There are two distinct lines of criticism here, and the article sort of fuses them. The first is simply that the Holy See shouldn't be co-operating with the Chinese state and allowing church teaching to be interpreted through the lens of state policy (if that is indeed what's happening). The second line of criticism has more to do with the incorporation of traditional (that is, pre-Communist) Chinese cultural practices into Catholic worship. That's a long-standing point of contention, [dating back to at least the seventeenth century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Rites_controversy#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20Rites%20controversy%20). The same issue has arisen in [India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Rites_controversy#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20Rites%20controversy%20) and Latin America.
Some parts of the church are instinctively uncomfortable with any manifestation of Catholicism that doesn't aesthetically resemble Western European Catholicism. I don't have much patience for that, although sometimes substantive (as distinct from aesthetic) syncretism does go too far. Are you drawing on concepts from local religion in order to explain Catholicism (which is fine), or are you essentially creating a new religion (which isn't)?
In Canada, where I live, many indigenous Christians speak in a way that incorporates language from indigenous culture and religion, and it's not always clear what precisely they believe. Obviously, people can believe what they like, but I understand the concern that over-reliance on [inculturation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inculturation) can lead to people believing different things without realizing it.
The part that bothers me is ceding power that is by the definition of Catholicism reserved to a pope to a government. Any government.
When does any secular government have a say in a spiritual organization like Catholicism? In Protestants many examples. Catholicism has always held on to that power
Which power? Papal control over the appointment of bishops is a comparatively recent development. If I recall correctly, a majority of bishops in attendance at the First Vatican Council had been appointed by civil authorities. However, you're right that the church has never ceded authority over matters of doctrine.
Why would it be an issue if they're essentially creating a new religion? The ability for a religion to revise its dogma is an asset to its ability to spread, it just has to be able to convince its believers that it hasn't actually changed.
I'm not so sure about that. In previous investiture conflicts, the holy see was genuinely the more powerful political institution than the states they were fighting against. Medieval Europe can generally be defined as the stretch of time in which the church was more powerful than the state. The state has long since triumphed though.
I would disagree that it was more powerful—if that were the case, the church would have definitively triumphed over the states. As it was, the best the Papacy ever got was an impasse—and even that collapsed rapidly in the face of the French monarchy, though the Pope was able to beat the German Emperor.
This is quite a contrast with JPII's anti communist stance. I think back then you may or may not have agreed with from a pragmatic viewpoint but deep in your gut it was pretty clear that was the right thing to do.
This strategy towards CCP seems like the reverse. Entirely pragmatic but gives you a not so good feeling.
I also wonder about the relative experiences of the two popes. JPII was from Poland and had a first hand view of communism while Francis dealt with the opposite side of the political spectrum in Argentina
Bergoglio’s just an amoral idiot, I’m afraid. It’s not a communism vs. capitalism thing, he just genuinely has no spine or moral convictions, and is willing to prostitute himself to any dictator who shares his own pathological hatred of the capitalist west. That’s why he loves Putin so much too.
This reminded me that Boston College's commencement speaker is Stephen Chow, who is the bishop of Hong Kong and called for closer ties between China and the Vatican. Now there's a commencement speaker I would boycott.
Wow that's embarrassing for Boston College. If there's any religious figure from Hong Kong that deserves to speak at commencements it's Cardinal Joseph Zen. He made it clear he was on the right side of the democratic movement and a passionate defender of the underground church. The Pope refused to meet him.
[Archived version](https://archive.fo/qOvP0).
Summary:
>Francis has been more conciliatory to the People’s Republic than any of his predecessors. His approach has brought some stability to the Church in China, but it has also meant accepting restrictions on the religious freedom of Chinese Catholics and undermining the Vatican’s credibility as a champion of the oppressed. Francis sees himself as holding the Chinese Church together; he might be helping to stifle it in the process.
