China's Catholics under state control.

In his Mission magazine in 1957, Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote that "The West has its Mindszenty, but the East has its Kung. God is glorified in His Saints." Ignatius Cardinal Kung Pin-Mei, Bishop of Shanghai and Apostolic Administrator of Souchou and Nanking, died in Connecticut on March 12, 2000 at the age of 98. His funeral Mass took place in Stamford on March 18, with Cardinal Stafford, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, as principal celebrant. As the article below makes clear, Cardinal Kung remained true to the Church even under the most intense and long-lasting persecution. The foundation named after him monitors religious affairs in China, especially the persecution of Catholics and the activities of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which is not in communion with Rome. While the Beijing government keeps insisting that it wants good relations with the Vatican, its Patriotic Association keeps illicitly consecrating bishops. The Vatican has described such actions as "a painful wound to Church communion. "Relations have become further strained by the arrests of orthodox Catholic bishops, priests, and laymen, and the destruction of Catholic churches.

Two recent news items illustrate that China is still pursuing the policies criticized in this article. Near the end of August, 2000, police arrested 130 members of an underground evangelical church, including three Americans. Fr. Bernardo Cervella, director of the Vatican agency Fides, described this as part of the Chinese plan to eliminate every kind of organization outside state control. Nevertheless, Catholic communities continue to grow, he revealed, as "in this desert of ideals, Catholics, as well as other religions, are the only possibility that people have to maintain truth and ideals."

Second, Planned Parenthood's news service claims that China is now phasing out its one-child policy, which had been introduced there in 1972 on advice of IPPF. Chinese officials now realize that the policy is a disaster, destabilizing the entire country with a dearth of young workers. Nevertheless, it remains a crime to have too many babies. In August, family planning officials in a village in Hubei province heard about the Huang family having a fourth child, and forcibly injected Mrs. Huang's womb with a saline solution shortly before her baby was to be born. Miraculously, the baby, a boy, survived. When Mrs. Huang and her baby went home, five angry officials were waiting for them, grabbed the newborn child and drowned him in a rice paddy right before his parents' eyes.

In an editorial on "Infanticide in China," the National Post asks what words can describe the compulsory eradication of 300 million unborn children: "Of all the horrors visited upon China by the Communist Party, the one-baby-policy is surely the most unspeakably wicked", it concluded.

Joseph M. C. Kung, nephew of Cardinal Kung, is President of the Cardinal Kung Foundation, with headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.

The following is an edited version of an address given to the Toronto Wanderer Forum on December 4, 1999. The Cardinal Kung Foundation, may be reached at: Web page: http://www.cardinalkungfoundation.org Tel: [phone]

Joseph Kung

On October 5, 1999, the US State Department justifiably classified China and six other countries as having "engaged in particularly severe violations of religious freedom." As expected, the Chinese government promptly protested against this classification. "Nobody has been arrested or detained because of religious beliefs," it claimed. "If religious believers are arrested, it is not because of their religious beliefs, but because they have taken part in criminal activities."

What criminal activities? Is going to church one of them? Is celebrating Holy Mass in a private home? Is carrying out the pastoral duty of a bishop? Is sharing a simple birthday noodle dish with parishioners on Cardinal Kung's 98th birthday also a criminal activity?

Many bishops, priests and lay people were jailed precisely because of such activities. A Holy Mass, a prayer service, and even praying over the dying are all considered subversive activities, if they are conducted without government permission. Religious services for the unregistered church can only be conducted secretly, in private homes or in deserted fields. Such gatherings of Catholics or of members of other unregistered churches are considered subversive activities punishable by exorbitant fines, detention, house arrests, jail, labour camp or even death.

Let me present to you a few recent examples.

1. Bishop Lin Xili, age 81, of Wezhou Diocese in Zhejiang Province was arrested, together with three priests, on September 7, 1999, after being placed under an arrest warrant for about one year.

2. About six weeks later, Father Kong Guocun of the same diocese was arrested, as were four others a week later, on October 28. No reason was given

for these arrests, but it is widely believed that they were directly related to these priests' refusal to join the Catholic Patriotic Association-the Communist-created church not recognized by the Vatican.

