Sino-Vatican relations since 1949

AbstractCatholic Christianity is one of the officially approved religions in the PRC. As in the case of religious beliefs generally, the communist state sets strict rules for regulating and controlling the functioning of the Catholic Church in China. This has also some interesting international implications, because as the result of mutual disagreements over religious policy of the Communist government there is still no official Sino-Vatican diplomatic relations. On the other hand, Vatican‘s insistence on naming bishops is seen by the PRC as an interference in its domestic affairs and therefore unacceptable. With the new leadership in Vatican and the PRC – general secretary and president Xi Jinping and Pope Francis – there are some signs of hope for future bilateral relations. However, some signs of better Sino-Vatican relations are paralleled by last year’s widespread crackdown on various dissident groups, including underground Christians. This paper analyses the relation between inner and outer PRC’s policies toward the Catholic Church . The paper will try to elucidate how particular foreign policy preferences shape the ongoing stalemate in Sino-Vatican see relations and the author will argue that China’s attitude towards the Holy See is to large extent determined by its domestic political agenda.

Keywords: China, Vatican, Catholicism, Holy See, international relations

1. IntroductionThe rising numbers of Chinese Christians since the start of the reform era (1978) is a part of larger trend described by some scholars as China’s „religious renaissance“.1 As in the case of other religions, state authorities developed system of state sponsored institutions regulating religious affairs of the Chinese Catholic Church – anything outside this officially approved sphere amounts to illegal activity. The Catholics in China unlike other officially approved religions in China (Protestantism, Buddhism, Islam, and Daoism) have spiritual and organizational connection to the Holy See residing in the Vatican. Thus state-church relations are also strongly influenced by political issues outside of purely spiritual dimension. The state of Sino-Vatican relations has direct impact on the PRC‘s domestic policy towards Chinese Catholics and vice-versa domestic politics have influence on these relations.

Albeit there are about 12 million Catholics in China, the PRC and the Vatican still didn’t establish diplomatic relations. Why is that so? Two factors inhibit possible reconciliation between the PRC and Vatican, as it was the case quarter century ago when Gerald Chan wrote his insightful analysis of Sino-Vatican relations.2 1) There is the issue of independence of the Chinese Church, i.e. Chinese authorities don’t acknowledge pope’s authority over Chinese Catholics and they want to keep control over Chinese Church, primarily in cases of episcopal nominations, but also in other matters of concern. The Vatican of course sees this policy as impermissible state incursion in purely religious matters of the Church. Therefore, the Chinese Church is divided between state sponsored (official) church and “underground” (unofficial) church still loyal to the Holy See. 2) Vatican diplomatically recognizes the republic of China in Taiwan as the only state in Europe since Sino-Vatican diplomatic relations broke down in 1950s. The Communist Party of China (CCP) sees dropping diplomatic recognition of Taiwan as sine qua non of any possible future solution in Sino-Vatican relations.

Even though there were series of bilateral negotiations since the early 1980s, both sides wait for the other’s initiative and until the time when one of them would yield from their uncompromising stances the Chinese church will remain internally divided. Leaders

1 See Richard Madsen, “Religious Renaissance in China Today.”2 Gerald Chan, “Sino-Vatican Relations: Problems and Prospects.”

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of the PRC want to keep full control over the Chinese church, while the Vatican is unwilling to establish diplomatic relations which would not serve the best interests of local Church community. This includes appointment of local clergy with full Vatican’s consent and assurance of higher degree of religious freedom. To the second point, reunification with Taiwan is key goal of the PRC’s communist elites and they are very suspicious of anyone who even slightly supports de facto Taiwanese independence. For the communist leadership, Taiwan is a “question of regime’s survival”.3 Vatican is willing to change its diplomatic recognition to the PRC from Taiwan, but it wants in exchange re-establish its sovereignty in appointing bishops, which in turn goes against long-term Communist government goal of achieving maximum independence of Chinese religious organizations from the outside world.

The aim of this paper is to analyse contemporary Sino-Vatican relations with the help of international relations theory. Even though there are many excellent accounts of the history of relations between the Catholic Church and various political regimes in, I would like to stress that we have to work on more theoretically coherent understandings of Sino-Vatican bilateral relationship. I will use liberal theory of international relations developed by A. Moravcsik and using this theory I hope we would be able to beetr understand the reasons for long-term diplomatic deadlock between the Holy See and China. In the first part I discuss some theoretical issues connected to my undertakings in this paper. In chapter three I briefly introduce the Sino-Vatican relations and the situation of Catholicism in China prior to the start of the reform era (1978). Chapters four deals with Sino-Vatican relations during the pontificate of John Paul II. Parts five and six then cover the up and downs of Sino-Vatican relations from the beginning of the Benedict XVI. Papacy until the recent pontificate of Pope Francis.

2. Theoretical background

My main theoretical background for this study is liberal theory of international relations, specifically in the version presented by A. Moravcsik’s as “new liberalism”. 4 Before I will describe it in more detail, I want to stress the importance of theoretical understanding of Sino-Vatican relations. Without some prior theoretical understanding of the nature of these relations we are able to grasp the problems permeating them only to certain extent. We wouldn’t know, what is the more exact the nature of preferences pitting the Vatican and the PRC against each other and how are they generated. This goes for China’s unwillingness to let any foreign based organization act autonomously outside the control of the government as well as for Vatican’s insistence on the sole right of the Popes to sovereigns in Church matters.

In contemporary IR theory, neorealism in its many disguises is among the most utilized theories. Primary actors are functionally similar states living in an anarchic international environment, which is characterized by self-help and concerns for security. In realist theory, states hold fixed preferences reflecting distribution of material capabilities. This account has several problems. Why are certain states seen as one’s allies or enemies? Which phenomena are deemed as threatening or on the other hand friendly by actors in the international arena? Why are we able to perceive in many cases crucial influence of domestic political, social and economic factors on foreign policy of states? Unlike neorealist assumptions, I hold that state material capacities and their potential use in foreign policy are to large dependent on domestic political situation, the configuration of political institutions and relative weight of the key social groups

3 See Susan Shirk, China. Fragile Superpower, 188–211.4 See Andrew Moravcsik, “New Liberalism”.

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competing over political power. States cannot simply mobilize its resources at will; resources have to be “extracted” from society, and that usually involves incentives or coercion. Focusing solely on the issue of state capabilities has also the disadvantage of treating states usage of its capacities as an easy and potentially automatic task.

The liberal theory of foreign policy agrees with neorealists that primary actors in international politics are states interacting in an anarchic international environment. Unlike the neorealist theory, which assumes fixed and conflicting preferences, the liberal theory holds that state preferences are generated by domestic politics and therefore can and do change. Preferences are here understood as „fundamental and substantive social purposes that give states underlying stake in the international issues they face.“5 In liberal theory variation in preferences, which are advanced by the most powerful social actors within particular polities, is the key independent variable. “In the liberal conception of domestic politics, the state is not an actor, but a representative institution subject to capture and recapture, construction, and reconstruction by coalition of social actors.”6 Preferences are indeed crucial; static distribution of power, information etc. cannot explain state behaviour in international politics. Social and political institutions mediate preferences, they're not simply given. To what extent nations cooperate or are in conflict is a function of preferences they hold and political institutions. Distribution of preferences in the system is a crucial factor which determines the foreign political behaviour of actors in the international arena.7

