Posted on 06/26/2005 8:53:43 AM PDT by murphE
HONG KONG (AP) - A Chinese Catholic official said Beijing and the Vatican will establish ties, but the process will take a long time, a Hong Kong newspaper reported Sunday.
Liu Bonian, identified as an official at the state-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, praised a recent comment by Vatican foreign minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo that difficulties preventing official ties are not ``insurmountable,'' the Wen Wei Po newspaper reported.
Liu said Lajolo's comments showed the Vatican was working o forge official links with China under new Pope Benedict XVI, who assumed his position in April, according to the report.
China doesn't recognize the Holy See and requires followers to worship at state-sanctioned churches. About 4 million Chinese worship at official churches, while foreign experts say up to 12 million more do so at underground churches. Priests and bishops of the underground church are regularly arrested and harassed.
The communist Chinese government wants the Vatican to drop its recognition of Taiwan, an island its rival Nationalists retreated to amid civil war on the mainland in 1949. Taiwan has been separately ruled since.
Beijing has also expressed reservations about the pope's power to appoint bishops - a prerogative it considers an interference in domestic affairs.
The Vatican is believed to be willing to drop Taiwan, but the pope's appointment powers appear to remain a stumbling block. Liu said one solution would be to allow the Holy See to nominate bishops and let Beijing formally appoint them, Wen Wei Po reported.
Liu said no matter how the bishops are picked they must be ``patriotic'' - a code word for loyal to the communist regime.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
ping
Just another sacrificial lamb... move along..who cares about them....
In other words, Bejing wants to be sure communist sympathizers in place as bishops, not representatives of/from Rome or The Church.
Something smells.
What do you think about the 1801 Concordat? From this article it looks like China will have less authority in appointments than Napoleon did, and he was no friend of the Church.
Are you saying that you think this is a good thing?
It's the Guardian. I have to suspect everything they write and publish. They usually manage to leave out a salient fact or two along the way that is only discovered later.
Has a familiar, yet eerily prescient ring to it, don't you think?
Anything from the Associated Press shoud be taken with a grain of salt, just like from the Guardian
I really hope to heaven that you both are right.
Nothing would please me more than to find out that this is false.
4. The First Consul of the Republic shall make appointments, within the three months which shall follow the publication of the bull of His Holiness, to the archbishoprics and bishoprics of the new circumscription. His Holiness shall confer the canonical institution, following the forms established in relation to France before the change of government.6. Before entering upon their functions, the bishops shall take directly, at the hands of the First Consul, the oath of fidelity which was in use before the change of government, expressed in the following terms:
"I swear and promise to God, upon the holy scriptures, to remain in obedience and fidelity to the government established by the constitution of the French Republic. I also promise not to have any intercourse, nor to assist by any counsel, nor to support any league, either within or without, which is inimical to the public tranquility; and if, within my diocese or elsewhere, I learn that anything to the prejudice of the state is being contrived, I will make it known to the government."
Is that any worse? Pius VII thought it was acceptable.
If this is similar to a story I read earlier this week, then this Chinese "bishop" is on another planet. He doesn't know jack, and is nothing more than a Communist puppet and he's not worthy of his "bishop" title, even though it's all make-believe for him anyway.
Agreed, but I don't like the trial balloons they are floating in the press about it.
But trading official political relations with Taiwan in return for complete freedom for the true Church in China - yes, I think that would be a good trade
Why do you think that would be a good trade even if Communist China was to make and keep a promise to allow "complete freedom for the true Church"? I have about 100 more questions, but I'll just ask this one for now.
Not yet!
The preaching of the Gospel is more important than all the political relations in the world. What are official diplomatic ties compared to that? salute animarum, quae in Ecclesia suprema semper lex esse debet - the salvation of souls, which in the Church ought to always be the highest law (CIC 1752).
Coming soon to a theater near us?
Good luck getting anyone to realize you are right.
Bumpus ad summum
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