3. In mid-October, Bishop Xie Shiguang of Mindong in Fukian province was subjected to interrogation by government officials. No one knows his present whereabouts.

5. On May 13, 1999, Father Yan Weiping of Yixian, Hebei, went to Beijing to offer a private Mass. He was found dead on a city street at eight o'clock that evening. It has not been possible to determine the exact circumstances of his death, but many underground Catholics believe that he was pushed out of a window. There are no known witnesses.

4. On August 15, 1999, Bishop Jai Zhiguo was arrested-presumably to prevent him from celebrating Mass for his faithful on the feast of the Assumption, one of the most important feasts in the Catholic calendar.

6. In May, 1999, an underground Catholic seminarian, Wan Qing, was arrested, tortured, and hung for three days by his hands with his toes barely touching the ground. He suffered extensive injury. In addition, he was forcefed with filthy fluid, causing serious gastrointestinal injury and diarrhea.

7. Some of you may have heard of Cardinal Kung's anniversary celebration. On July 31, 1999, in Stamford, Connecticut, His Eminence observed the 50th anniversary of religious persecution in China-and also his 98th birthday, the 70th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, his 50th as a bishop, and his 20th as a cardinal. Father Chu Guangyao also celebrated the Cardinal's birthday in Shanghai, sharing with his parishioners a simple noodle dish, since noodles symbolize long life. The Chinese Security Bureau indicated its displeasure, and three days later Father Chu was arrested and his living quarters searched and ransacked. He was released after two days, but rearrested thirteen days later, on August 16th.

8. In January 1999, Father Li Qinghua, 31, from Yixian diocese in Hebei, was tortured and an attempt made to force him to have sexual relations with prostitutes.

9. One of the most famous shrines in China was that of Our Lady of Dong Lu in Hebei Province, dating back over a hundred years. Each May, in spite of persecution, tens of thousands visited it. In April and May 1996, five thousand soldiers, supported by armoured cars and helicopters, sealed off this tiny village, and levelled the shrine. It was as though Tianemen Square had happened all over again-five thousand soldiers beating and arresting unarmed and defenceless villagers, the only difference being that there were no reporters and no cameras.

Religious Freedom?

Since the beginning of religious persecution in China fifty years ago, hundreds of lay Catholics, priests, nuns, seminarians, and bishops have been arrested. They are still in jail or labour camps, because they continue to refuse to renounce our Holy Father or join the Communist-created Patriotic Association. The Chinese government has apparently adopted a terrorist policy to prevent religious celebrations by unauthorised churches. Local authorities are allowed to use any means to stop them; they may resort to savage beatings, heavy fines, detentions, the suspension of children from schools, the confiscation of farmland, and the suspension of water and power supply from homes. Any five families found praying together may be charged with an illegal gathering. Any three families gathering together may be fined or have their water and power supply cut off.

China insists it has religious freedom. Yet the fact that Catholics and other unregistered religious believers are treated as criminals strongly suggests otherwise. Since the brutal behaviour of government officials is not punished, one can reasonably conclude that this terrorism is state-sponsored and that China is lying to the international community regarding its policy of religious freedom and human rights.

In January, 1997, Cardinal Kung Foundation released to the news media an internal document of the Chinese government detailing procedures to eradicate the underground Catholic Church, including the use of "resolute, decisive and organized measures...to eradicate the illegal activities of the underground Catholic Church." Another document, issued August 17, 1999, states that China is planning large-scale suppression of the underground Church if diplomatic relations with the Vatican are established. Obviously it is not the intention of the government to end the persecutions if diplomatic relations are established.

In fact, the document stresses the possible instability of Chinese society as the result of establishing diplomatic relations with the Vatican, and emphasizes that the Vatican must not interfere with Chinese internal policy under the pretence of religious interests. It contends that "the Vatican will try to take advantage of such normalization of its relationship with China first to deny the right of independence, sovereignty, and autonomy in the Church (meaning the Patriotic Association), and secondly to work to regain the power of the Catholic Church in China."

Therefore the document demands the authority

1) to sentence those who fall short of full compliance with the state-approved Patriotic Association to serve time in reeducation or labour camps. The document states

2) that "the underground Church ... must be eliminated by means of the destruction of seminaries and convents; (it) must be eliminated by re-education, forced labour, dismissal and isolation of stubborn priests and bishops."