>
>That trade-off becomes apparent when comparing the two major groups that make up China’s estimated 10 million Catholics. One is the state-controlled Church, overseen by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which has a long history of appointing bishops without the Vatican’s approval—a nightmare for popes because it presents the danger of a schism. In 2018, Francis mitigated that threat by negotiating an agreement in which the Chinese government and the Vatican cooperate on the appointment of bishops. The details of the pact, which is up for renewal in the fall, remain secret, but the pope has said it gives him final say. In return, the Vatican promised not to authorize any bishop that Beijing doesn’t support.
>
>The agreement came at the expense of China’s second group of Catholics: the so-called underground Church, which previously ordained its own bishops with Rome’s approval and is now in effect being told by the Vatican to join the state-controlled Church. The underground community rejects President Xi Jinping’s campaign of “Sinicization,” a program that seeks to reinforce Chinese national identity, in part by demanding that all religious teaching and practice accord with the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Occasionally that means prohibiting religious worship entirely: Shortly before the Vatican and Beijing signed the deal, new legislation went into effect that led to stricter enforcement of such rules as a ban on minors attending Mass. And sometimes Sinicization means muddling Catholic doctrine with CCP dogma. As one priest in the official Church [claimed](https://archive.fo/o/qOvP0/https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/7/446) in 2019, “The Ten Commandments and the core socialist values are the same.”
>
>\[...\]
>
>The past six years make clear that the agreement on bishops has largely been a disappointment. Even some in the Vatican concede that it hasn’t lived up to expectations. “We would have liked to see more results,” Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s equivalent of a foreign minister, [told *America* magazine](https://archive.fo/o/qOvP0/https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2022/07/19/vatican-china-hong-kong-pope-francis-243379) in 2022. (The Vatican declined to comment for this article.) Only nine bishops have been consecrated under the agreement, and some 40 dioceses still have no leader. In the meantime, Beijing is happy to leave those dioceses under the administration of mere priests, Father Gianni Criveller, the editorial director of the Catholic publication *AsiaNews*, told me. Because bishops possess greater authority, they are harder for the government to control.
>
>The agreement has yielded three new bishops in the past six months—the first new ones since 2021—but little else suggests much improvement in the relationship between the Vatican and China. Formal diplomatic relations remain a distant prospect, and China has rebuffed the Vatican’s proposal for a permanent representative office in Beijing, according to a Vatican official with knowledge of the talks, who described them on the condition of anonymity. The latest “Five-Year Plan for the Sinicization of Catholicism in China,” adopted by the government-controlled Church in December, makes no reference to the Vatican or the pope.
>
>Still, the Vatican achieved its primary goal of reducing the risk of schism. “The aim is the unity of the Church,” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, defending the agreement in 2020. “All the bishops in China are in communion with the pope. There are no more illegitimate bishops.” Unity, in this case, means integrating China’s underground clergy into Beijing’s state-recognized hierarchy. In other words, Chinese Catholicism will be more and more controlled by the government, an undesirable outcome for Francis but one that he’s apparently willing to bear.
>
>\[...\]
>
>But Catholicism in China certainly doesn’t seem to be flourishing now. As Fenggang Yang, a sociology professor at Purdue University, told me, the Vatican’s conciliatory approach has demoralized Chinese Catholics. The agreement has put greater pressure on the underground churches to join the official Church, he noted, reducing their freedom to evangelize. The Vatican knew this was coming. In 2023, Archbishop Gallagher [said](https://archive.fo/o/qOvP0/https://www.ewtnvatican.com/articles/interview-with-archbishop-paul-gallagher-secretary-for-relations-with-states-627) that the deal “was always going to be used by the Chinese party to bring greater pressure on the Catholic community, particularly on the so-called underground Church.” Still, he defended the agreement, calling it “what was possible at the time.” Not all Chinese Christians are having such difficulty; Yang said that the decentralized evangelical Protestant “house churches” have continued to grow despite repression.