Both Vatican and the PRC foreign policy preferences rest upon strong and historically determined state identities. Moravcsik’s version of liberal theory is not just another variant of the statement that domestic politics simply determines foreign policy behaviour. Liberal theory is also systemic, because state preferences in the international system are interdependent.8 Liberal theory is not reductionist, because foreign policy of a particular state depends on its preferences taken together with the preferences of other actors. The configuration of preferences in the international system is the key structural determinant of foreign policy behaviour.9 It is also crucial to differentiate between strategies and preferences. Preferences deal with ends, strategies with means to achieve those ends (goals). It is not wholly surprising for liberal theory if states compromise its welfare or sometimes security, because this could be explained by shifting state preferences.10

Vatican doesn’t seem to fit the above characterized liberal IR theory, because albeit it takes part in international bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, it doesn’t apply coercion and other traditional practices of states. This could be true as seen through the lenses of the realist school. But at closer look we can see that Vatican is indeed an actor in the international system who acts on stable and predictable long-term preferences (as the liberal IR theory teaches us), although the strategies and means applied are different from other sovereign entities. Also Vatican’s foreign policy stems from the consensus among the key players within the Catholic Church. Vatican’s chief goals lie in the field of spirituality and comprise especially of successfully leading Church matters; however, to attain its goals, it is necessarily involved in domestic as well as international politics with tremendous number of actors. Ecclesial role of the Church is primary and politics is always only a mean how to achieve the former. Vatican also as other states tries to

5 Ibid., 234.6 Andrew Moravcsik, “Taking Preferences Seriously“, 518.7 See Stephan Haggard, “The Liberal View of International Relations in Asia,” 45–46.8 Andrew Moravcsik, „Taking Preferences Seriously“, 524–527.9 Idem, Liberal International Relations Theory, 6–9.10 Idem, “Taking Preferences Seriously“, 520.

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maximize rationally its prospects to act according to its preferences, albeit those lie primarily in the field of spiritual guidance for believers, not political actions. Therefore I’m not convinced that we should primarily liken the Holy See to a transnational NGO only because it applies only soft power in the international arena and its basic preferences are spiritually oriented, and connect the more traditional aspect of “Vatican” international behaviour to the Vatican City state, as L. Ferrari does.11 The problem with her account is that it artificially disconnects political actions from spiritual and ecclesial preferences, which underline them. Vatican doesn’t have standing army and secret service, for example, but unlike NGOs it has many privileges available only to sovereign states.

Holy See is deemed as a subject of international law with rights and duties very similar to those of sovereign states. The Vatican is subordinated to the Holy in the sense that it was established by 1929 as a space for the independence of the Holy See. “The Vatican City was indeed only created by the Lateran Treaty in 1929 to provide a territorial basis for the Holy See – which predates the Vatican City by many centuries – that could guarantee its independence. This independence was compromised due to the Roman Question: after having exercised temporal powers in the Pontifical States since the 8th century, the Holy See lost its territory to the Italian State in 1870.” 12 The 1929 concordat with Italy excluded the Vatican state from Italy and granted it extraterritoriality and exempt from taxation. On top of that, the Holy See was given financial compensation for the territorial loses of the Church during Italian unification. “It is noted, in passing, that this financial settlement could be seen as an indication of the Holy See’s international legal personality in two ways: the treaty-making capacity of the Holy See as well as the right to bring a claim against another international legal person.”13

Holy See’s sovereignty rests in its spiritual power as the head of the Catholic Church and similarly Pope’s role in international relations stems from his position as the head of the Church, not from position as ruler over the Vatican City. “The Holy See is to be conceived of as a sui generis non-State international legal person which borrows its personality from its ‘spiritual sovereignty’ as the centre of the Catholic Church, one of the world’s major religious organizations.”14 The small area of Vatican is there only to ensure independence of the Holy See.15 The Holy See receives diplomatic representations from other states and establishes diplomatic missions abroad itself. The Holy See holds more 170 diplomatic relations with other states. It possess the capacity of treaty-making, as it is manifested by its accession to number of multilateral conventions and conclusion of concordats on bilateral basis. Holy See has a permanent observer non-member status in the UN (from 1964) and takes part in many other multilateral organizations. Apostolic nuncios are equated to ambassadors in the regime of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961, art. 14, 16).

The Vatican has its own distinct preferences and throughout the centuries the Vatican and its elites were trying to act on its preferences when dealing with secular authorities as well as other churches and non-Christian religions. Although the Vatican is a very small state, because it acts as the head of the Catholic Church and possess strong hierarchical organization its foreign policy could be much focused and therefore effective. All papal diplomats are members of the clergy (they are nominally archbishops).16 Vatican deals with international organizations, national political elites and

11 See Lisa Ferrari, “The Vatican as Transnational Actor,” 33–35.12 Cedric Ryngaert, “The Legal Status of the Holy See“, 833.13 Ibid.14 Ibid., 858.15 F. X. Halas, Fenomén Vatikán, 15–16.16 for details see Ibid., 356–363

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institutions while pursuing its religious and political agendas.17 For these goals Vatican usually tries to arrange international treaty called concordats with respective governments. Apart from other provisions, concordats usually include agreement that the Holy See has the final right in appointing bishops. Generally speaking, during past century or so the Holy See strengthened its role in naming high members of clergy around the world. “As part of the centralizing of authority after the First Vatican Council, securing control of the processes of appointing bishops in all states with Catholic communities became a major policy objective for successive popes.”18

After I briefly elucidated the role and interest of the Vatican in international relations, we should turn briefly to the religious policy of the PRC. One of the important lessons from the application of our theoretical background to Sino-Vatican relations will be the understanding why some reconciliatory steps taken by one or the other side were not reciprocated. The answer lies in the way religious policy traditionally works in China. There is a very long tradition of state regulation of religion in China going back to the imperial times, when there were religious cults approved by the state and those, who were deemed subversive and politically dangerous for political and social order, were forbidden and their members persecuted. The official orthodoxy was traditionally more or less created by the state, than being simply a product of the religious organizations themselves.19 From the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644) on there was significant growth of religious dissent aimed against the official orthodoxy, which at times fuelled popular uprisings fighting the state (White Lotus rebellion, Eight Trigrams rebellion of 1813, the Taiping rebellion, 1851–1864, to name the most important).

Similarly to the dynastic rulers of China's past, the CCP claimed political as well as ideological hegemony, i.e. all religion for being accepted had to unconditionally support the Party and all its policies. State authorities developed system of state sponsored and controlled institutions – all other religious groups outside this system are formally illegal. The communist authorities combine support, regulation and repression towards various religious groups, especially after the end of aggressive revolutionary political agenda during the Maoist era. Generally speaking, CCP‘s religious policy is similar to Ming/Qing dynasty‘s policy in its attempt to partly control, co-opt and at times to eliminate various religious groups, when organized, orthodox and officially approved religions (zongjiao) are contrasted with „superstitious“ and „heretical“ religious beliefs or teachings (mixin, xiejiao).20 Furthermore, similarly to the imperial state, the communist state itself is built upon rituals and discourse similar to theocratic institutions. Unlike during the Maoist era, the religious policy of the PRC since 1978 is not primarily ideological, but utilitarian, pragmatic and flexible, enabling the Chinese state to actively regulate or propagate certain religious beliefs, while controlling and at times persecuting others.

How can we explain changes in PRC’S religious policies over longer term? Here we can utilize Lawrence Reardon’s description of policy cycles in the PRC. The ruling CCP’s policy in general is led by moderation/conservative policy, depending on what “opinion group” around the party secretary within prevails.21 “Such groups vie for the support of the preeminent leader to gain control of the policy process. Once successful,

17 See Paul C. Manuel et al., The Catholic Church and the Nation State: Comparative Perspectives.18 Roger Collins, Keepers of the Keys of Heaven, 468.19 Richard Shek, The Alternative Moral Universe of Religious Dissenters in mid-Qing China, 13–14.20 See André Laliberté, “Religion and the State in China: The Limits of Institutionalization,” 7–8; Hanson, Religion and Politics in the International System Today, 116.21 Reardon takes this term from the classical work of Lieberthal and Oksenberg, Policy Making in China, 35–62.