3) it "plans to convert the majority of the underground Church and to isolate the minority so that the real power of the Catholic Church in China will be vested in the hands of the Patriotic Association Church."

In response, the Vatican has denied that the establishment of diplomatic relations is imminent. When the Chinese government says otherwise, it is putting up another smoke-screen to hide a large-scale persecution of religious believers. Rome says that "it is common knowledge that the Holy See desires to have good relations with all countries, including China, where there is a Catholic community." But the Pope said in New Delhi, India, on November 7, 1999, that "No state, no group has the right to control either directly or indirectly a person's religious convictions, nor can it justifiably claim the right to impose or impede the public profession and practice of religion."

Despite the severe persecutions of the last fifty years and their expected intensification, the underground Catholic Church in China will continue to exist. In April 1994, the then 93-year-old Cardinal Kung said in St. John's Church in New York, "The Catholic Church will never vanish in China. I beg you to have the patience to stay with us with your prayers and open support until Our Holy Mother saves China in her own time."

Cardinal Kung

No account of religious persecution and violation of human rights in China would be complete without mention of His Eminence Cardinal Kung. Born in Shanghai in 1901, he began his seminary studies when he was 19, was ordained priest at the age of 29, and consecrated a bishop on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary--after the communists had already taken over China. He was created a Cardinal in pectore (in secret-- without his knowing it) in 1979, at the age of 78, when he was serving a life sentence in isolation. Twelve years later, he did receive his red hat. He remained Bishop of Shanghai, and he was also the spiritual leader of the nine million underground Catholics in China until his death in March 2000.

He had spent only five years as Bishop of Shanghai and Apostolic Administrator of two dioceses when he was arrested in 1955. In just five short years, he had become one of the most feared enemies of the Chinese Communists--a man who, by his own example, would command the admiration and devotion of China's Catholics and inspire thousands to stay loyal to their faith even at the price of their freedom. He personally supervised the Legion of Mary, which was falsely accused by the government of being counter-revolutionary. As a result, many members chose to risk arrest in the name of Christ, their Church, and their bishop. Hundreds of them, including many students, were arrested and sentenced to ten, fifteen, twenty years or more of hard labour.

Amid severe persecutions, Bishop Kung declared 1952 a Marian Year in Shanghai. That year there was to be twenty-four hours of uninterrupted daily recitation of the rosary before a Lady of Fatima statue which toured all the Shanghai parishes. It finally arrived at Christ the King Church, where a major arrest of priests had just taken place the previous month. Bishop Kung visited the church and personally led the rosary while armed police looked on. At the end of the rosary, Bishop Kung prayed, "Holy Mother, we do not ask for a miracle. We do not beg you to stop the persecutions. But we beg you to support us who are very weak."

Knowing that he and his priests would soon be arrested, the bishop trained hundreds of catechists to take over his diocese. It was through their efforts, even their martyrdom, that the Catholic Church in China survived. Bishop Kung gave up his habit of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. He also asked his dentist to pull out his remaining teeth, so that the communists would not be able to use his toothache problem, or the agony of withdrawal symptoms, to extract information from him. On September 8, 1955, he was arrested, along with over 200 priests and other church leaders.

Five years later, he was brought to trial. The night before the trial, the chief prosecutor asked him to denounce the Holy Father and co-operate with the Patriotic Association, in return for his immediate release and promise of leadership in the Patriotic Church. His answer was simple: "You are a member of the Communist Party. Would you give up your membership? I am a Catholic bishop. If I denounce the Holy Father, not only would I not be a bishop, but I would not even be a Catholic. You can cut off my head, but you can never take away my duties."

Bishop Kung was sentenced to life imprisonment. He vanished behind bars for thirty years; during that time, he was never allowed a visit from his family, from any Catholic in China, or from any foreign government or human rights agency. Then in 1985, at the age of 84, the ailing and weak bishop was suddenly released from jail, to serve another ten years of house arrest under the custody of the Patriotic Association bishops who had betrayed him. A New York Times story immediately after his release said that the ambiguous wording of the Chinese news agency regarding the reason for his release suggested that the authorities, not the bishop, might have relented. After he had served two and a half years of house-arrest, he was officially released.