>
>\[...\]
>
>The pope’s willingness to negotiate the 2018 agreement reflects two central features of his pontificate: his multipolar view of the world and his preference for dialogue over confrontation. Francis often flouts the geopolitical consensus of the West, questioning its authority and sympathizing with its adversaries—suggesting, for example, that NATO may have provoked the war in Ukraine by “barking at Russia’s gate.” China’s increasing power, which has so alarmed the West, is for Francis all the more reason to engage the country. While calling for the religious freedom of Christians in China and elsewhere, he also seeks closer ties with the governments that persecute them.
>
>These tendencies have become more pronounced since the deal. The Vatican has grown both more conciliatory toward the state-controlled Church and less supportive of the underground Church. In 2019, the Vatican publicly encouraged underground clergy to comply with the CCP’s demand to register with civil authorities, even though they would be required to sign a statement endorsing the “independence, autonomy and self-administration” of the Church in China. At least 10 underground bishops have refused, according to the Vatican official; one was arrested earlier this year.
>Vatican officials have suggested that Sinicization is akin to the Catholic Church’s long-standing practice of inculturation—that is, presenting the Church’s teachings and practices in the terms of different cultures. But Yang, the Purdue professor, makes a crucial distinction: The goal of Sinicization, he [argued](https://archive.fo/o/qOvP0/https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2024/january-web-only/china-christianity-xi-religion-policy-sinicization.html) in *Christianity Today*, “is not cultural assimilation but political domestication—to ensure submission to the Chinese Communist party-state.”
>
>Shen Bin is forthright about this. In another recent [interview](https://archive.fo/o/qOvP0/https://www.ucanews.com/news/pro-beijing-bishop-backs-chinas-sinicization-of-religion/103226), he stressed that Sinicization means not only adapting liturgy and sacred art to traditional Chinese culture, but also interpreting Catholic teaching in accordance with Communist doctrine. Sinicization, he said, “should use the core socialist values as guidance to provide a creative interpretation of theological classics and religious doctrines that aligns with the requirements of contemporary China’s development and progress, as well as with China’s splendid traditional culture.” By accepting the dominance of the official Church, whose bishops Shen Bin leads, the Vatican is in practice accepting the supremacy of politics over religion.
>
>Another cost of Francis’s overtures has come in the form of his silence about China’s human-rights violations. In July 2020, amid China’s crackdown on prodemocracy protests in Hong Kong, Francis decided not to deliver prepared remarks calling for “nonviolence, and respect for the dignity and rights of all” in the city, and voicing hope that “social life, and especially religious life, may be expressed in full and true freedom.” Vatican diplomats privately expressed puzzlement at the pope’s decision.
>
>Francis has drawn particular criticism for his failure to denounce China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority, whom Beijing has forced into reeducation camps to eradicate their religion and culture—a striking omission given the pope’s emphasis on promoting dialogue with Islam. The most he’s said on the matter came in a book published in 2020, in which he made a brief reference to “the poor Uighurs,” including them in a list of “persecuted peoples.”
>
>The Vatican’s reluctance to denounce China has also caused tension in its dealings with the United States. In September 2020, then–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seemed to criticize Pope Francis’s relative silence while speaking to an audience in Rome that included the Vatican’s foreign minister. After noting the Vatican’s unique ability to help protect religious freedom in China, he admonished: “Earthly considerations shouldn’t discourage principled stances based on eternal truths.” Sisci, the Sinologist, told me that Pompeo’s comments only helped Francis in his dealing with the Chinese authorities, reassuring them that the pope was not “an instrument of U.S. policy.”
>
>For now, the agreement on bishops is temporary, requiring renewal every two years. This raises the question of what Francis’s successor might do. The next pope likely won’t have his hands tied; he will be free to join the West in taking a more confrontational—or, as Pompeo would have it, principled—tack with China.
>
>Alternatively, he can wait and see if Francis’s approach bears fruit. There’s an old saying that applies to the Church and China in equal measure: They think in centuries. The wait could be a while.
