The latest airborne adventure in pontifical press conferences garnered most attention for the comments about Donald Trump – “He’s not a Christian” – followed by some unexpected moral analysis offered in relation to sexual transmission of the Zika virus. Much grist for the mill of papal hermeneutics there, to be sure, but it was the end of the exchange that could be the most significant. Asked what he dreamed about, Pope Francis exclaimed: “China, I would love to go there!”
That might make Chinese Catholics nervous, after recent Roman conduct regarding Moscow. It was on the return flight from Turkey in November 2014 that Pope Francis summarised his attitude to meeting Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow: “I will go wherever you want. You call me and I will come.”
We now know that negotiations were already underway for the Francis-Kirill meeting. The airborne remark confirmed what Moscow already knew, namely that the Holy See would sacrifice a great deal to get the desired meeting. That had already been tested most dramatically at the October 2014 synod at which Metropolitan Hilarion, representing Kirill, launched a venomous attack on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, all the while a guest of the Vatican. The Holy See remained mute in response, declining to come to the defence of Ukrainian Catholics. Moscow – both the patriarchate and President Vladimir Putin – realised then that it would be easy to secure numerous concessions.
Fearful of those Orthodox who regard Rome as beyond the pale, Kirill got a meeting shorn of both prayer and a sacred location; an airport lounge more suited to low-level trade negotiators would suffice. Pope Francis made ambiguous comments about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is supported by Kirill to consolidate the influence of the Moscow patriarchate. The apostolic nuncio in Kiev, a vocal defender of the rights of the Ukrainian Catholics, was shifted to Switzerland – a perplexing move, given the marginal status of the Swiss Church, lacking as it does even a single metropolitan archdiocese. For his part, Putin got the meeting to be hosted in Cuba, a Soviet-era nod to his imperial ambitions. For added impact, he secured an unusually warm greeting for Raúl Castro last year at the Vatican, and for Fidel himself in Havana, curious marks of affection for brothers who have long persecuted the Church.
When Putin himself showed up in Rome, he kept the Holy Father waiting for more than an hour, a calculated humiliation – patiently endured – to demonstrate his disdain. Best of all, in casting the Francis-Kirill meeting as about persecuted Christians in the Middle East, Putin now claims papal benediction for his expansionist policies in Syria and elsewhere.
Most astonishing, the meeting itself was prepared without any consultation with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a perplexing decision by curial officials in an era of greater synodality. The resultant Havana joint declaration was such a propaganda coup for Moscow that the Ukrainians publicly expressed their dismay with Rome. Stung by the blunt criticism, Pope Francis distanced himself from his own declaration on the flight back from Mexico, and instructed his new nuncio in Kiev to rubbish the entire document as forgettable.
Surveying all that, and knowing that Beijing’s authoritarians have been observing it all very carefully, do the underground Catholics of China have reason to worry? They have been worried for some time.
Already a decade ago, the Vatican secretary of state expressed the eagerness of the Holy See diplomats to reach an agreement with China. Cardinal Angelo Sodano said in 2005: “I have said many times that if we can have contacts with Beijing, the person in charge of the Holy See’s affairs, who is in Taipei, would not go tomorrow but this very night to Beijing.” Pope Francis himself took up this line during his airborne press conference returning from Korea in August 2014, saying: “Am I willing to go to China? I would go tomorrow!”
The price of a papal visit to China, and for diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Beijing, has been known for a long time. If the Holy See would de facto recognise the authority of the Chinese state over Catholic life, and instruct the underground Church to accommodate itself in some form to the state-run “Patriotic Church”, the Pope could be in Beijing by summer to open the nunciature himself.
Pope Francis gave an interview on January 28 to the Asia Times on his thoughts about China. Expressing his great esteem for China’s millennial culture, the Holy Father declined to say anything about religious freedom or the situation of the underground Church. If negotiations are already underway for a visit to China, the Asia Times interview – analogous to the synod 2014 in relation to Moscow – demonstrated that the Holy See is willing to set aside difficult subjects.
Should Chinese Catholics be anxious that the Holy See is preparing to throw them under the bus? Or, given that they are already underground, whatever expression best captures being sacrificed to advance the Holy See’s diplomatic agenda?
Their principal defender and spokesman is very concerned. Cardinal Joseph Zen, emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, has been sounding the alarm that a great betrayal may be in the offing. In a blistering article for Asia News in January, Zen detailed the list of recent assaults on the Church by Beijing, and likened Vatican diplomacy to St Joseph attempting a “dialogue with Herod” after the massacre of the holy innocents. Zen, like the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church vis-à-vis Moscow, is not being consulted by the Holy See in relation to China. The Pope dreams of China. Might it become, as Cardinal Zen warns, a nightmare for faithful Chinese Catholics?
Fr Raymond J de Souza is a priest of the Archdiocese of Kingston, Ontario, and editor-in-chief of Convivium magazine
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