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the opinion group or groups undergo a process of readjusting previous policies and introducing innovative policies. The implementation process is the most complex, as problems often arise, requiring midcourse policy corrections. If such corrections fail, a competing group will intervene, claiming that the state faces a crisis“.22 Communist politicians share some beliefs about Catholic Church, such as general suspicion of religion and foreign leadership of the Church within the persona of the Pope, together with historical rooted strong sense of the need for any religious activity to be conform to the state policies.23 These beliefs together with general CCP’s policy to keep social order and to prevent any incursions by outside powers form the PRC’s foreign policy preferences towards the Vatican.

3. Chinese State and Catholicism until 1949

Since the arrival of Jesuit missionaries in the last decades of 16 th century, the Catholic Church in China faced widespread indigenous religious beliefs common to all Chinese, mainly the ancestor worship. Jesuit missionaries were successful in incorporating indigenous religious rituals and terminology (for example, using the term shangdi for Christian deity) in their preaching of Christian faith among the Chinese population. Ancestor worship was seen by the Jesuits as an ancient way of honouring the dead with no negative influence on the dogmas of the Church. However, with the arrival of missionaries other than the Jesuits, this unorthodox missionary practice was started to be deemed suspicious by the Apostolic See. This was the start of the Rites controversy. In the beginning of the 18th century after years of deliberation in the Vatican the Holy See decided that the Chinese rites are incompatible with the true teaching of the Catholic Church and forbid them by papal bulls Ex illa die (1715) and Ex quo singulari (1742). One of the reasons for this was that the papacy was unable to install permanent papal embassy in Beijing in 1702. This decision by the Vatican in turn angered the Qing dynasty emperors, who were until this time quite conciliatory towards Christian presence in their empire. Finally, the Yongzheng emperor (1723–1735) proclaimed Christianity as heretical belief (xiejiao) and its adherents had to go underground for more than a century.24

Until the midd-1840s Christianity was practically forbidden religion in China. The situation changed dramatically when the Western powers started their successful attempts to gradually divide China’s territory and open it up to international trade, starting with the Opium wars (1839–1842, 1856–1860). European powers and its citizens were granted significant concessions, such as extraterritoriality, opening of the Treaty ports and for our purposes most significantly they made the emperor revoke the ban on Christianity (in 1844). Furthermore, the Catholics were given right to “reclaim the use of former church buildings wherever they had formerly existed before the proscription of 1724, and no matter what the present use of the property. Thus, for example, a former Catholic church that might have been a Buddhist temple for over a century after 1724 could be turned back over to the French missionaries, with the French consul prepared to support the foreign seizure of such properties.”25 This of course led to tensions between the Church and local authorities, which saw the reclamation of property by Christian orders as another insult coming from the Westerners.26

22 Lawrence Reardon, “The Chinese Catholic Church: Obstacles to Reconciliation,” 228.23 Ibid., 228–229.24 Daniel Bays, New History of Christianity in China, 35; Roger Collins, Keepers of the Keys of heaven, 399–400.25 Daniel Bays, New History of Christianity in China, 48.26 See also Ibid., 74.

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It was mainly the Protestant missionaries from English speaking countries that preached the gospels, built hospitals, schools and universities and generally represented Western values and modernity to quite large part of Chinese population. On the other hand, Catholics were more active in rural areas and until today Catholicism in China is rightly seen as the religion of the rural population, the oppressed and vulnerable. But generally speaking, Christianity didn’t gain much popularity among the indigenous population. It is also an interesting fact that during the era of high imperialism in China the Papacy wasn’t allowed to take full control of the Church in China. European states were indeed instrumental to protection of Church’s interest in Asia, but this also created problems for the Vatican. Mainly France saw itself as the protector of Catholicism in China and forced the Vatican to withdraw its nuncio from Beijing sent there by Pope Leo XIII in 1886, because the French didn’t want to allow independent contact between the pope and the Chinese court.27

Even after the empire fell in 1912 the Catholic Church in China remained heavily Western dominated throughout the Republican era (1912–1949). Even with the consecration of first six Chinese bishops by the pope Pius XI. in 1926, the Church’s organization in China was predominately of foreign origin. Chinese clergy was in minority and even in places where it was able to reach position of priests or even bishops, it was usually side-lined by foreign priests. Another reason for this kind of Western dominance was continuous French policy to dominate the Chinese Church. Chinese efforts to establish diplomatic relations with Vatican were thwarted by French government, both in 1888 and 1918.28 Since 1922 Vatican had apostolic delegate in China (i.e. non-diplomatic representative) and it was only during the Second World War that the ROC sent its representative to the Vatican.

It is quite a paradox that few years before the communist takeover in 1949 the Vatican changed its long-term policy and started to build much stronger and more locally based ecclesiastical hierarchy in China. In December 1939 Pius XII reassessed with the decree Plane compertum est previous papal rulings in the question of Chinese rites, which were forbidden to Catholics for almost two centuries. Chinese customs of honouring Confucius and one’s dead ancestors were no longer seen as superstitious and Chinese Christians could take part in ancestor worship without the danger of being excommunicated from the Church.29 This was crucial step for Catholic resurgence in China. Not long after, the nationalist government in China established diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 1943. The process of Sino-Vatican rapprochement was partly finished by nominating Thomas Tian Ken-sin as the first cardinal of China in 1946. Even though Catholics did not present large part of the population, there were still about four million Catholics and their numbers were steadily rising. These promising trends for Chinese Catholic Church were about to change very soon with the end of the Civil War (1946–1949), when Mao Zedong’s as the leader of the Communist Party of China (CCP) established the People’s Republic of China.

From the beginning of the Holy See’s involvement in political struggle and rapidly changing social and political relations at the end of the 19th century (marked by Leo’s XIII 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum), there was strong anti-socialist and anti-communist sentiment present within the Catholic Church. Need for social care for the poor and neglected was stressed, but the right to private property was to be protected, because it is a natural right; possible abolishment of this right could in turn lead to

27 Roger Collins, Keepers of the Keys of Heaven, 458.28 Gerald Chan, “Sino-Vatican Relations“, 815–816.29 See Sergio Ticozzi, “The Official End of the Chinese Rights Controversy”; Thomas Law, “The 70th Anniversary of Lifting the Ban on the Chinese Rites”.

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political instability and social chaos.30 Later in the wake of Second World War in 1937 Pope Pius XI wrote the encyclical Divini redemptoris (Of the Divine Redeemer), where he vehemently criticized atheistic Communism:

„Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man's relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement“31

Pius XII was even more anti-communist than his predecessor and considered communism as bigger threat than fascism. Communist was not only considered by him as an overtly anti-religious ideology, but as one that also preached class warfare and was completely at odds with the ideal of social harmony proposed by the Church since the papacy of Leo XIII.32 This posture explains Pius XII’s later policy towards communist China, which in the end didn’t help much to secure the position of the Church in Chinese society, because it only fed the Communists suspicion of Catholicism as an instrument of foreign imperialism. After the war, Pius XII in 1946 sent Archbishop Antonio Riberi as Papal Nuncio to the PRC with significant powers over various Chinese congregations (Riberi was the head of Vatican’s service for wounded soldiers during the war). 33 Riberi had as one of his chief goals the organizational development of the Legion of Mary, catholic youth organization later seen very suspiciously in the early 1950s by the communist government. After 1949 he also strongly communicated the papal decree that forbid all Chinese Christians to accommodate with the Communist state or take part in the “independent” Chinese church.