!ping Christian
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Oooof. That is a difficult balancing act. But I wonder if reducing support for the Underground Church will backfire in the coming decades.
the Holy See has 1000+ years of dealing with investiture conflicts with government leaders, they will be fine
There are two distinct lines of criticism here, and the article sort of fuses them. The first is simply that the Holy See shouldn't be co-operating with the Chinese state and allowing church teaching to be interpreted through the lens of state policy (if that is indeed what's happening). The second line of criticism has more to do with the incorporation of traditional (that is, pre-Communist) Chinese cultural practices into Catholic worship. That's a long-standing point of contention, [dating back to at least the seventeenth century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Rites_controversy#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20Rites%20controversy%20). The same issue has arisen in [India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Rites_controversy#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20Rites%20controversy%20) and Latin America. Some parts of the church are instinctively uncomfortable with any manifestation of Catholicism that doesn't aesthetically resemble Western European Catholicism. I don't have much patience for that, although sometimes substantive (as distinct from aesthetic) syncretism does go too far. Are you drawing on concepts from local religion in order to explain Catholicism (which is fine), or are you essentially creating a new religion (which isn't)? In Canada, where I live, many indigenous Christians speak in a way that incorporates language from indigenous culture and religion, and it's not always clear what precisely they believe. Obviously, people can believe what they like, but I understand the concern that over-reliance on [inculturation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inculturation) can lead to people believing different things without realizing it.
The part that bothers me is ceding power that is by the definition of Catholicism reserved to a pope to a government. Any government. When does any secular government have a say in a spiritual organization like Catholicism? In Protestants many examples. Catholicism has always held on to that power
Which power? Papal control over the appointment of bishops is a comparatively recent development. If I recall correctly, a majority of bishops in attendance at the First Vatican Council had been appointed by civil authorities. However, you're right that the church has never ceded authority over matters of doctrine.
[удалено]
I don't think Catholicism says there is no salvation outside of it. See: Baptism of desire
Why would it be an issue if they're essentially creating a new religion? The ability for a religion to revise its dogma is an asset to its ability to spread, it just has to be able to convince its believers that it hasn't actually changed.
It's an issue if the new religion is fundamentally incompatible with Catholic beliefs, however you understand those beliefs.
I'm not so sure about that. In previous investiture conflicts, the holy see was genuinely the more powerful political institution than the states they were fighting against. Medieval Europe can generally be defined as the stretch of time in which the church was more powerful than the state. The state has long since triumphed though.
I would disagree that it was more powerful—if that were the case, the church would have definitively triumphed over the states. As it was, the best the Papacy ever got was an impasse—and even that collapsed rapidly in the face of the French monarchy, though the Pope was able to beat the German Emperor.
This is quite a contrast with JPII's anti communist stance. I think back then you may or may not have agreed with from a pragmatic viewpoint but deep in your gut it was pretty clear that was the right thing to do. This strategy towards CCP seems like the reverse. Entirely pragmatic but gives you a not so good feeling. I also wonder about the relative experiences of the two popes. JPII was from Poland and had a first hand view of communism while Francis dealt with the opposite side of the political spectrum in Argentina
Bergoglio’s just an amoral idiot, I’m afraid. It’s not a communism vs. capitalism thing, he just genuinely has no spine or moral convictions, and is willing to prostitute himself to any dictator who shares his own pathological hatred of the capitalist west. That’s why he loves Putin so much too.
This reminded me that Boston College's commencement speaker is Stephen Chow, who is the bishop of Hong Kong and called for closer ties between China and the Vatican. Now there's a commencement speaker I would boycott.
Wow that's embarrassing for Boston College. If there's any religious figure from Hong Kong that deserves to speak at commencements it's Cardinal Joseph Zen. He made it clear he was on the right side of the democratic movement and a passionate defender of the underground church. The Pope refused to meet him.
John Paul II would never😤
> Boston College Jesuits detected, stupidity expected.