I went to China twice in order to escort the 88-year-old bishop out of China so that he could receive proper medical care in the United States. Bishop Kung had been created a cardinal in pectore in 1979, at the age of 78. Twelve years later, in 1991, the secret was announced to the world by the Pope himself. When John Paul presented him with his red hat on June 29, 1991, the new cardinal raised himself up from his wheelchair, put aside his cane, and walked up the steps to kneel at the Pontiff's feet. Visibly touched, the Holy Father lifted him up, presented him with his hat and stood as Cardinal Kung returned to his wheelchair to an unprecedented seven-minute standing ovation from the eight thousand guests.

The story of Cardinal Kung is the story of a hero and a faithful shepherd. He is the undisputed chief witness to the Communist government's fifty years of religious persecution in China. When he received an honorary degree from Sacred Heart University, he was characterized as a man who refused to renounce God and his church despite dire personal consequences; who inspired millions of his countrymen to follow his example and preserve the Catholic Church in a Communist country; who kept the faith even though in solitary confinement for thirty years; who became a symbol for world leaders in their fight for human rights in all countries.

In Mission magazine in 1957, Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote, "The West has its Mindszenty, but the East has its Kung. God is glorified in His saints."

The Patriotic Association

China turned Communist in 1949. Almost immediately, the new government started putting pressure on the Catholic Church. By 1953, many priests and laymen were arrested and dying in jail. But these early martyrs only reinforced the Catholic faith. Failing to stamp out the Church, the Chinese government, in 1957, created its own church, called the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, to replace the Catholic Church with one entirely controlled by the government. Instead of being destroyed, however, the Catholic Church grew from about three million in the early 1950s to about nine or ten million today.

The August 17, 1999 secret document stated that the most important task at hand was to ensure that the Patriotic Church was firmly in control of the situation and that the real power in the Catholic Church was vested in it. By remaining loyal to the Pope, the Catholic Church is outlawed and referred to as the "unofficial" or "underground" Church. In his speech on December 3, 1996, the Holy Father proclaimed it to be a "precious jewel of the Catholic Church." But all its properties are confiscated, and it remains penniless and without churches.

People travelling to China and visiting the cathedrals in Beijing or Shanghai probably do not realize that they are not in Catholic churches. They look Catholic, the vestments are the same, and so are the prayers and the hymns. But they do not recognize the authority of Rome. They have rejected the principle of communion with the successor of Peter. In addition, their teachings violate those of the Catholic Church. For example, a pastoral letter on the dignity and responsibility of women openly advised them to implement China's platform for their development-- which of course includes birth control, sterilization, and the one-child policy. The bishops of the Patriotic Association are not appointed by the Vatican, but by the Chinese government. During their consecration, the name of the Roman pontiff is not mentioned, but instead they take an oath of fidelity to the Patriotic Church. Still they call themselves "Catholic", and introduce themselves as Catholic priests or bishops. Many articles about the "Cathol ic Church in China" have appeared in periodicals, without making clear that they are describing the Patriotic Association church. Numerous tours to China have been organized by institutions such as the China Bureau headed by a Maryknoll sister, and they visit churches and seminaries run by the Patriotic Association. The loyal underground Church and its persecution by the Chinese government is almost never mentioned.

As well, Patriotic Association priests and bishops, masquerading as bona-fide clerics, travel around the world soliciting donations. Misinformed Catholics donate millions to them, while the loyal underground bishops are left with nothing. This is why the Cardinal Kung Foundation is here to tell the world about the plight of the underground Church.

Canon Law specifies that all religious organizations working in a diocese must receive the approval of the Ordinary. However, many missionaries in recent years have returned to China and started charitable projects which have no such sanction; they work with the Patriotic Association. Two years ago, a new retreat centre was opened in Shanghai by the Patriotic Association. It has three stories and can accommodate 102 persons. It cost U.S. $1.2 million, about one-third of it contributed by the Jesuits and the rest by other foreign missionaries. Approval was not sought from Cardinal Kung, the only legitimate Bishop of Shanghai, but from the Patriotic Association's Bishop Jin Luxian, S.J. who opened this new centre. Unfortunately, to many missionaries, approval by the communist government appears to be more important than the approval of the Ordinary of the diocese.

