China's illicit ordinations

At the very moment that Pope Benedict XVI was making a case for religious freedom in Turkey, the Chinese government offered a classic example of why debates over religious freedom are hardly confined to the Muslim world.

On Nov. 30, Chinese priest Giovanni Wang Renlei was ordained as a bishop in the Xuzhou diocese by edict of the country's Religious Affairs Office, and in defiance of Benedict’s authority. It marked the third illicit ordination in China this year, after similar acts on April 30 and May 2.

I’ve got an op/ed piece in today’s Asia Edition of the Wall Street Journal analyzing the impact of these moves on Sino-Vatican relations: China’s illicit ordinations

While the entire piece is available only to Wall Street Journal subscribers, I’ll offer a précis here. In effect, my argument is that if the problem were only the manner of selecting bishops, the Vatican and the Chinese government could have reached an accord long ago.

“There’s nothing in Catholic doctrine that says the pope has to appoint each and every bishop in the Church,” I write. “Direct papal appointment of bishops outside Italy is actually of fairly recent vintage. As recently as 1829, when Pope Leo XII died, there were 646 diocesan bishops in the Latin-rite church; 555 had been appointed by the state, 67 elected by cathedral chapters and only 24 appointed by the pope. These direct papal appointments were largely in Russia, Greece and Albania, all spots with unstable political situations.”

“Over the centuries, kings, emperors, prime ministers and presidents have all played some role in proposing or approving new bishops, and in principle the Vatican is not opposed to a similar arrangement in China.”

The real problem, I suggest, is that the ordinations are emblematic of the long-cherished dream of hardliners in the Religious Affairs Office, which is fostering a largely autonomous brand of Chinese Catholicism in which the pope is a symbolic point of reference, without real authority.

I point out that this is little more than a post-modern form of earlier attempts to establish a nationalist Catholicism which, under the lofty-sounding titles of Gallicanism, Febronianism and Josephinism, popes have devoted considerable blood, toil, tears and sweat to resisting.

In that light, the Nov. 30 ordination reminds us that unless something fundamental gives way, rapid progress towards full diplomatic relations between Rome and Beijing does not appear likely.

Nevertheless, the Vatican will continue to press forward, almost hoping against hope, for three reasons: First, China is the globe’s emerging superpower, and the Vatican has no more desire to miss the train than anyone else. Second, there is still a de facto schism between the above-ground, officially sanctioned Catholic Church in China and the underground Church, and any pope would see healing a schism as an important aim. Third, China is the last great missionary frontier on earth, with a burgeoning population, a deep spiritual hunger, and no dominant religious tradition. In that sense, Vatican calculations are that the 13 million Catholics in China could become 130 million within a generation, if there is an opening.

Though there’s little evidence of such an opening in the foreseeable future, both the Chinese and the Vatican are accustomed to taking the long view.