{"id":22573,"date":"2017-05-09T07:21:57","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T07:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=22573"},"modified":"2017-05-09T09:49:26","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T09:49:26","slug":"china-will-proposed-vatican-china-agreement-cause-problems-acn-malta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/05\/09\/china-will-proposed-vatican-china-agreement-cause-problems-acn-malta\/","title":{"rendered":"CHINA  Will proposed Vatican-China agreement cause problems? &#8211; ACN Malta"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>CHINA<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Will proposed Vatican-China agreement cause problems?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">An agreement is being discussed between the Vatican and China regarding the appointing of bishops. Hong Kong\u2019s current archbishop, Cardinal John Tong Hon,\u00a0 has expressed hope that it will come about.\u00a0 Tong defended the new proposal, saying that the Chinese government must now recognize the Pope as the supreme head of the Church and stating that the Pope will still have the final say on the appointment of bishops.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">However Cardinal Zen, the Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong and China&#8217;s highest-ranking prelate, is pleading with the Vatican not to &#8220;sell out&#8221; China&#8217;s Catholics by striking a deal with the Communist government.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Currently, the Vatican proposes candidates and the government considers these names, approving some of them. \u201cThe Chinese government accepts this compromise instead of having more problems,\u201d said Cardinal Joseph Zen, archbishop emeritus of Hong Kong.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The proposed agreement would essentially allow the Chinese government to select candidates for bishops and the Pope would have the final say of accepting or vetoing the candidates. The problem, Zen believes, is that the government will inevitably meddle in the clergy\u2019s election.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThere is no real election in China,\u201d he said. \u201cThe majority of the priests and bishops in the official church may, in their heart, still be very much united with the universal church, but they are under tight control,\u201d he added. The situation \u201cis not changing at all, because the system is already very well established at the national level,\u201d Zen stated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In contrast to the state-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the \u201cunderground\u201d Catholic Church in China \u201cenjoys a certain amount of freedom.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The government \u201ctolerates\u201d its underground existence as whole villages may be Catholic and priests say Mass in homes. Nevertheless, priests and bishops in the underground church have faced imprisonment for adhering to the Holy See, rather than submitting to the patriotic church approved by the Communist government.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Cardinal Zen says he has been urged to speak out by Catholics who lack the freedom to speak for themselves.\u00a0 He is concerned that the Pope would be under pressure if he has to repeatedly veto government-appointed candidates. \u201cI would prefer the other way around,\u201d he stated. He also worries that a deal with the Chinese government would damage the Church&#8217;s credibility. \u201cHow can you allow the initiative of selection of bishops in the hands of an atheistic government and totalitarian government? I want it to start from the Holy See,\u201d Zen said. If the Chinese government can appoint bishops, other governments could expect to do the same.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Zen has good reason to be concerned. The Chinese government does not have a good record of accommodating the Vatican\u2019s past concerns, but rather has shown that it wants to control the church in China. The current General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jingping is about \u201ctightening control,\u201d he said, and \u201cthere is really no foundation for any optimism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI said that the Catholic Patriotic Association was \u201cincompatible with Catholic doctrine,\u201d and spoke of their interference with the ordination of bishops as a matter he could not permit if he wanted to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The state has also meddled in the internal affairs of Catholic schools in Hong Kong. \u201cAs a church we have full freedom,\u201d Zen commented, \u201cbut we have suffered a heavy drawback, which is they have taken away our right of running education. They have changed the law.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">While all schools are state-subsidized, the church under the old plan would \u201cpresent the management committee\u201d for the schools to the government, usually composed of teachers, parents, and alumni. This committee would be \u201capproved\u201d as a formality. A new law has changed that, he said. Now the Church would recommend only 60 per cent of the management committee and wouldn\u2019t even \u201chave full control\u201d over that percentage. \u201cSo there is no guarantee anymore the school would go on according to our vision and mission,\u201d Zen said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">ACN Malta<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<h3><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CHINA Will proposed Vatican-China agreement cause problems? &nbsp; An agreement is being discussed between the Vatican and China regarding the appointing of bishops. Hong Kong\u2019s current archbishop, Cardinal John Tong Hon,\u00a0 has expressed hope that it will come about.\u00a0 Tong defended the new proposal, saying that the Chinese government must now recognize the Pope as&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>CHINA Will proposed Vatican-China agreement cause problems? - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/05\/09\/china-will-proposed-vatican-china-agreement-cause-problems-acn-malta\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CHINA Will proposed Vatican-China agreement cause problems? - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CHINA Will proposed Vatican-China agreement cause problems? &nbsp; An agreement is being discussed between the Vatican and China regarding the appointing of bishops. 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