Already before the establishment of the PRC the Catholic Church experienced the communist rule, mostly in northern parts of China were the communist had been established for some time in 1930s and 1940 and occasionally missionaries and order members were attacked by communist guerrillas. F. Dikköter estimates that up to hundred Catholic and Protestant missionaries were killed between 1946 and 1948.34 For short time after the communist ascent to power the Catholic Church was able to function without much damage to its functioning. However, the gradual radicalization of political situation in China and the uncompromising stance of the papacy towards communism quickly aggravated the situation for the Chinese Church. The CCP leaders were ideologically against religion of any kind (religion was understood as “feudal superstition” and a remnant of unequal exploitative social relations of the past) and the Catholic Church was

30 Roger Collins, Keepers of the Keys of Heaven, 452–457.31 Pius IX, Divini redemptoris, 10. 32 Roger Collins, Keepers of the Keys of Heaven, 468.33 Daniel Bays, New History of Christianity, 170–171.34 Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation, 115–116.

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particularly suspect because of its strong foreign ties. Any hierarchical organization outside Beijing’s control was deemed as dangerous to the new regime and it didn’t take long before the regime started to work on its regulation and reform. In 1950 the persecution of religious representatives quickly intensified. In spring 1950 new law against counter-revolutionary activities was enacted and it were used against many Catholic priest of foreign origin. The situation of the Church further aggravated after the PRC took part in the Korean War.35 In the beginning of the 1950s there were still several hundreds of Catholic priests and thousands of missionaries in China, but their numbers quickly dwindled. In September 1951, the papal nuncio A. Riberi was accused of being “lackey of foreign imperialism” and was expelled to Hong Kong, which meant de facto end of diplomatic relations between the PRC and the Holy See.36 By 1953 several thousands of missionaries and clergy were harassed, denounced, interrogated, imprisoned and majority of them deported from China.37

The reaction of the Vatican to escalating persecution of priests and lay members of the Church was resolute and determined. In January 1952 Pius XII issued apostolic letter Cupimus inprimis, in which the pope defended Chinese Catholics, praised them for their loyalty to the Church and likened them to the martyrs of the early Church. When the situation in China didn’t change, Vatican didn’t soften any of its stance towards Beijing. In October 1954 the papal encyclical Ad Sinarum gentem again warned against attempts to severe contacts between Rome and the Chinese Church, criticized jailing and persecution of clergy and lay church members and refuted that Catholicism present danger to Chinese culture and society. Still against the backdrop of growing contradiction between the CCP and the Holy See, between 1949 and 1955 the Vatican was able to consecrate 18 bishops with the CCP’s approval.38

However, the Holy See’s strongly anti-communist position was growing simply too offensive and unacceptable to the communist leaders in China. In 1955, another, and this time larger persecution of Catholics started. More than 1500 people in Christian stronghold Shanghai ended in prison and the same policy was applied all over the country.39 The situation of Catholics in China further deteriorated in late 1950s as a consequence of heightened persecution and institutional attempts of the CCP to severe links between the Holy See and domestic Catholics. In 1957 Mao Zedong announced the beginning of the anti-rightist campaign, which’s goals was to attack or real or imaginary enemies of the socialist transformation of China, including many religious believers. 40 Things got even worse after the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961) started.41 Importantly, in 1957 the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA) was established as the main state institution for supervising matters of independent Chinese Catholic church. The CPA started to work under the supervision of United Front Work Department and adhered to tthe “three-self policy”: self-administration, self-support and self-propagation. The CPA quickly began consecration of bishops without the Vatican‘s prior approval, for the first time in 1958.

The Pope reacted with encyclical Ad Apostolorum principis, where he repeated his arguments why the independent Chinese church could not be approved by the

35 See Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War.36 Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation, 115–116.37 See Ibid., pp. 117–120.38 Lawrence Reardon, “The Chinese Catholic Church: Obstacles to Reconciliation,” 231.39 Daniel Bays, New History of Christianity in China, 173.40 Beatrice Leung, Sino-Vatican Relations: Problems in Conflicting Authority, 1976–1986, 96.41 See Lawrence Reardon, “Ideational Learning and the Paradox of Chinese Catholic Reconciliation“, 53–54.

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Vatican.42 The uncompromising stance of the Vatican towards Chinese government’s policy led to the creation of the underground Chinese Church, also because the Holy See unofficially gave underground Chinese priest extended powers in times when they couldn’t be in touch with the Vatican or could not serve under appropriately consecrated bishops.43 Also, the bishops and priests ordained without the Vatican’s consent were not invalid, but “illicit”. It means that proper ceremonies were followed but the consecration was against church law because it normally demands Pope’s approval. Here it should be added that globally speaking the Pope doesn’t have unconditional authority to nominate bishops, however it is only the Pope who can allow the consecration. Various rules apply in different countries according to diverse forms of state-church relations. In some Latin American or European countries, for example, the secular authorities have right to (in secret negotiations) to voice dissent with some of the nominees. They can’t veto the candidates but the papacy tries not to appoint bishops who are seen as unacceptable to secular authorities.44

Between 1957 and 1976 the persecution of Catholics with its ebbs and flows continued. Many members of the catholic clergy together with large number of lay believers were persecuted, sacred places confiscated or destroyed. The climax came with the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), when basically all religious activities were seen as unacceptable by the regime and ruthlessly supressed. Even the state sponsored religious organization such as the CPA (together with similar institutions for regulation of Buddhist and Muslim affairs) were deemed as useless and were disbanded. Millions of Chinese suffered during the Cultural Revolution, but it was its overt atheism and complete hatred for anything of foreign (or traditional) origin that hit especially hard on religious believers. At the time China began to fall into almost complete isolation, in Vatican Pope John XXIII was trying to take more consensual diplomatic steps toward the Eastern bloc and it was also him who started the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). However, the innovations brought by the council took no effect in China due to turbulent political atmosphere in the country. Catholic clergy from China (as well as from socialist Vietnam and North Korea) were forbidden to participate by political authorities.

4. Changing CCP’s views on religion in the Reform Era: 1978–2005

With the end of the Cultural Revolution, death of Mao Zedong and start of the reform period in late 1978 there was widespread relaxation of hostile attitude towards religious establishments in the PRC. Deng Xiaoping and other top CCP leaders started the reform period with chiefly economic modernization in mind and to achieve that goal they had to decrease regime’s ideological zeal comparing to the Maoist era. To gain more legitimacy the communist state had to allow certain deregulation of state control also in social and cultural sphere. Religious beliefs were still widespread in Chinese society and the state needed on the one hand to keep religious groups under control but on the other hand had to “present a broad image of tolerance”.45 The 1982 Constitution enshrined in article 36 conditioned freedom of religion:

„Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief (xinjiao ziyou). No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they

42 Daniel Bays, New History of Christianity in China, 174–176.43 Lawrence Reardon, “The Chinese Catholic Church: Obstacles to Reconciliation“, 231.44 See Code of Canon Law, art. 377.45 Pitman B. Potter, “Belief in Control“, 318.

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discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion. The state protects normal religious activities. No one may make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state. Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination.“

This statement of the constitution was clarified by art. 51 and 54:

„freedoms and rights may not infringe upon the interests of the state, of society and of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens.”

