ROME (AP) — The Vatican on Tuesday made another big offer to China, reaffirming that the Catholic Church poses no threat to Beijing’s sovereignty and encouraging Western missionaries to convert Chinese believers over the past centuries. He admitted that he had made some “mistakes” while working hard on the project.
The Vatican has invited the President of the Chinese Bishops’ Conference to commemorate at an unprecedented high level the landmark 1924 Shanghai conference that affirmed the need for Chinese foreign missionaries to give way to local church leaders. invited.
It is noteworthy in itself that Shanghai Bishop Joseph Shen Bin attended the Pontifical University Urbaniana with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. This is the first time in memory that a mainland bishop has been allowed by the Chinese government to participate as a keynote speaker at a Vatican public event.
This was also significant given the controversy surrounding Shen’s 2023 appointment. In July, Pope Francis was forced to approve China’s unilateral appointment of Shen as bishop of Shanghai. The appointment appears to violate a 2018 agreement between the Holy See and the Chinese government over the appointment of bishops.
Francis opened the meeting in a video message and made no mention of recent issues, instead pointing to the 1924 Shanghai meeting as a turning point in Vatican-China relations. The first and only Chinese Council of Churches recognized that the Church in China “must increasingly have a Chinese face,” he said.
“But the Shanghai Council did not just forget the wrong approaches that were prevalent in the past,” Francisco said. “The participants of the first Chinese Council looked to the future, and their future is our present.”
This was a reference to French, Italian, and other Western missionary orders that evangelized China for centuries but refused to cede leadership to local Chinese clergy. . Their attitude helped fuel the anti-Western and anti-Christian sentiments behind the Boxer Rebellion, which aimed to rid China of foreign influence.
In his remarks, Mr. Shen praised the “good” attitude of Western missionaries and their efforts to “protect foreign powers” through “unequal treaties” that China has signed with various European countries over the centuries. Mentioned.
Speaking through an interpreter, Shen said the Catholic Church today must have a Chinese perspective, respect Chinese culture and develop together with Chinese society, adding that the Pope had stressed that being a good Christian is an essential part of being a good citizen.
The Vatican has long sought to improve relations with China, which was formally severed more than 70 years ago when the communists took power. His aim was to unite the country’s estimated 12 million Catholics, who were divided between the state-recognized official church and an underground church that remained loyal to Rome.
Relations between the two countries had long been at an impasse, with China claiming the exclusive right to appoint bishops as a matter of national sovereignty, while the Vatican asserted the exclusive right of the pope to name successors to the first apostles.
The 2018 agreement aimed to find a compromise, but the Vatican has cited repeated violations and Rome has acknowledged it was a bad deal but the only one available. The agreement was signed at a time when China was tightening restrictions on all religions, especially Christianity and Islam, which are seen as foreign imports and potential challenges to communist power.
Tuesday’s meeting was an opportunity for the Holy See to publicly acknowledge certain past errors, reaffirm its respect for the Catholic Church, which is entirely Chinese, and insist that the Vatican poses no threat to the Catholic Church. became.
Vatican Secretary of State Parolin, who played a major role in the 2018 agreement, said in his remarks that it is the universal role of the Holy See to ensure that the Catholic faith is not induced by one country or another. I recalled it.
Communion between the Holy See and local churches, he said, is “the best guarantee of a faith that is firmly rooted in local culture and society, free from foreign political interests.”
“Obedience to the Pope not only preserves love for the fatherland, but also purifies and renews it,” he added.