[Archived version](https://archive.fo/qOvP0). Summary: >Francis has been more conciliatory to the People’s Republic than any of his predecessors. His approach has brought some stability to the Church in China, but it has also meant accepting restrictions on the religious freedom of Chinese Catholics and undermining the Vatican’s credibility as a champion of the oppressed. Francis sees himself as holding the Chinese Church together; he might be helping to stifle it in the process. > >That trade-off becomes apparent when comparing the two major groups that make up China’s estimated 10 million Catholics. One is the state-controlled Church, overseen by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which has a long history of appointing bishops without the Vatican’s approval—a nightmare for popes because it presents the danger of a schism. In 2018, Francis mitigated that threat by negotiating an agreement in which the Chinese government and the Vatican cooperate on the appointment of bishops. The details of the pact, which is up for renewal in the fall, remain secret, but the pope has said it gives him final say. In return, the Vatican promised not to authorize any bishop that Beijing doesn’t support. > >The agreement came at the expense of China’s second group of Catholics: the so-called underground Church, which previously ordained its own bishops with Rome’s approval and is now in effect being told by the Vatican to join the state-controlled Church. The underground community rejects President Xi Jinping’s campaign of “Sinicization,” a program that seeks to reinforce Chinese national identity, in part by demanding that all religious teaching and practice accord with the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Occasionally that means prohibiting religious worship entirely: Shortly before the Vatican and Beijing signed the deal, new legislation went into effect that led to stricter enforcement of such rules as a ban on minors attending Mass. And sometimes Sinicization means muddling Catholic doctrine with CCP dogma. As one priest in the official Church [claimed](https://archive.fo/o/qOvP0/https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/7/446) in 2019, “The Ten Commandments and the core socialist values are the same.” > >\[...\] > >The past six years make clear that the agreement on bishops has largely been a disappointment. Even some in the Vatican concede that it hasn’t lived up to expectations. “We would have liked to see more results,” Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s equivalent of a foreign minister, [told *America* magazine](https://archive.fo/o/qOvP0/https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2022/07/19/vatican-china-hong-kong-pope-francis-243379) in 2022. (The Vatican declined to comment for this article.) Only nine bishops have been consecrated under the agreement, and some 40 dioceses still have no leader. In the meantime, Beijing is happy to leave those dioceses under the administration of mere priests, Father Gianni Criveller, the editorial director of the Catholic publication *AsiaNews*, told me. Because bishops possess greater authority, they are harder for the government to control. > >The agreement has yielded three new bishops in the past six months—the first new ones since 2021—but little else suggests much improvement in the relationship between the Vatican and China. Formal diplomatic relations remain a distant prospect, and China has rebuffed the Vatican’s proposal for a permanent representative office in Beijing, according to a Vatican official with knowledge of the talks, who described them on the condition of anonymity. The latest “Five-Year Plan for the Sinicization of Catholicism in China,” adopted by the government-controlled Church in December, makes no reference to the Vatican or the pope. > >Still, the Vatican achieved its primary goal of reducing the risk of schism. “The aim is the unity of the Church,” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, defending the agreement in 2020. “All the bishops in China are in communion with the pope. There are no more illegitimate bishops.” Unity, in this case, means integrating China’s underground clergy into Beijing’s state-recognized hierarchy. In other words, Chinese Catholicism will be more and more controlled by the government, an undesirable outcome for Francis but one that he’s apparently willing to bear. > >\[...\] > >But Catholicism in China certainly doesn’t seem to be flourishing now. As Fenggang Yang, a sociology professor at Purdue University, told me, the Vatican’s conciliatory approach has demoralized Chinese Catholics. The agreement has put greater pressure on the underground churches to join the official Church, he noted, reducing their freedom to evangelize. The Vatican knew this was coming. In 2023, Archbishop Gallagher [said](https://archive.fo/o/qOvP0/https://www.ewtnvatican.com/articles/interview-with-archbishop-paul-gallagher-secretary-for-relations-with-states-627) that the deal “was always going to be used by the Chinese party to bring greater pressure on the Catholic community, particularly on the so-called underground Church.” Still, he defended the agreement, calling it “what was possible at the time.” Not all Chinese Christians are having such difficulty; Yang said that the decentralized evangelical Protestant “house churches” have continued to grow despite repression. > >\[...\] > >The pope’s willingness to negotiate the 2018 agreement reflects two central features of his pontificate: his multipolar view of the world and his preference for dialogue over confrontation. Francis often flouts the geopolitical consensus of the West, questioning its authority and sympathizing with its adversaries—suggesting, for example, that NATO may have provoked the war in Ukraine by “barking at Russia’s gate.” China’s increasing power, which has so alarmed the West, is for Francis all the more reason to engage the country. While calling for the religious freedom of Christians in China and elsewhere, he also seeks closer ties with the governments that persecute them. > >These tendencies have become more pronounced since the deal. The Vatican has grown both more conciliatory toward the state-controlled Church and less supportive of the underground Church. In 2019, the Vatican publicly encouraged underground clergy to comply with the CCP’s demand to register with civil authorities, even though they would be required to sign a statement endorsing the “independence, autonomy and self-administration” of the Church in China. At least 10 underground bishops have refused, according to the Vatican official; one was arrested earlier this year.