„citizens have duty to safeguard the security, honour and interests of the motherland; they must not commit acts detrimental to the security, honour and interests of the motherland.“46

These constitutional changes characterized new CCP’s policy towards religion: religion is not per se dangerous to socialism in China, but its adherents have to respect law, Party directives and laity and clergy have to support various state policies and development goals.47 In the same year the new Constitution was enacted the CCP adopted so-called Document 19, which outlined Party’s religious policy in more detailed fashion. The Party acknowledged in this document that the Maoist zeal for eradicating all religious beliefs was misguided and religion is going to stay with the Chinese society for a long time. 48 Government guaranteed religious freedom (also the right not to believe in religion), but this freedom only covered state approved religions; “feudal superstitions”, folk religion and other dangerous “cults” were formally forbidden. On the other hand, Document 19 stressed that the communist movement is strictly atheist and that eventually after long period of time religion beliefs will extinct. Also, all Party members were forbidden to take part in religious activities. As result of this new Party’s religious policy, there was stable increase in number of churches, priests and religious adherents throughout 1980s.49 This new religious policy went well with Deng Xiaoping’s idea about the permissible reforms of the economic, social and political system in the PRC. John Fewsmith explains that:

“for Deng, the “four cardinal principles” (upholding the socialist road, the dictatorship of the proletariat [later, the people’s democratic dictatorship], the leadership of the Communist Party, and Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought), which he had enunciated in the spring of 1979 to curtail liberal criticisms of Mao and the socialist system, did not constitute a vision of socialist ideology but rather a boundary line defining the limits of acceptable public expression.”50

In case of the Catholic Church, the reforms resulted in that many priest were allowed to return from prison, churches and seminaries were being to reopen and the state returned some land for Church’s use which was confiscate in prior decades.51 Despite the fact state control over cultural and religious matters in the 1980s relaxed significantly comparing to

46 „Constitution of the People’s Republic of China“, http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/09/content_1372846.htm 47 See Pitman Potter, “Belief in Control,” 325–326.48 English translation is available in Mickey Spiegel, “Freedom of Religion in China”, 33–45; see Pitman Potter, “Belief in Control“, 319–320.49 See Beatrice Leung, “Catholic Bridging Efforts with China,” 189, for more detailed numbers.50 John Fewsmith, China since Tiananmen, 28.

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the previous period the PRC leaders still saw Christianity as potential threat to their rule and social stability. The revitalization of religion in China and rebuilding religious links outside China was seen as potentially instrumental to undermining the communist regime under the auspices of apolitical religion.52 And especially the links between Chinese Catholic and the Vatican were seen as suspicious, even more so after John Paul II became pope in 1978 and became very active in fighting the Communist regime in Poland. In 1980 the CCP created the College of Bishops and the Administrative Commission of the Chinese Catholic Church as another institutional tools for keeping the Catholic Church in China under strict control.

John Paul II played an ambivalent role in Sino-Vatican relations. On the one hand, his role in fighting communism in his homeland and in Eastern bloc in general of course irritated the PRC leaders. On the other hand, John Paul II had strong ecumenical agenda and one of its parts was the attempt to cross the bridges to Chinese Catholics separated from the universal Church for several decades. Since 1978 the Vatican supported bridging efforts mainly through social assistance provided by overseas church communities.53 Hong Kong (and especially then Bishop Joseph Zen) was especially important in this process.54 These bridging efforts on the side of the Vatican were also visible in its attitude towards Taiwan. The Holy See already downgraded its diplomatic representation to Taiwan to the level of charge d’affairs in early 1970s and from 1980 the designation “Republic of China” changed to Taiwan in papal documents.55 Furthermore, during his two visits to East Asia in 1981 and 1984, John Paul II didn’t visit Taiwan. This policy was partly effective that it help to open the isolated Chinese church to outside world. Throughout 1980s several cardinals visited the Mainland and the CPA delegations travelled around the world. The view of the papacy in China also changed. In 1982 prayers for the pope were included during masses and in 1989 the Chinese Catholic Bishop’s Conference acknowledged John Paul II as the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church.56

However, the opening up of China didn’t bring much change to the Sino-Vatican diplomatic stalemate. Even since the beginning of the reform era the state’s control of religion was gradually decreasing, the fundamental disagreements between the Vatican and communist leaders of the PRC remained unchanged. Albeit Vatican put up many conciliatory steps in 1980s, Holy See’s diplomacy was fundamentally a “dual track” undertaking. Vatican wanted to open more channels towards state approved Church in China (i.e. the CPA), but on the other hand it also wanted to strengthen the underground Church. This was done chiefly by allowing the member of the unofficial Church to behave more independently from Vatican, which was seen as justified in the situation when Chinese Catholics couldn’t freely remain in touch with the Vatican.57 But this Vatican’s “dual track” policy towards China probably not only did nothing to remove the communist elite’s suspicion of the Pope but also slowed the reconciliation inside Chinese Catholic community.58 Some initial signs for reconciliation were thwarted soon in 1981, 51 Anthony Lam, „The Catholic Church in China“; Lawrence Reardon, “Ideational Learning and the Paradox of Chinese Catholic Reconciliation”, 54. 52 Beatrice Leung, “Catholic Bridging Efforts with China,” 186.53 Idem, Sino-Vatican Relations: Problems in Conflicting Authority, 1976–1986, chapter 7.54 See Idem, “Catholic Bridging Efforts with China,” 188–189.55 Gerald Chan, “Sino-Vatican Relations“, 817.56 Beatrice Leung, “The Chinese Catholic Church: Obstacles to Reconciliation,” 234.57 See Richard Madsen, China’s Catholics, pp. 41–42; Madsen, „Catholic Revival during the Reform Era“, 472–473.58 See Lawrence Reardon, “Ideational Learning and the Paradox of Chinese Catholic Reconciliation,” 55–56 for this argument.

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when the Vatican appointed Deng Yiming the bishop of Guangzhou without noticing Beijing (Deng was jailed from 1958 and was release only months before his consecration because he developed cancer, he later died in the USA). The government reaction was predictable: they rejected Deng’s appointment and instead of him the government appointed Ye Yiyuan as the new bishop of Guangzhou. Furthermore, in June 1981 the CPA consecrated without Vatican’s consent another five bishops together with releasing strong critique of the Holy See for its alleged interference to the PRC’s internal affairs. 59 Later in 1980s some unofficial contacts with the Holy See were opened, but they didn’t lead to any significant results. The resurgence of Chinese Catholic church was thus more a result of general relaxation of the CCP’s religious policy and opening up to the outside world, than due to Vatican’s diplomatic efforts.

After the Tiananmen incident of 1989, the religious policy of the CCP took harsher turn. This went along with propaganda campaign aiming at intellectuals, the academia and public at large containing strong nationalistic message, stressing a hundred years of national humiliation (bainian guoji) and the role of the CCP in ending foreign imperialist incursion in China.60 That the danger of foreign induced regime change is real was seen by the Party as confirmed by ongoing process when other socialist regimes around the Eastern bloc were crumbling. Therefore, in the sphere of religion the CCP stressed again more vigorously the need for religious believers to put the religion in service of the one-party state. The CCP issued the “Circular on Stepping up Control over the Catholic Church to Meet the New Situation” which called for more intense supervision of the Catholic Church and heightened repression of the underground church.61 Religion should resolutely adapt to socialist environment, as explained clearly by the PRC’s president and CCP general secretary Jiang Zemin in 1993: “This type of adaptation does not require religious adherents to abandon theism and religious beliefs. However, adherents are required to be patriotic in political matters, to embrace socialism, and support the Communist party leadership. They should alter those religious systems which do not go along with socialism, while the positive elements of the religious systems, religious doctrine and religious morality should be utilized for the service of socialism.”62

