• by IPS Correspondents (manila)
• Thursday, January 19, 1995
• Inter Press Service

MANILA, Jan 19 (IPS) - China's frosty ties with the Vatican may have thawed somewhat when Chinese Catholics prayed with Pope John Paul II in the Philippines, but the road to healing the decades- old rift remains fraught with political potholes.

Much more time is needed before the estranged Catholic hierarchy in China returns to the Vatican's fold -- like the Biblical prodigal son -- and gives a key push to the Roman Catholic Church's desire to spread Christianity through Asia.

Only three percent of Asia's more than two billion people are Christian in a region where Buddhism, Islam and the Confucian culture flourish. Half of all Asian Christians are in the Philippines, where 83 percent of the population is Catholic.

The Pope makes no secret of his desire to visit China, whose government severed ties with the Vatican in 1951 and insists that it cut diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Beijing has its own Catholic church, the Chinese Patriotic Association (CPA), which does not follow the Vatican.

Vatican officials and Filipino organisers had been praying for a breakthrough in Vatican-China ties during the Pope's Jan. 12-16 visit to Manila.

For the first time, a 24-member group of Chinese Catholics that included five priests and four nuns were allowed to attend a mass said by the Pope, before whom they made a 'profession of faith'. It was Beijing's first time to send a group to the World Youth Day celebrations, on invitation of the Philippine Church.

"The fact they (youth) were allowed to come -- even if on the record their trip may have been clandestine -- is a sign of a warming in the chilly relations between China and the Vatican," the organisers said in a statement.

But the high hopes were doused when the Chinese delegation, led by Fr Shi Hong Xi of Beijing's Catholic Seminary, walked out of the World Youth Day (WYD) mass, angered by the sight of Taiwan's flag among those brought onto the stage.

The Chinese said WYD organisers broke a promise that Taiwan's flag would not be flown, accusing them of "deliberately creating a situation of 'two Chinas', seriously hurting the feelings of Chinese Catholics". They added: "That was something absolutely unacceptable to us."

Organisers had also been trying to work out a private meeting between the Pope and the Chinese delegates, but the Chinese group refused after the flag-waving incident.

The Pope earlier broadcast a message to Chinese Catholics from Manila and said he was "well aware of (their) difficulties", addressing the underground church that defied Beijing's demand to renounce religious allegiance to the pontiff.

But he also firmly told the state church: "A Catholic who wishes to remain such and to be recognised as such, cannot reject the principle of communion with the Successor of Peter."

Before the walkout, Shi said CPA members recognise the Pope as the "highest church leader". The CPA has three million members, but several million more worship in the underground church. The Vatican, though, has not declared the CPA a schismatic group.

Church officials concede that decades of estrangement cannot be instantly healed, but take comfort in the fact that the attendance of the Chinese delegation was still a first.

As Manila Archbishop Cardinal Jaime Sin, son of a Chinese immigrant, said: "This is something very, very close to my heart because this is the first time that mainland China is participating in this affair." The Pope called their presence a "beautiful thing".

Rapprochement with China would strengthen the Vatican's efforts to boost its focus on Asia in recent decades, starting with Pope Paul VI's 1970 visit to the region. The Philippines, hailed by the Pope as a base for evangelisation in Asia, hosts a training school for priests for Chinese communities.

Pope John Paul II, whose January tour of the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Australia and Sri Lanka makes him the only pontiff to visit Asia twice, is trying to give credit to Catholic martyrs from Asia and give Asian Catholics models.

He has canonised some 250 people since he became Pope in 1978, including 100 Korean martyrs. In 1981, he beatified 17 persons martyred in Japan, including Lorenzo Ruiz who is the first Filipino saint.

In his January trip to Asia, the Pope beatified Papua New Guinea martyr Peter To Rot and is to beatify Australian nun Mary MacKillop and Sri Lankan priest Fr Joseph Vaz. Beatification is the last step to sainthood.

One-third of Papua New Guinea's four million people are Catholics. Sri Lanka is mainly Buddhist and Catholics make up seven percent of its 16.8 million people. Catholics account for 27.3 percent of Australians, slightly ahead of Anglicans though the Anglican church remains the country's official church.

Catholic groups are also active in various parts of Asia, even in largely Buddhist Cambodia where there are only 10,000 Christians. The groups do social work there, but most do not proselytise openly.

As Sin pointed out last week, Asia is home to the world's major religions. But "here, after two millennia, the Christian faith has hardly a foothold," he added.

Asian bishops meeting in Manila this week also pointed to another set of earthly challenges for the Catholic church's efforts to spread the faith.

Asia may be the world's fastest-growing and newest affluent region, but there are "increasing signs of practices hostile to life", such as "unbridled capitalism" that often marginalises the poor, harms the environment and erodes traditional values, the bishops said.

The 21-member Federation of Asian Bishops Conference said excessive consumerism in Asia made people want "to have more, eat more and waste more".

"Capitalism's ensemble of technical and psychological instruments can reach every town and village in Asia, changing behaviours, poisoning imaginations, controlling relationships, thereby creating a new culture where death rather than life triumphs," they said in a statement.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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