Catholic Patriotic Association

Further information: Catholic Church in China

Catholic Patriotic Association
Classification	Catholic
Polity	Association
Region	China
Founder	State Administration for Religious Affairs
Origin	1957

Catholic Patriotic Association
Traditional Chinese	中國天主教愛國會
Simplified Chinese	中国天主教爱国会
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhōngguó Tiānzhǔjiào Àiguó Huì Wade–Giles Chūngkuó T'iēnchǔchiào Àikuó Huì Yale Romanization Jūngkwó Tyānzhǔjyào Àigwó Hwèi

The Catholic Patriotic Association (simplified Chinese: 中国天主教爱国会; traditional Chinese: 中國天主教愛國會; pinyin: Zhōngguó Tiānzhǔjiào Àiguó Huì), abbreviated CPA, is a state-sanctioned organization of Catholicism in the People's Republic of China. It was established in 1957 after a group of Chinese Catholics met in Beijing with officials from the Chinese Communist Party and the Religious Affairs Bureau. It is the main organizational body of Catholics in China officially recognized by the Chinese government. It is not formally recognized by the Vatican.

The CPA does not oversee Catholics in Macau and Hong Kong, whose bishops retain ties to the Catholic Church in Rome.

History

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party sought for ways to bring religions in alignment with the communist cause. While all religions were seen as superstitious, Christianity had the added challenge of being foreign.

Efforts were made by Chinese Protestants in May 1950 in a meeting with Premier Zhou Enlai. This resulted in the penning of the "Christian Manifesto" that condemned foreign imperialism and argued for building a Chinese Protestant church apart from foreign control. This was based in part on earlier Protestant missiological strategy of creating an indigenous church based on the so-called "three-self principles": self-government, self-support, and self-propagation.

In December 1950, Chinese Catholics followed suit, with Father Wang Liangzuo in north Sichuan province, penning the "Guangyuan Manifesto" and signed by some 500 Catholics. It declared:

We are determined to sever all relations with imperialism, to do all we can to reform ourselves, to establish a new Church that shall be independent in its administration, its resources, and its apostolate.

— "Guangyuan Manifesto" (December 1950)

Other Catholic manifestos followed, such as the "Chongqing Manifesto" published in January 1951 with over 700 signatures. Like the Protestant "Christian Manifesto," the Catholic manifestos spoke of the need for a "three-self" or "three-autonomies" (as it was translated into English), even though this was previously only part of the Protestant missiological literature and not discussed among Catholic missionaries. Premier Zhou Enlai met with Chinese Catholics and spoke of his appreciation for the sacrifices of the Catholic Church and its missionaries, and the need to remain united with Rome on spiritual matters. But he also encouraged the development of the "three-self." Pope Pius XII issued Cupimus Imprimis (1952) and Ad Sinarum Gentes (1954) praising Chinese Catholics for their loyalty and underscoring the importance of martyrdom. Ad Sinarum Gentes additionally spoke out against the "three-self," arguing that independence would make a church no longer "Catholic."

In July 1957, 241 Chinese Catholics from all parts of China, including laity, priests, and bishops, convened a meeting in Beijing with officials from the Chinese Communist Party and the Religious Affairs Bureau. They approved the creation of the Catholic Patriotic Association with Archbishop Pi Shushi of Shenyang elected as president. By early 1958, the first Catholic bishops were illicitly appointed without reference to Rome or the Pope. In June 1958, Pope Pius XII issued Ad Apostolorum Principis, refusing to recognize any consecrations performed without prior Vatican approval. The question of consecrating bishops would be a major sticking point in Sino-Vatican relations ever since.

With the rise of the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the Cultural Revolution, all public religious activities came to an end and organizations like the CPA were shutdown. However, as Deng Xiaoping's reforms enabled a restoration of religions in the 1980s, the CPA once again became the official state-sanctioned organization for Catholicism in China. A sizable population of Chinese Catholics remain as part of the so-called "underground church," seen as "Vatican loyalists," and who boycotting masses said by CPA priests.