Nevertheless, after few years the CCP elites became again less suspicious of religious activities and relaxed their posture and Catholic clergy was allowed limited contacts with abroad, as was the case in late 1980s. Jiang Zemin’s religious policy at this time reflected general attitude of the government, which primarily needed social stability for deepening economic reforms. Religious groups could even be helpful as an appendix to state’s social policy with their charitable activities.63 In 1996 secret diplomatic talks with the Vatican were resumed after their break up in 1989. During his visit to Europe in 1999, Jiang Zemin was urged by some European top politicians to attempt to consolidate relations with the Holy See. In spring 1999 Vatican Secretary of state Cardinal Angelo Sodano voiced Vatican’s willingness to drop diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in exchange for so-called Vietnamese solution to the question of consecrating of bishops by the Pope.64 Albeit Vietnam doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Vatican, both states achieved modus vivendi in the case of appointing bishops, when the Pope approves candidates from list of names brought up by the Vietnamese government (yet, the Pope

59 Gerald Chan, “Sino-Vatican Relations“, 823–824.60 See Susan L. Shirk, China. Fragile Superpower, 63. 61 Translation in Anthony Lam, Catholic Church in Present Day China, 287–297.62 Cited in Leung, “Catholic Bridging Efforts with China”, 187.63 Tony Saich, “Negotiating the State“, 126–133.64 Richard Madsen, “Catholic Revival during the Reform Era“, 475.

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has the final word). Adopting similar system for naming bishops in the PRC would result not only in with removing much obstacles in bilateral relations with the Vatican but would also lead to gradual integration of the official and underground church in China. In late 1999, insiders claimed that the normalization of Sino-Vatican relations is imminent, but also claimed that the Party will try to keep its grip on Catholics through the CPA.65

Unfortunately, the coming Sino-Vatican reconciliation didn’t materialize not because of Vatican’s diplomatic missteps, but was thwarted by abrupt change in China’s domestic religious/political situation. In April 1999 out of sudden thousands well-organized members of popular eclectic religious group called Falun gong held silent demonstration in front of government quarters in the centre of Beijing. Harsh steps against the adherents of Falun gong by state authorities followed, starting with making all such “heretic cults” illegal by National People’s Congress decree in October 1999. What scared the communist leadership probably the most was the perceived infiltration of Falun gong members in state and party structures. This policy was not aimed only against various qigong practices such as Falun gong, but was also directed against several millenarian Protestant sects lead by charismatic leaders.66 Early on in 2000 one another contentious religious issues arose for Beijing when one of the highest clerics in Tibetan Buddhism the Karmapa Lama fled from Lhasa to India.67 These issues resurrected in full strength the perennial problem of religion and politics in China, which is the fear of social and political unrest fed by secret, well-disciplined and religiously based societies that so troubled (not exclusively) late imperial China.68

In January 2000 the CPA consecrated five bishops without the Pope’s consent to make the point that there would be no last word for the Vatican in naming bishops in the Chinese Church.69 It seems that this step didn’t stem from Jiang Zemin himself, but was with high probability staged by some of the more leftist groups within the CCP.70 The Sino-Vatican relations reached their low point probably in October 2000, when the Catholic Church decided to proclaim 120 Chinese as martyrs of the Church. The date for this occasion was set unwisely for Oct. 1, when the PRC was commemorating its 50 th

anniversary. There was widespread critique in the Chinese official press denouncing the Pope’s decision. Daniel Bays rightly claims that “this incident symbolizes very well the ambiguous role and legacy of Christian missions and Chinese Christianity in modern Chinese history.”71 In October 2001 the Pope delivered a speech (on the occasion of 400 th

anniversary of Mateo Ricci’s arrival in Beijing), where he acknowledged with sadness and regret that “the work of members of the Church in China was not always without error, the bitter fruit of their personal limitations and of the limits of their action”. John Paul II also manifested regret over the connection between the Church and imperial policy of the Western powers in China and asked “for forgiveness and understanding of those who may have felt hurt in some way by such actions on the part of Christians.”72 The Pope also said that the Church seeks no special privileges from China and its leaders and that he hopes for renewal of dialogue between the Holy See and the PRC. However,

65 Jeroom Heyndryckx, “An Olive Branch for China.”66 See for example David A. Palmer, Qigong fever: Body, Science and Utopia in China; Emily Dunn, Lighting from the East.67 See Pitman Potter, “Belief in Control,” 328.68 Se for example Elizabeth J. Perry, Challenging the Mandate of Heaven; Idem, Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845–1945.69 See Madsen, Catholic Revival During the Reform Era, p. 494–485.70 Jeroom Heyndryckx, “An Olive Branch for China.”71 Daniel Bays, New History of Christianity in China, 66.72 John Paul II, “Message of Pope John Paul II to China.“

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his apology wasn’t enough to remove all the bitterness of the 2000 canonization left with Chinese authorities.

5. The PRC and the Holy See 2005–2013Since John Paul II’s death in 2005 there has been an expansion of Catholicism in China, albeit slower than in the case of Protestantism. Hundreds of thousands new members joined the Catholic Church, hundreds of new churches were built bringing their numbers nationwide to well over 6 000. In contemporary China there are probably around 12 million believers including those belonging to the underground church. Since 1980s the gap between official and unofficial church has narrowed. Albeit the Sino-Vatican diplomatic settlement is still lacking, it seems that the official and underground church are closer to each other than ever before. In many places “underground and official priest live together, share church buildings and even participate in religious services together (…) there is no longer stark division between one faction of the Church loyal to the Vatican and one faction loyal instead to the Chinese government.”73 Close contacts between the two parts of church in China was also symbolized by the fact that approximately two thirds of bishops consecrated by the open church receive informal Vatican approval.74

Nevertheless, Sino-Vatican relations since the ascent of Benedict XIV. in 2005 were far from unproblematic. One of the reasons was the new Chinese leadership, where Jiang Zemin was replaced by Hu Jintao. Hu as the new paramount leader (incumbent from 2003) was weaker political figure than Jiang Zemin or even Deng Xiaoping.75 Therefore the system was permeated by unclear instructions from the political centre and local cadres and politicians were able to function more independently than before. During Hu’s time as General Secretary we could discern steady increase of personnel in state institutions dealing with religious affairs.76 Under the auspices of assuring “harmonious development” (Hu’s key political and ideological concept) for growingly unequal Chinese society, local cadres got it right that what Hu really meant was that the CCP’s goal is to provide more equitable social development for all citizens together with keeping political and social stability at all costs. And as we will see below, in Hu’s era there have been many cases of illicit consecrations of bishops.

Benedict XVI during his Pontificate (2005–2013) made the plan for reconciliation with the PRC one of his top priorities, but he was much more successful with reconciliation with Orthodox Church and the Russian Federation, where approximately 40 percent of Orthodox believers live, than with China.77 Catholic Church suffered greatly in the USSR under the communist rule (together with other denominations), but in past decade many contentious points between Vatican and the Russian state have been dealt with. In 2010, for the first time from the start of Bolshevik revolution in then tsarist Russian in 1917, both countries established full diplomatic relations. Benedict XVI. have found quite large common ground with Putin’s regime including protection of Christians in hostile environment around the world (chiefly the Middle East) and taking steps against materialism, secularism and immorality in the West.

