Trappist monks who were taken on a death march by communist troops in 1947 under the command of General Zhu De. (Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)
Posted on 03/11/2018 5:38:00 PM PDT by marshmallow
Chinese Catholics—“above” and “underground”—view themselves as part of “one suffering Catholic Church.” Will the Vatican’s present negotiations with China help or hinder those struggling to practice the Faith under a communist government?
Not since the Boxer Uprising in 1900 has world media given as much attention to Christians in China as it has in recent weeks. One can barely keep up with the deluge of reports and articles, not to mention numerous works of punditry and commentary, attempting to explain the Vatican’s recent negotiations with China’s government. It brings to mind a warning from Marshall McLuhan, who once wrote: “All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.” That is to say that media accounts, however necessary, are not always reliable sources of information, especially when they are laden with rumors and speculation. Only those who are in the private meetings in Rome with Pope Francis and his followers are entirely privy to what, precisely, is being discussed between the Holy See and China’s authorities.
But what is certain is that negotiations are indeed underway, and that leaders of the Catholic Church are negotiating with a government that is communist and a state that has openly professed its aim to eradicate religious faith, having time and again persecuted Christians. Anyone who believes that China’s communist party has changed its attitudes and behaviors toward Christianity should pay closer attention to what has transpired over the past several months.
Now is an appropriate time to provide some basic historical information about the Church in China, and to provide some remarks on the present Sino-Vatican negotiations between Beijing and the Holy........
Trappist monks who were taken on a death march by communist troops in 1947 under the command of General Zhu De. (Anthony E. Clark Private Collection)
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicworldreport.com ...
1957: The People’s Republic of China establishes the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) along similar contours of the Protestant-founded TSPM. In response, Pope Pius XII (1876-1958) issued his encyclical, Ad Apostolorum Principis, on July 29, 1958, in which he condemned the activities of the CCPA and declared bishops who participated in consecrating new bishops selected by the CCPA to be excommunicated.
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