Pope Francis prayed for a long time for the “beautiful and noble Chinese people, a wise people”, while the airplane that took him to Seoul flew over China. He said so himself in his conversation with journalists during the return flight to Rome, after the positive and intense days he spent in Korea, when he was asked about the relationship with the People’s Republic of China and his willingness to visit the country.
In his short answers, Pope Francis reiterated, for as many as three times, his and the Holy See’s regard for the Chinese people. He also added some details which offer precious indications regarding a possible, substantial change of pace in the always travailed issue of the Holy See’s relationship to China and its reflection in the life of the Chinese Church.
As a first remark, the Pope said that he has prayed for the Chinese population. Francis always looks at the facts and problems of the world with the outlook of faith. In Beijing, as well as in the West, it is impossible to fully comprehend what Pope Francis does and says unless his faith is always taken into account. The result of discernment through prayer is also the declared openness and willingness to communicate, often reaffirmed by Pope Francis towards the People’s Republic of China. This does not mean blindly trusting volatile bonds made through political and diplomatic tactics; even during his meeting in Korea with 70 bishops from Asia, Pope Francis claimed that open-mindedness and listening are integral to all those leading a Christian life. Dialogue, “not only political but also brotherly”, according to the approach that Pope Francis favours, is the way forward in order to try and dissolve the pressures and oppressions inflicted on Catholic communities by the bureaucracy of the Chinese system. The Pope’s realism is also born out of the same faithful outlook: the realism to accept that in order to try and face problems, we must be open to communications with the Beijing government, especially in order to ascertain what the “new” President Xi Jinping’s outlook on the matter really is. This outlook is shared by Cardinal Pietro Parolin: the Secretary of State repeated in a recent interview with Famiglia Cristiana, talking about China, that “the Holy See is in favour of a respectful and constructive exchange with civil authorities to find a solution to the problems that prevent Catholics from the full exercise of their faith and to guarantee the context of authentic religious freedom”.
In his words about China, pronounced yesterday during the flight, Pope Francis has also declared his readiness to fly to Beijing. “If I am willing to go to China? Of course I am, I’d go tomorrow!”, said Francis on impulse, without imposing any conditions to be met prior to this eventuality. The Pope, speaking about his desire to communicate with the Chinese authorities, immediately added that “we respect the Chinese people. The Church merely asks for the freedom to practice its ministry, there is no further condition”. Already with the message delivered by John Paul II in October 2001 to the attendees of the International Conference on Matteo Ricci, it was written that “the Catholic Church seeks no privilege from China and its leaders, but only to resume communications, to form a relationship based upon mutual respect and deep knowledge”.
The third eloquent indication within the Pope’s words that the Pope spoke about China, returning from Seoul, is found in an apparently obvious reference: “We must not forget,” said Francis “the letter crucial to the Chinese problem, the one sent to the Chinese by Pope Benedict XVI. That letter is still valid today. Reading it again would do good.” In that text from 2007, deemed among the most relevant of Pope Benedict’s teachings, among other things, it was reiterated - reaffirming the words of the Second Vatican Council - that the Church “is not identified with any political community nor is she tied to any political system”. It repeats that “the Catholic Church seeks no privilege from China and its leaders”, and that also “the Catholic Church which is in China does not have a mission to change the structure or administration of the State; rather, her mission is to proclaim Christ”. Also on the controversial question of nominations of the bishops, the fact is insisted on that what the successors of the apostles have is a “spiritual authority” that remains “in the strictly religious sphere. It is not, therefore, a question of a political authority, unduly asserting itself in the internal affairs of a State and offending against its sovereignty”. Understanding is shown of the fact “that governmental authorities are attentive to the choice of those who will carry out the important role of leading and shepherding the local Catholic communities”. The hope is even expressed that “an accord can be reached with the Government so as to resolve certain questions regarding the choice of candidates for the episcopate”. The 2007 letter is reprised today by Pope Francis as the roadmap for a possible return to discussions with the new leaders in Beijing; who have many opportunities at hand to show that they have received the Pope’s message loud and clear. They could, for instance, show a change of pace on two issues that presently wound the feelings of Chinese Christian communities: the issue of crucifixes and churches - almost exclusively Protestant - demolished on the orders of local authorities in the province of Zhejiang, and the issue of the young bishop of Shanghai Thaddeus Ma Daquin, to whom it has been forbidden to exercise the Episcopal ministry since the day of his election, when he used expressions that sounded as if he was overall distancing himself from the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (the means through which Chinese bureaucracy expects to control the Church “from the inside”). The two years of suspension from the public ministry of priesthood, with which the Chinese National Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops (an organisation controlled by civil powers and unrecognised by the Holy See) had “punished” Bishop Ma, ran out last July. The time has now come to find reasonable solutions to end his difficulties.