No such ideological common ground seemed to be present in Sino-Vatican relations. In June 2007 Benedict sent carefully prepared open letter to Chinese Catholics,

73 Madsen, “Catholic Revival during the Reform era“, 474.74 Ibid, 480, 483; see also Madsen, China’s Catholics, 41–42.75 For this period see Willy Lam, Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao Era.76 Anthony Lam, “The Ten Year Reign of Hu Jintao.“77 See V. Gaetan, “The Church Undivided.“

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where he acknowledged the suffering of believers under the communist rule, but also stressed that there is a need to look to future reconciliation with the Chinese state. Benedict hoped for establishment of diplomatic relations with the PRC as well as for reinstating stricter Vatican’s control over the Chinese church. “The misunderstanding and incomprehension weighs heavily, serving neither the Chinese authorities nor the Catholic Church in China,” the Pope wrote.78 In the Pope’s view, Catholic Church doesn’t represent any political threat to the government and Vatican’s dialogue with the authorities doesn’t mean abandoning the true teaching of the Church: “The purification of memory, the pardoning of wrongdoers, the forgetting of injustices suffered and the loving restoration to serenity of troubled hearts, all to be accomplished in the name of Jesus crucified and risen, can require moving beyond personal positions or viewpoints, born of painful or difficult experiences.”79 Benedict’s letter to Chinese Catholics couldn’t circulate freely among Chinese believers and the state authorities described the letter as “an infiltration attempt and a challenge to China’s sovereignty”.80

Benedict XVI. revoked the 1988 papal directives which allowed Chinese Christians loyal to the Vatican to operate independently of the Holy See’s supervision and he made thus clears that he was trying to actually tighten Vatican’s control over China’s Catholics. Another Benedict’s action seen suspiciously by the Chinese authorities was the appointment of the long term critic of Beijing bishop Joseph Zen Zekun as cardinal of Hong Kong in March 2006, where the incumbent works as an intermediary between the Vatican and the PRC. For example, the head of the CPA at the time saw Zen’s appointment as an act of hostility towards China.81 Few months after, Zen criticized the Chinese government for the 1989 Tiananmen incident and called for its open and public review. On the same occasion, Zen questioned the stability of contemporary Chinese political regime with calling the legitimacy of the PRC in question: "Yes, the economy has improved and some people have earned lots of money, but corruption abounds, the gap in wealth is huge, mines keep swallowing workers and fake milk powder and fake medicines are flooding the market — is this considered an improvement?"82 Zen, who became bishop of Hong Kong in 1996, has been outspoken critique of the Communist regime in the mainland on other occasions as well. It is therefore curious that Zen should have been the person who would act as an intermediary in Vatican’s attempt to restore diplomatic relations with the PRC.

Both Vatican and China were voicing their willingness to better mutual relationship but periodically this was being hampered again by the dispute over the naming of bishops and independence of the Chinese church. Already for some time, majority of the bishops in the official Church were in fact also approved by the Vatican. From 2004–2006 at least five bishops were ordained with Vatican’s as well as Beijing’s consent. However, in 2006 the CPA again consecrated three bishops without Vatican’s approval, namely in Kunming, Shenyang and Anhui provinces. However, there were no illicit (from Vatican’s point of view) consecrations for another several years. Despite criticism of China’s unilaterally consecrating bishops, the Vatican stick to overall conciliatory tone when addressing the situation in China. In July 2006 the Vatican even

78 Rosenthal, E. “Pope Urges Reconciliation for China’s Catholics.” The New York Times, July 1 2007.79 Ibid.80 Angelo Lazzarotte, “Five Years after Pope Benedict XVI’s Letter to Chinese Catholics.“81 Keith Bradsher, “China Install Bishops as Vatican Objects.” The New York Times, April 30, 2006.

82 Idem, “Cardinal Faults Chinese Rulers at Anniversary of Tiananmen.“ New York Times, June 5 2006.

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sent its first diplomatic official delegation to China to meet the government’s officials for first time in five years. But they didn’t meet anyone from the CPA.83

However, new rift between China and the Holy See opened in 2010–12. Cardinal Parolin who headed the Vatican’s negotiations team was recalled and sent as papal nuncio to Venezuela and Vatican’s commission for relations with China released a statement that basically demanded Chinese bishops’ withdrawal from participating in CPA’s and other “independent” religious bodies sponsored by the state. The CPA then consecrated four bishops against the wishes of the Holy See between 2011 and 2012. Three of the new bishops were automatically called to be excommunicated by the Holy See, for the first time since 1950s. Joseph Huang Bingzhang (bishop of Shantou) was excommunicated by the Holy See in July 2011 for accepting his new position without papal approval, even against repeated urges not to do so.84 In the same year, similar situation repeated in Sichuan. This time the target of excommunicated was Joseph Guo Jincai made previously the bishop of Chengde.85 Finally, in 2012 Joseph Yue Fusheng was excommunicated for accepting the post of bishop without Vatican’s consent.86

There also have been some rare examples of open renunciation of the CPA. In Shanghai Thaddeus Ma Daqin was consecrated as auxiliary bishop in 2012 with both the government’s and Vatican’s approval, but during his ordination mass he announced resignation from the CPA. He is held in house arrest ever since. However, unofficial sources signal willingness of the Chinese government to install Ma as a new full bishop in Shanghai. But, he has to truly repent, said Anthony Liu Bainian (honorary CPA chairman), while Vatican has to show enough willingness to cooperate, „especially now that foreign ruling powers want to contain the development of China, they must also want to use religion to sow discord“.87

6. New leadership in Vatican and BeijingFrom 2013, there has been new leadership both in Vatican (Pope Francis) and in the PRC (Xi Jinping) and some commentators took these changes as important factor in potential future Sino-Vatican reconciliation. The new pope’s persona could work better with the Chinese government, because Francis doesn’t come from western country with imperial history in China (he is Argentinian) and he is also a Jesuit, member of an order which brought Christianity to China during the Qing dynasty and was then able to reconcile the Catholic teachings with indigenous beliefs. (Francis allegedly has in his study Marian icon from pilgrimage site of Sheshan just outside Shanghai. Also, Vatican’s former chief negotiator with China, Pietro Parolin was designated as the new secretary of state.

At least since 1989 the CCP is worried about slow but irreversible “peaceful evolution” when the spread of Western values like democracy, human rights and such will slowly cause the downfall of one-party rule in China. When John Paul II was still the pontiff their logical conclusion was that the Holy See is staunch Western ally. But that has changed already under two following pontiffs. During both under Benedict XVI and now under Francis it is clear that for Vatican to achieve its primary goals support of democracy is probably only an “ad hoc” political mean, not an end itself. The last two pontiffs could be seen as leaders who strongly criticize modern capitalism and Western liberal culture and who were willing for example to join hands with Vladimir Putin not

83 Elisabeth Rosenthal. “In Rare Visit, Vatican Sends Envoy to China.” The New York Times, June 28, 2006.84 Donadio, Rachel, and Elizabeth A. Harris. “Vatican Excommunicates Chinese Bishop.” The New York Times July 16, 2011.85 Nicole Winfield. “The Vatican Denounces China over ordination of own Bishop”, AP November 25, 2010.86 See People’s Daily Aug. 10 201187Wee, Sui-Lee. “The Bishop Who Stood-up to China,” Reuters, March 31, 2014.

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only for his strongly voiced support of Christianity and traditional values but also for his critique of the decline of morality in the Western culture.88 This fact could bring the Vatican closer to its reconciliation with Beijing. On the other hand, Pope’s Latin American background and his very critical stance towards contemporary form of capitalism could be seen also as potential problem with future relations with China, where economic modernization is the key goal of the PRC’s leaders.

The Chinese Government congratulated Pope Francis after his inauguration but made clear that no interference in China’s domestic affairs will be accepted. Beijing hopes that the new pope will help to improve bilateral relations, but there are two prerequisites. The Holy See has to severe its diplomatic relations with Taiwan and the Catholic Church “must stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, including in the name of religion”.89 The Pope official acknowledged contacts with the Chinese president in spring 2014 (via letter exchange). In summer 2014, Pope Francis visited Asia (first visit of the Pontiff to Asia since John Paul II’s trip in 1995), but only flew over China with no visit in the country. In August 2015 Joseph Zhang Yinlin was consecrated in Anyang, Henan province with prior Vatican’s approval.90 It was the first consecration of Chinese bishop in three years after the Ma Daqing case. It seems that this step could be a return to previous practice that Beijing will name candidates that the Holy See has already approved. In March 2015 Vatican spokesperson F. Lombardi said in an interview with Hong Kong based Phoenix TV that Vatican is willing to adopt the Vietnamese solution for China in exchange for more significant involvement of Vatican in China’s church matters.