Maryknoll support for the Patriotic Association

There are approximately fifty Patriotic Association seminarians and priests studying in Catholic seminaries in the United States, and approximately an equal number elsewhere in the free world. This program in the U.S. is organized by Maryknoll (Editor: formerly missionaries to China), on behalf of the Patriotic Association. The students are given full tuition, room and board, scholarships from various dioceses, scholarships costing about one million dollars a year. Upon completion of their studies, these seminarians will return to China to be ordained, not by the underground bishops, but by the Patriotic Association ones.

A number of persons have inquired of Maryknoll why it helps these seminarians, and the replies are typically like this:

"Several years ago, Vatican officials encouraged us to get any seminarians out of China that we could and into the United States if at all possible. Their purpose was (and is) to get them a proper Roman Catholic education, and to expose them to the Universal Church. We were able to get about 40 of them out...We chose to follow the Holy Father's policy of reconciliation... We do not support one group over the other."

We wonder why Maryknoll failed to disclose the names of these "Vatican officials" and the dates when they encouraged it to sponsor "any seminarians" out of China to the United States, and why Maryknoll failed to point out that all of them belonged to the Patriotic Association. If Maryknoll does not "support one group over the other," why did it bring only seminarians of the Patriotic Association to the United States?

Some dioceses in the free world have granted facilities to Patriotic Association priests studying there, allowing them to offer Holy Mass and administer other Sacraments in a Catholic parish. There is no evidence that these priests have made a conversion to and profession of the true Catholic faith. Consequently, what they are doing is scandalous.

China continues its oppressive religious policies not only because many church leaders send wrong and misleading signals, but also because most governments in the free world are not serious about their demand for human rights improvements in China. The current policy of many countries to de-link human rights from trade sends a clear, but wrong, message to China that we will tolerate human rights abuses for the sake of profits and trade. So the Chinese government remains confident that it can continue to persecute religious believers without affecting its international relationships. With assistance from the free world, China has made significant economic progress during the past decades.

Sadly this progress has not brought about the true religious freedom many leaders of the free world had hoped for. It is naive and unethical for free-world governments to encourage the Chinese to enter the World Trade Organization while such religious persecution continues. When leaders of the free world attended the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the founding of the People's Republic of China, did they remember that religious prisoners were simultaneously observing the fiftieth anniversary of religious persecution in China? The Communists did not eliminate the three million Catholics by coercion and persecution in the 1950s. They are hoping to defeat the Catholic Church from within, through misinformation, deceit, and confusion as well as intensified persecutions. The Chinese government is trying very hard to erode the respect, confidence and obedience of the underground Church to the Holy Father so that, when the chips are down, the issue of papal authority over the Catholic Church in China will become irrelevant.

Editor's comment:

The Communist Party's campaign of repression continues. On May 17, 2000, Zenit reported that an appeal court had confirmed the sentence of Father Jiang Sunian, a priest of the underground Church in Zhejiang in southeastern China, to six years imprisonment for printing bibles and other religious materials. The sentence described the priest as a tax evader, guilty of a common crime, not a prisoner of religious liberty. There are no religious or political prisoners in China, according to the government, only common delinquents.

In January 2000, following the refusal of many Catholics to attend the ordination of bishops, the Catholic Patriotic Association consecrated five bishops without the Pope's approval. According to the International News agency Fides, another nine priests rejected episcopal ordination out of respect for the Pope, even though they knew their refusal would anger the Communist authorities. "It is necessary that all who have responsibilities, especially directors," said one official, "attentively study the Marxist concept of religion and, based on the law, reinforce the administration of religious affairs."

It is not surprising then, that Catholics have faced threats, violence and blackmail to force them to join the Patriotic Association. Eighty-five- year-old Bishop Xie Shiguang of Mindong was called in for a chat with government officials in October 1999 and then disappeared. Eventually he returned home, but "under supervision."

The evidence suggests therefore that Beijing and the Vatican are a long way from securing agreement on a peaceful resolution of religious problems in China.