CNS STORY: China tells Catholics to receive papal letter 'with calmness'

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CHINA-BISHOPS (UPDATED) Jun-29-2007 (560 words) xxxi

China tells Catholics to receive papal letter 'with calmness'

By Catholic News Service

HONG KONG (CNS) -- Chinese government officials told about 80 Chinese Catholic bishops, priests and lay Catholics called to a late-June meeting to receive an imminent pastoral letter from Pope Benedict XVI "with calmness."

More than 30 Catholic bishops from 15 or so provinces attended the June 28-29 meeting in Beijing, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency.

UCA News learned that top officials from the Community Party's United Front Work Department and from the State Administration for Religious Affairs spoke for more than a half-hour June 28 regarding the papal letter. The Vatican announced June 29 that the letter would be made public June 30.

The meeting's main agenda was to discuss a series of celebrations in July to mark the 50th anniversary of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. Church sources told UCA News that the participants discussed June 29 how the church could strengthen its development, especially how the patriotic association could better fulfill a bridging and bonding function between the church and the government.

One source said most participants expressed a hope that the papal letter would be beneficial to the church's relations with the government and society in China and would also promote the unity of the registered and unregistered communities within the country's Catholic Church. The bishops who attended the Beijing meeting have registered with the government.

Vatican sources have told Catholic News Service that, as a courtesy, the papal letter would be sent to the Chinese government before it was released publicly.

Sources told UCA News that government officials used the late-June meeting as an opportunity to give those in attendance "a cue" concerning the letter.

Zhu Weiqun, United Front deputy director, and Ye Xiaowen, religious affairs administration director, did not reveal the letter's contents at the meeting. However, they did say that China's Catholics should remain calm, no matter what the content of the letter, sources said.

They also said the officials stressed the indelible contributions and achievements of the patriotic association in the history of the Catholic Church in China.

When China began suppressing the church in the late 1950s, it established the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, whose members initially were asked to reject ties with the Vatican. Many of the Catholics who joined indicated they chose to cooperate with the government and work within its restrictions, but remained loyal to the Vatican. Today, most bishops ordained with government approval but without papal approval have quietly had their jurisdiction legitimized by the Holy See.

Catholics who refused to join the patriotic association maintained their loyalty to the Vatican and suffered decades of persecution. Some of these underground Catholics still think registering with the government would be a betrayal of everything for which people have suffered, and some think the registered church is still controlled by the communist government. Unregistered Catholics also refer to the last official word from the Vatican -- in 1988 -- that told them to avoid the patriotic association.

Church observers have expressed hope that the papal letter would address some of these issues.

The pope promised to write such a letter after a Jan. 19-20 summit at the Vatican to discuss the situation of the Catholic Church in China. Pope Benedict reportedly signed the letter May 27, which this year was the feast of Pentecost.

END

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