In 1996, a rising star in Vatican diplomacy named Fr Pietro Parolin brokered a deal with the Vietnamese government that helped to re-establish relations between the two sovereign states, which had been estranged since the fall of the Diệm regime. Under the terms of their agreement, Rome would recommend three candidates to a vacant bishopric. Hanoi would then make the final selection.
The accord was hailed as a victory for the Vatican’s new Ostpolitik: its efforts to reconcile itself to the post-Soviet bloc and, ultimately, to mediate a lasting peace between the East and West.
Parolin has long floated the possibility of using the Vietnam accord as a model for rapprochement with other Cold War adversaries, particularly China. As deputy foreign minister under Benedict XVI, he admitted that the model is “not ideal, but it’s a way to take a step forward and increase our engagement” with the Chinese. When Francis appointed Parolin his Secretary of State in 2013, it was only a matter of time before the Holy See signed up for a power-sharing experiment in Beijing.
Then, on January 23, Asia News reported on a Vatican delegation that visited China last December. The delegation called on two bishops of the underground Church, Peter Zhuang of Shantou and Joseph Guo Xijin of Mindong. They were asked to resign their sees in favour of their counterparts in the government-backed Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), Joseph Huang Bingzhang and Vincent Zhan Silu.
Beijing has spent 61 years persecuting Catholics who refuse to submit to the CPCA and remain loyal to Rome. Five underground priests were “disappeared” – imprisoned or executed without a public trial – in April 2016. Clearly, securing basic human rights for Chinese Catholics should be a top priority for the Vatican.
But is it wise for Parolin to use his agreement with Hanoi as a precedent?For one, the situation of Vietnamese Catholics has arguably worsened since the 1996 accord. Last year the government passed a Law on Beliefs and Religions, which comes into effect this month, severely limiting religious groups’ ability to engage in social services and evangelisation.
That is hardly surprising. When the 1996 deal with Vietnam was struck, it was assumed that the government would choose the candidates least likely to stir dissent among the country’s faithful. It is inconceivable that the situation would be any better in China, where the CPCA is a government body and its bishops collect a government cheque. Huang is also a long-standing delegate to the National People’s Congress, whose members are sworn to “unswervingly adhere to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party”.
There is also the problem of the “patriotic” bishops’ refusal to acknowledge the primacy of the Pope publicly. The CPCA was founded in 1957 with the explicit aim of “democratising” Catholicism. Mao’s regime determined that the hierarchy should be “elected by the people” – that is, appointed by the Communist Party. To that end, the 1982 Constitution also demands that “religious groups and religious activities” in China “are not subject to any foreign domination”.
For her part, the Church has emphatically condemned the CPCA ideology from the beginning. In 1958, Pius XII promulgated Ad Apostolorum principis, saying that the notion of democratically elected bishops is “contrary to all right and law” and that “complete freedom in the nomination of bishops is the right of the Roman Pontiff”. (That, of course, was a relatively modern notion: the Church had at times accepted state-nominated bishops, for example, after the Concordat of 1801 with Napoleon.)
The question is: which side will capitulate? Will Beijing acknowledge Rome’s freedom to appoint bishops or will Rome concede the right of civil authorities to appoint Church leaders?
Then there is the matter of canon 1382, which declares that “a bishop who consecrates someone a bishop without a pontifical mandate and the person who receives the consecration from him incur [automatic] excommunication”. The Vatican approves the ordination of some CPCA bishops on a case-by-case basis, but Huang and Zhan are not among them. In fact, because of Huang’s close ties to the Communist Party, Benedict XVI publicly excommunicated him in 2011. Has Francis formally reconciled the new bishops of Shantou and Mindong?
It remains to be seen what concessions were made to the Church in exchange for recognising these “patriotic” bishops. There may well be none, since none was made by Hanoi. It might simply be – as Parolin indicated in 2005 – an unconditional gesture of goodwill, meant to “increase our engagement” with the mainland and promote the notion that the Church is a global mediator between East and West.
Yet this strategy did not work in Vietnam, and it is even less likely to work in China. Normalising relations between Rome and Beijing on the Communist Party’s terms would mean the last 61 years of persecution were for nothing.
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