy See and Taiwan appears distinctly one-sided. 

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Holy See was the only diplomatic ally of Taiwan which did not make an appeal to allow Taiwan to participate in the World Health Organization’s assembly meetings. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in May that the Vatican would voice its support for Taiwan through other channels.

Earlier this month, the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post quoted a Vatican source saying that the Holy See could even move its embassy from Taiwan to the mainland.

“Taiwan should not be offended if the embassy in Taipei is moved back to its original address in Beijing,” the Vatican source was quoted saying.

While such a move would be seen by many observers as a dramatic diplomatic coup for Beijing, Taiwan’s newly installed Archbishop Thomas An-Zu Chung downplayed the significance of the possibility, telling the Morning Post that the Taiwan mission “should be maintained” even if the official Vatican embassy is moved to Beijing.

Such a move “could happen soon if the mainland Chinese government is more open-minded and receptive towards the Roman Catholic Church,” Chung said, adding that “in reality, the Sino-Vatican agreement has not had an actual impact on Taiwan’s relationship with the Vatican.”

The Vatican has been vocal in its desire to see a unified Catholic Church in China, presumably encompassing the official and underground Churches on the mainland, as well as the for-now independent dioceses of Hong Kong and Taiwan. If the mainland government hopes to press the Holy See into accepting a “one China” policy as a price of a “one Church in China,” the signs suggest it may work.

In 2018, some in Rome might have hoped to see the freedoms of Taiwanese and Hong Kong Catholics protected as it moved towards uniting the Church on the mainland. Yet in the two years since the Vatican-China agreement was signed, the Communist government has made it abundantly clear that they – not Rome – will be the supreme authority over Catholics in the country.

While it remains, in the eyes of many Chinese Catholics, a deeply unpleasant offer, the Holy See is still at the table.

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Pope Francis preaches during a penance service at St. Peter’s Basilica, March 28, 2014. / Lauren Cater/CNA.

Zamboanga City, Philippines, Aug 26, 2021 / 18:00 pm (CNA).

A Philippines bishop has announced 40 days of fasting and penitence as a way to share in the sufferings of others and heal from the spiritual damage of the coronavirus pandemic. Such penitence and self-reflection, he said, will help the faithful “encounter Christ in the fullness of his generosity and love especially amidst this ongoing pandemic crisis.”

“The pandemic has revealed that we are not only vulnerable to this biological threat of COVID-19, but also to the contagion of hopelessness, depression, selfishness, the abuse of power, the lack of transparency and accountability, and the preoccupation to personal privileges to the detriment of those who continuously suffer,” Auxiliary Bishop Moises M. Cuevas of Zamboanga said in an Aug. 24 pastoral letter “Not by Bread Alone.”

Cuevas is serving as the apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Zamboanga, on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao, while the sitting archbishop Romulo de la Cruz recovers from a stroke.

He has declared Forty Days of Fasting and Penitence, to begin Oct. 13 and to end on Nov. 21, Christ the King Sunday. Observing these days would be actions “in solidarity with those who suffer readily the effects of the pandemic,” he said. Such a practice aims “to evoke the fasting and time of preparation of Christ in the wilderness.”

To help prepare the Catholic faithful in the months before these forty days, parishes should hold a catechesis in the months before, he said.

“Parishes shall readily make available the Sacrament of Reconciliation for those who wish to engage in a spiritual and moral renewal in this period,” said the bishop.

“I make an appeal to each of you to receive upon your hearts Christ as the word of life, provider and shepherd of us all,” he said. “It is Christ who remains faithful to us in his truth, compassion, and wisdom amidst this ongoing pandemic crisis in the city and elsewhere.”

Cuevas’ pastoral letter reflected on the coronavirus epidemic in light of Christ’s temptation in the desert, where the devil asked him to turn stones into bread.

“The desert experience has subjected Jesus to an extreme examination of his identity, reducing the trappings of his divinity and exaltedness,” said the bishop. “The pandemic crisis has also subjected us to an examination of the threshold of our charity, whether it would remain consistent or altogether fall apart. Jesus refused to change the stones into bread in the desert, even when tempted to do so, telling the tempter that man cannot indeed live on mere bread alone even amidst one’s desolation.”

“Through this crisis, Jesus shares with us what it means to be hungry, isolated, vulnerable,” the bishop said. “As in Christ’s temptation, the devil too presents attractive alternatives to our Christian mission and purpose: the lure of power, invulnerability, and influence to easily bring our notions of God’s Kingdom upon this mortal world – to save humanity from its self-destructive tendencies by choosing the most convenient and gainful promise of domination over a great many.”

The threat of the COVID-19 epidemic continues to “derail” the normalcy of daily life and puts at risk the most vulnerable, said the bishop.

“As a community we are still traversing on the verge of the unknown and most uncertain, while we precariously hold on to our emotional stability and the assurance that we are not left helpless in these present circumstances,” he said.

Close to 1 million people live in Zamboanga City.

The Philippines has had about 1.9 million reported cases and 32,700 deaths, according to Reuters. New infections reported average about 15,000 per day, and less than 15% of the country’s population has been fully vaccinated.

According to Cuevas, Zamboanga City is “greatly blessed” to have people who live “not by bread alone” but seek “the ‘eternal food’ of selfless service and witnessing to the call of communion and solidarity with those who can be left behind and struggle most amidst this crisis.” He specifically mentioned doctors, nurses, essential workers, volunteers, clergy and men and women religious, as well as parents, elders and family members who seek to stabilize their communities and their households.

“They understood that no one is saved alone,” said the bishop, citing Pope Francis’ December 2020 apostolic letter on St. Joseph, Patris Corde.

He stressed the need for true charity, not a false charity that is “manipulated as an affection or sentiment,” or is not “an authentic encounter or engagement with the other.” This is the kind of false charity that attempts to “live on bread alone.”

“As a Church, we encounter Christ as the life-giving word from the Eternal Father and the Bread that gives life in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist,” said the bishop. “But the encounter must begin with our personal journey in confronting ourselves to what makes us cling to our raw instincts for personal survival and selfish gain.”

“Whenever we refuse to come out of ourselves, comfortable in the cocoons of our own satisfaction and privilege, Christ cannot come to us—and we cannot come to one another,” he added. “Our vicious obsession for self-preservation gives us this illusion of contentment and achievement that effectively cuts us off from the rest of struggling, barely-surviving humanity. Only in our willful and sustained encounter with Jesus can we realize what it means to share our lives and give the best of ourselves for others in a similar manner to His willful self-giving for humankind.”

He called anyone who had sinned against charity and justice to repent and make reparation:

“to those who have obsessively consumed and hoarded bread for themselves, those who have taken more than what they can collect, I say to them: return that which is stolen, remit that which needs accounting, in the name of charity and justice.”

He also sought the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Pillar, saying her first encounter with God’s word “led her to wholeheartedly embrace her vocation as the Mother of the Redeemer and of the redeemed as well.”

“In our personal encounter with Christ in his word, who also shepherds and provides for us during this pandemic, we imitate and honor Mary’s humility and openness to charity and service for others,” he said. He cited Mary’s words from the Gospel of Luke: “Let it be done unto me according to your word.”

[…]