So Many Martyrs, So Much Faith and Love
In China the Church is a suffering Church, a persecuted Church, a Church of countless martyrs. The Chinese faithful today cherish their Catholic heroes, living and dead. When they are called upon to make what Pope Benedict called “the radical choice of martyrdom” (a major theme of his pontificate), the faithful in China have led the way since 1949, along with tens of thousands of others from eastern Europe who died for their Faith under Nazism and Communism. Even as recent as this past August 11, in his address to the Wednesday Audience, the Holy Father spoke again of martyrdom. He said that martyrdom is based on Christ’s own sacrifice on the cross. “A martyr follows the Lord to the end, freely accepting to die for the salvation of the world, in a supreme test of faith and love.” He ended this inspiring tangent by reflecting on the free act of the martyr’s will responding under the impulse of grace, and I might add, the special gift of fortitude:
“However, it is important to point out that the grace of God does not do away with or suffocate the liberty of the one facing martyrdom, but on the contrary, improves and exalts it: The martyr is an extremely free person, free in the face of power, of the world; a free person, who in one definitive act gives his whole life to God, […] sacrifices his own life to be totally associated to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. In a word, martyrdom is a great act of love in response to the immense love of God.”
Perhaps Gertrude Li, a young Chinese laywoman (whose experience of persecution is narrated in the fourth chapter of the Red Book of Chinese Martyrs) put it best in a letter she wrote in 1952, in which she expressed herself in terms that resonate the spirit of the saints of the early Church: “It pleases God to water his harvest with the blood of martyrs. Oh, that I might be found worthy of martyrdom!”
Lu Zhengxiang, China’s Catholic Prime Minister
We know well that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,” and these champions of Christ give us hope that China one day will be free and Catholic. That was the vision of China’s only Catholic statesman, Lu Zhengxiang, who served the nascent republic as Prime Minister after World War I. In fact, he represented China at Versailles, rejecting the Treaty, as a true patriot, on account of the unjust accommodations made to Japan. Lu Zhengxiang entered a Benedictine monastery in Belgium after his wife died and he became a great spiritual writer. He died there as abbot the same year his beloved country feel to the Communists. My reason for mentioning this intriguing character is to give you a prophetic quote from the martyr Saint Shu King-Shen, who was Lu’s mentor and the major force behind his conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism. Shu was beheaded for the Faith during the Boxer uprising (1899-1901). Long before that occurred, however, Shu had counseled his disciple with the following words:
“Europe’s strength is found not in her armaments, nor in her knowledge—it is found in her religion… Observe the Christian faith. When you have grasped its heart and its strength, take them and give them to China.”
Why Are There No Canonized Saints Martyred By Communists?
In contemplating the ultimate sacrifice made by the martyrs, I was reminded of the work of an underground sister, who, to protect her identity, is called Maria. Matthew Fornay writing for Time magazine did an article on her in April of 2003 for a series on Asian Heroes. Sister Maria had spent a short time herself in prison for demonstrating against the government’s persecution of Catholics. One of her fellow demonstrators was beaten to death in that prison and another left permanently incoherent due to brain damage. After her release in 2000, being a woman of strong faith and a gifted intellect, she was asked by an underground prelate to secretly gather information on the martyrs killed during the “Cultural Revolution.” She, and others like her, sent accounts of over one thousand martyrs to Rome. What happens then? I do not know. But Matthew Fornay has an opinion about it:
“And that’s where the political intrigue begins,” he writes. “The Vatican would like to establish diplomatic relations with China, one of the few countries in the world with a growing Catholic population (it now numbers about 10 million followers).[i] In part to avoid roiling Beijing, the Holy See has not canonized Chinese Catholics killed for their faith since the Communist Party came to power in 1949. Indeed, of the 120 Chinese martyrs whom Pope John Paul II canonized three [now ten] years ago, not a single one had been killed in the past half-century. As for Beijing, it wants to establish ties with the Vatican for a reason of its own: doing so might force its nemesis, Taiwan, to break links with the Holy See—Taiwan’s last significant diplomatic partner.”
This could explain why there have been no eulogies from Rome or even acknowledgment of the deaths of two underground bishops, Gao Kexian (2005) and Han Dingxiang (2007), who died not too long ago for their Faith, for the authority of the Vicar of Christ, in China’s wretched prisons.
Release of Bishop Jia Zhiguo
On July 7, Bishop Jia Zhiguo, the underground Catholic Bishop of Zhengding in Hebei, China, was released from prison. He was arrested approximately fifteen months ago, forcibly taken from his residence, on March 30, 2009, the day the Vatican’s Commission for the Catholic Church in China began its meeting in Rome. It was Bishop Jia’s thirteenth arrest by the Chinese authority since January 2004. Immediately after his release, in the presence of a government official, the bishop stated that he had not accepted the Patriotic Association and also had not accepted the authority of the Bishops Conference of the official Church. He further stated that he was and would always be firmly adhered to the leadership of the Holy Father.