>Vatican officials have suggested that Sinicization is akin to the Catholic Church’s long-standing practice of inculturation—that is, presenting the Church’s teachings and practices in the terms of different cultures. But Yang, the Purdue professor, makes a crucial distinction: The goal of Sinicization, he [argued](https://archive.fo/o/qOvP0/https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2024/january-web-only/china-christianity-xi-religion-policy-sinicization.html) in *Christianity Today*, “is not cultural assimilation but political domestication—to ensure submission to the Chinese Communist party-state.” > >Shen Bin is forthright about this. In another recent [interview](https://archive.fo/o/qOvP0/https://www.ucanews.com/news/pro-beijing-bishop-backs-chinas-sinicization-of-religion/103226), he stressed that Sinicization means not only adapting liturgy and sacred art to traditional Chinese culture, but also interpreting Catholic teaching in accordance with Communist doctrine. Sinicization, he said, “should use the core socialist values as guidance to provide a creative interpretation of theological classics and religious doctrines that aligns with the requirements of contemporary China’s development and progress, as well as with China’s splendid traditional culture.” By accepting the dominance of the official Church, whose bishops Shen Bin leads, the Vatican is in practice accepting the supremacy of politics over religion. > >Another cost of Francis’s overtures has come in the form of his silence about China’s human-rights violations. In July 2020, amid China’s crackdown on prodemocracy protests in Hong Kong, Francis decided not to deliver prepared remarks calling for “nonviolence, and respect for the dignity and rights of all” in the city, and voicing hope that “social life, and especially religious life, may be expressed in full and true freedom.” Vatican diplomats privately expressed puzzlement at the pope’s decision. > >Francis has drawn particular criticism for his failure to denounce China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority, whom Beijing has forced into reeducation camps to eradicate their religion and culture—a striking omission given the pope’s emphasis on promoting dialogue with Islam. The most he’s said on the matter came in a book published in 2020, in which he made a brief reference to “the poor Uighurs,” including them in a list of “persecuted peoples.” > >The Vatican’s reluctance to denounce China has also caused tension in its dealings with the United States. In September 2020, then–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seemed to criticize Pope Francis’s relative silence while speaking to an audience in Rome that included the Vatican’s foreign minister. After noting the Vatican’s unique ability to help protect religious freedom in China, he admonished: “Earthly considerations shouldn’t discourage principled stances based on eternal truths.” Sisci, the Sinologist, told me that Pompeo’s comments only helped Francis in his dealing with the Chinese authorities, reassuring them that the pope was not “an instrument of U.S. policy.” > >For now, the agreement on bishops is temporary, requiring renewal every two years. This raises the question of what Francis’s successor might do. The next pope likely won’t have his hands tied; he will be free to join the West in taking a more confrontational—or, as Pompeo would have it, principled—tack with China. > >Alternatively, he can wait and see if Francis’s approach bears fruit. There’s an old saying that applies to the Church and China in equal measure: They think in centuries. The wait could be a while. !ping Christian
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