Indeed, in 2015 there have been many signs of possible reconciliation between China and the Vatican. In October Holy See delegation flew to Beijing to continue renewed dialogue. Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin told the journalists that “i t is not the first time a papal delegation heads to Beijing. It is part of a process aimed at the normalisation of relations. The sheer fact we are able to talk about it is significant.”91 On the other hand, there is an ongoing campaign aimed against “too visible” Protestant churches, primarily in Zhejiang province, where many crosses were removed and some churches demolished, which clearly shows the government’s resolve to maintain control in all areas with possible (actual or perceived) political impact on domestic situation in China. Also, when the Pope Francis visited Korea in summer 2015, the official religious authorities in China (like the CPA) urged the believers not to go to visit him. “The authorities exerted pressure on their families, employers, school and college principals to ensure that young people would not go to the Asian Youth Day, encounter the pope and receive instructions from him. Some members of the government have even accused the young people of want to participate in "illegal religious activities".92 All this goes well with ongoing trend under Xi Jinping’s rule starting in 2013, when the state attempts to regulate civil society more strictly than it was done in the final years of the Hu Jintao era.

88 See Roland Flamini, “Peter and Caesar: Is Pope Francis Shifting the Vatican’s Worldview?”89 Garry Mullany. “Beijing Cautions New Pope on Meddling in China.” The New York Times, March 14, 2013. For these prerequisites in detail see Beatrice Leung, “Sino-Vatican Negotiations: problems in sovereign right and national security.”90 Michael Forsythe. “New Bishop in China Signals Hope for Relations with Vatican.“ The New York Times, August 5, 2015.91“Parolin Confirms Vatican Delegation visit to Beijing.” Vatican Insider, October 29, 2015. http://www.lastampa.it/2015/10/29/vaticaninsider/eng/world-news/parolin-confirms-vatican-delegations-visit-to-beijing-R7fM9aunSlTVI6Q0nJHCkJ/pagina.html 92 Bernardo Carvellera. „Pope Francis and Xi Jinping’s new line and the Chinese young people in Korea.“ Asianews, August 18, 2014. http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Pope-Francis-and-Xi-Jinping%E2%80%99s-new-line-and-the-Chinese-young-people-in-Korea-31921.html

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So it seems that any future reconciliation between the PRC and the Holy See will depend more on the situation inside the CCP and Chinese politics in general, than be determined by Vatican’s diplomacy, which is more stable in this regard. In 2016 there has been many negotiations between both sides underway93 and in early 2017 the Hong Kong cardinal Tong announced that an agreement on appointing bishops has been reached. In his own words the PRC will “let the Pope play a role in the nomination and ordination of Chinese bishops. Beijing will also recognize the Pope’s right of veto and that the Pope is the highest and final authority in deciding on candidates for bishops in China.”94 However, the agreement is yet about to be finalized and it also faces potentially daunting challenge from Chinese Catholics themselves, when some of them see the coming Sino-Vatican rapprochement as an abandonment of strong moral position of the Catholic church vis-à-vis an authoritarian forms of rule.

Why hasn’t been the Vietnamese solution to church-state already adopted for China? Even though Vietnam and the Holy See didn’t establish full diplomatic relations, bilateral relations with Vietnam are also much warmer that those with the PRC. Benedict XVI. met Vietnamese premier and president in 2007 and 2009, respectively. Pope Francis met the Vietnamese Prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung in October 2014. In 2011 Vatican appointed its first diplomatic envoy („non-resident representative“) to Vietnam, who is the papal nuncio to Singapore Leopoldo Girelli. In June 2015 Pope Francis named 15 new cardinals of which only five are from Europe and there was strong presence of Asian Christians among the appointed. The most interesting choice was the Vietnamese nominee taking the fact that Vietnam is an autocratic society lead by one-party state and it is globally seen as country abusing human rights including religious freedoms. Vietnamese Church is quite large (6m believers), conservative (akin to European standards) and well-disciplined. Thus, it bears close similarities to the Chinese church. Bu the Vietnamese government is clearly less sensitive to at least some control of Vatican over the Vietnamese church. It is possible that the Communist party in Chine unlike its Vietnamese counterpart simply doesn’t want to look as to consensual towards Vatican, because from its point of view that could have negative impact on its position in Tibet and Xinjiang.

The question of independence of Chinese Catholic church is the most crucial issue of contention in Sino-Vatican bilateral relations. The issue of Taiwan, even though generally very important to the PRC’ leaders, seems to be secondary to episcopal nominations. I think that after the issue of episcopal nominations (and other matters related to internal working of the Chinese church with larger Vatican’s involvement) is solved, diplomatic recognition of Taiwan will be dropped by the Holy See. There is a long term trend that the quality of bilateral relations between Taiwan and the Holy See is a function of Sino-Vatican relations; when there are signs of thawing in Sino-Vatican relations, Vatican downplays its connections to Taiwan and vice versa.95 Of course, Taiwan tries to gain as much political capital as it can from Vatican’s diplomatic recognition. For example, Taiwanese president Ma Yingjiuu attended pope Francis‘s inaugural mass, and Taiwanese vice-president attended canonization of John Paul II. and John XXIII. But that doesn’t change Vatican chief preference which is to achieve reconciliation with the Chinese state.96

93 Lisa Jucca and Benjamin Kang Lim. “Exclusive: Vatican and China in final push for elusive deal on bishops.“ Reuters, October 21, 2016.94 Barb Fraze, “China and the Vatican have reached an agreement on bishops, says cardinal.“ The Catholic Herald, February 9, 2017.95 See Gerald Chan, “Sino-Vatican Relations“, 815–817.96 See the analysis in see Beatrice Leung, “Sino-Vatican Negotiations: problems in sovereign right and national security.”

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7. ConclusionIn the PRC as well as in the Vatican, their stance on possible diplomatic consolidation is a result of underlying preferences which are determined by the goals and aims of the crucial political actors within these polities. Recent development in Sino-Vatican relations seems to be promising, but we shouldn’t forget that such situation was present already several times in the past with no significant results after. If some sort of reconciliation between the PRC and the Vatican will happen, it will be only in a situation when the Communist elite will be sure that they remain in control of religious affairs in general. On the other hand, for Vatican to compromise as well, the CCP would have to not only allow at least some minimal free flow of information between Vatican and the Chinese Church, but also indirectly allow more open Church commentary on domestic social and economic policy. That is of course viable, but doesn’t seem probable in my opinion under Xi Jinping, even though Pope Francis seems to be a better partner for Beijing that were both of his predecessors. The reconciliation will be possible only if the crucial preferences of both sides are preserved. That would chiefly mean that the PRC will allow the Vietnamese solution happen in China but the institutional structure of CPA and similar organizations will remain in place. Such reconciliation could be thwarted by either change in China’s domestic political situation (as in 1999) or by Vatican’s policy aiming at complete abolishment of the CPA or similar organizations. That would also mean that for some time the Catholic Church would have to let go the idea of reclaiming Church properties taken from it in previous decades. In few years we will see more clearly, whether contemporary leaders in China and Vatican will be more able to overcame challenges to reconciliation than were their predecessors.

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