The Defection of Bishop Francis An Shuxin
Sad and troubling news came a couple of months ago with the defection to the CPA of Co-Adjutor Bishop Francis An Shuxin of Donglu in the Baoding diocese. Having served the underground faithful for twenty-five years, he was arrested in 1996 and imprisoned for ten years. Baoding was the diocese of the martyr Bishop Peter Joseph Fan Xueyan. Fan was ordained a priest in 1982 and years later consecrated bishop. While incarcerated, Bishop Fan was beaten to death by the Red guards (+1992). What would Bishop Fan think of Bishop An who, after reading the Papal Letter of 2007, made the decision about a year ago, after already several times concelebrating with CPA priests, to finally join the CPA himself? He was “rewarded” (a la Bishop Jin who usurped Cardinal Ignatius Kung’s bishopric of Shanghai while he was in prison) by being installed Bishop of Baoding by the schismatic bishops of the Patriotic Association. What makes this betrayal all the more deplorable is that his friend, now the main leader of the underground Church, the papally-appointed Bishop of Baoding, James Su Zhimin, is still suffering for the Faith in prison. An is now the deputy director of the local Patriotic Association and chairman of the Committee on the Affairs of the Church of Baoding (CPCA). His flock of loyal Catholics is outraged. As one unnamed underground priest lamented: “[This] is a disaster for the diocese of Baoding.” Another priest said “He has lost all credibility.” “He is a traitor,” said a lay parishioner.” (CNS online, November 12, 2009)
Is There Some Kind of an Unspoken Deal Between Rome and Beijing?
Being that the last eight papal appointments to vacant Sees in China have been approved by the Communist government one wonders if there is a quid pro quo going on. With all these past eight consecrations, Rome, of course, insisted that the principal consecrator must be, and so it has been, a papally-approved bishop — although a few illegitimate bishops did make a presence for at least one consecration. Is there a relaxation of the previous modus operandi where the government would appoint the bishops without any motion to Rome for approval? At least two articles, one published ten years ago in the China Study Journal by Anthony Lam, and another by Gianni Valente, published last May in the widely read journal Thirty Days, argued that the Chinese government is willing to make concessions with the Vatican, which would indicate, in Lam’s view, that today’s party bosses in Beijing may be frustrated with the Reds sixty year policy of keeping religion under the thumb of the atheist regime. Retired Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong does not buy that part of it, although he does admit there’s a “deal” now, a quid pro quo, between Rome and Beijing, and he is very upset about it. Zen recently wrote a refutation of the article in Thirty Days stating that it presented “an optimism not justified by facts.”
Cardinal Zen’s Righteous Indignation: Enough is Enough
In disagreeing with the Thirty Days “optimism” Cardinal Zen was jarringly realistic in evaluating the danger of entering into diplomacy with a regime that doesn’t believe in God or human rights. But he was positively livid after reading two articles by a Belgian Jesuit, Jeroom Heyndrickx, a noted sinologist, whom the Cardinal knows very well. The longer of the two pieces, “A New Encounter between the Catholic Church and China,” appeared in the volume Light a Candle of the Collectanea Serica. Heyndrickx imagines that the underground Catholic Church and the open Church are now mutually supportive of each other and a complete merge is immanent.
I would like to conclude with a long quotation from Cardinal Zen’s article in September’s Asia News in which he strongly criticizes the Vatican “deal” with Beijing and Father Heyndrickx for gross misrepresentation of the actual situation:
“Fr. Heyndrickx enjoys many opportunities for dialogue: with his Catholic friends in China, with Mr. Liu Bai Nian [head of the government’s Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association], with people in the Chinese Government, with the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (is he the go-between of the two?).
“However, do our bishops in China have any chance to dialogue? Among themselves? No! The Government keeps a tight watch to prevent them from doing so. With the Government? Surely not! They have only to listen and obey. They are ordered to leave for destinations they do not know. They are summoned to meetings without knowing the agenda. They are given speeches to read which they have not written and to which they did not even give a look beforehand.
“Doesn’t Fr. Jeroom know that our bishops, I mean those of the official community, are treated as slaves, or, even worse, as dogs led with a chain. In the Letter of the Pope to the Church in China it is said that the episcopal authority is being humiliated (“vilified”) in China.
“And the confrontation? Who is confronting whom? Can any reaction of a lamb before a lion be qualified as confrontation? If we tell the lamb “Escape!” are we guilty of incitement to confrontation?
“Our good old Father, knowing the reality, recognizes that today there is still persecution and harassment for both communities of the Church in China. So, how can he speak, as he does, as if he were talking about another world?
“It is true that the methods of persecution have improved. Now the victims are invited to dinners, to sight-seeing tours, gifts are showered on people and honours (like promotions to be member of the People’s Congress at different levels). They are even given promises that their conscience will be respected. But we know that in orthodox Marxism promises mean nothing. Lies are legitimate means to achieve success.
“In these recent days we come to know that they have released Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo from prison and that they would soon to the same with Bishop James Su Zhimin. But the plan would be that the Government would even recognize them as bishops, while the Holy See would ask them to retire, so as to leave the seat free for a successor chosen with “mutual agreement (?!)” In any case, the final outcome would be that what is done is what the Party wants.
“We say: ‘What the Party wants is not what the Pope wants.’ By saying so, we are held guilty of confrontation. But, by a ‘happy chance,’ nowadays what the Party wants seems to coincide easily with what the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples wants. So, Alleluia! Everybody should be happy!
“Fr. Heyndrickx talks about “mature” Catholics. These “mature” Catholics are like the courtly prophets of old. They do not need to be courageous. They do not risk anything. They need only to be clever. The modern courtly prophets are happily traveling on the imperial wagon of the independent Church and from time to time they shout “Long live the Pope!”
“The real prophets, instead, are inconvenient (not only to their enemies) and they are eliminated, or, to use the word used by Fr. Heyndrickx, “killed”. But they are not afraid. They are ready for that. However, the sad thing is that these our brothers of the underground community, who survived so long in spite of the enemy’s efforts, now have to die by the hand of their brothers.” (Catholic Church in China, “Dialogue or Confrontation with the Government”, 9/8/2010)
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[i] The lowest estimation today of the number of Catholics in China is twelve million.
