I offer a few more reflections about the proposed agreement which the Vatican has announced it has negotiated with Communist China.
The Holy See originally proposed that China follow the terms of an agreement it had reached with the Vietnamese government over the appointment of Bishops. Under its terms, the Vatican and the Vietnamese government establish a turnus (a list) of Episcopal candidates. The Pope chooses someone from the list who, after Hanoi ratifies the choice, is consecrated as a Bishop. Such a model clearly preserves Papal authority.
The Chinese government rejected such a proposal.
Instead, the Chinese have insisted upon having total discretion over the choice of the individual who will be presented to the Pope as the Episcopal candidate. The Pope will then approve or reject that candidate. If the Pope reject’s the government’s choice, the Chinese Communist Patry will nominate another. And on, and on, until the Pope approves.
But the Communist Party has warned that the Pope’s “veto power,”is not unlimited.
As a Chinese official stated that the government will not submit endless candidate lists to the Vatican if the Pontiff keeps rejecting its choice. We may have to appoint bishops unapproved by the pontiff after a set number of rounds of negotiations. Such bishops may not be legitimate under the Church doctrine, but they can still give Church services to Chinese Catholics.”
In other words, the Pope may veto a candidate or two, but Beijing has made it clear that there is a limit to the number of times a Papal veto can be used. It has also limited the amount of time that the Vatican has to respond once a candidate’s name is submitted.
This means that at the end of the day, it is the Communist authorities, and not Pope Francis, who will have the final say over who becomes a Bishop in the Chinese Catholic Church.
How could this be possible?
The Vatican apparently has made other concessions as well.
Perhaps the most important is that Pope Francis will formally consecrate as Bishops seven men who were made “bishops” by the Communist authorities over the past decade. All of these men have been previously rejected by the Vatican as Bishop candidates for various reasons having to do with personal morality, public actions, or both.
In yet another further concession, the Vatican has promised that the Pope will lift the excommunication of the seven illicit “bishops” of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association even before the new agreement is signed.
But still more incredibly, the Pope will order two Bishops of the underground Church, who have faithfully served for decades under intense persecution, to hand over their Dioceses to Bishops appointed by the Communist authorities. Shantou Bishop Zhuang Jianjian has been ordered to retire, a decision that has caused enormous pain to the local Church, while Mindong Bishop Guo Xijin has been told that he will be made an “auxiliary” of the Shantou Diocese he has long headed.
Communist authorities are expected to recognize the “underground” Bishop of Qiqihar, in Heilongjiang province, Bishop Wei Jingyi.
These concessions and the agreement itself take place against the backdrop of the Communist Party engaging in widespread suppression of all religious expression in the country.
The same government which has been churches and burning Bibles is now to suddenly cease and desist simply because it has penned an agreement with the Vatican?
Cardinal Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State has insisted that, since the agreement will be singed by President Xi Jinping himself, will the government then not abide by it?
Is he serious?
A simple review of the history of the Chinese Communist Party reveals that it has signed any number of agreements and treaties, only to viloate them within weeks of the signing. These include the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Sino-British Agreement over Hong Kong, and the World Trade Organization covenants.
Those in the Underground Church, who have suffered so much over the decades, may be in for yet another season of suffering.
Agreements are as binding as the integrity of the persons who enter into them.
On the face of it, the Vatican is either foolish or incredibly naive in inking the terms of this ill-fated accord which is in the words of Cardinal Zen “a betrayal of faithful Catholics who have suffered much for maintaining their loyalty to the Bishop of Rome”.
What thinkest you?
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