The CPA does not recognize the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Pope Pius XII in 1950, canonizations from 1949 onward (e.g. the canonization of Pope Pius X), Vatican declarations on even well-established devotional piety (e.g. on the Sacred Heart of Jesus or on Mary as Queen), and the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). In practice, however, the Catholic Church in China uses Chinese translations of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, of the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church (revised in 1997) and of the 1970 Roman Missal. These had at first to be imported from Taiwan and Hong Kong, but have been printed locally for some years.

Appointment of Bishops

The Vatican has never declared the Chinese Catholics attending CPA-sponsored church services to be schismatic, though organizations outside of China have urged this. Chinese Catholics who accept CPA directives on the governance of the Church are not for that reason heretical, though it can perhaps be maintained that they are schismatic. In, for instance, inviting bishops appointed under CPA rules to attend as Catholics in full communion with Rome an assembly of the Synod of Bishops, the Holy See indicated that it does not consider that the Church in mainland China (as distinct from the Catholic Patriotic Association) approves of abortion and artificial contraception. Furthermore, "[t]he Holy See has continued to consider the episcopal ordinations in China fully valid." The clergy whom they ordain therefore conserve valid Holy Orders, and the other sacraments that require a priest as minister (in particular the Eucharist) are also considered valid. As these facts demonstrate, the CPA and the "underground" Catholic Church in China have significant overlap.

The bishops who conferred episcopal ordination on candidates chosen in the manner laid down by the CPA, without a mandate from the Holy See, and those who accepted such ordination, participated in a schismatic act and were thereby automatically excommunicated. However, not all of them are considered to be still in schism since, beginning in the early 1980s, nearly all "took advantage of the renewed contacts with missionaries and foreign priests to send letters to Rome in which they declared their full communion with the Pope and the desire to be recognized as legitimate bishops. So ... the bishops subjected to the political control of the Patriotic Association tried the path of canonical sanatio to ... affirm their communion with the Pope, kept hidden because of external conditions, but never renounced in their hearts." Those few Chinese bishops who have not done so remain in formal schism.

For a time, some bishops who refused to accept CPA control consecrated other bishops, so that there were cases of two parallel hierarchies among Catholics in China, the one in schism partly, the other in full communion with Pope Pius XII and his successors. The first to take this action was the Bishop of Baoding, Joseph Fan Xueyan, who in 1981 consecrated three bishops without any mandate from the Holy See, which, however, gave approval for his action at the end of the same year. This led to at least the perception, perhaps even the reality, of two parallel Roman Catholic Churches in China, often referred to as the "official" Church and the "underground" one.

It was precisely in that period that bishops ordained according to CPA rules began to request and obtain recognition from the Holy See. On 26 September 1993 the Holy See decided that no more episcopal ordinations of the kind administered by Bishop Fan without previous authorization by the Holy See would be allowed. It was also decided that, given the greater ease of communication then existing, bishops selected by CPA procedures were likewise to request and receive the prior approval of the Holy See before ordination, and must seek to have as consecrants legitimate bishops, since "the active participation of illegitimate bishops cannot but make more difficult the acceptance of a subsequent request for regularization." They were also to make public, when they deemed it possible and opportune, the assent of the Holy See to their ordination. Some have actually made this public on the occasion of their ordination as bishops.

In September 1992, the CPA-sponsored Conference of Chinese Catholic Representatives, in which the bishops were a minority, approved new statutes of the Bishops' College, which seemed to subject the college to the Conference and to reiterate the CPA rules for the election of bishops and the replacement, in the rite of episcopal ordination, of the papal mandate with the consent of the college. Probably because of this, the September 1993 directives also exhorted the bishops to defend with greater courage "the rights of the Church and communion with the Roman Pontiff." And, in fact, the bishops claimed more strongly at the next Assembly of the Catholic Representatives, held in January 1998, leadership in church matters.

The ordinations of Peter Feng Xinmao in 2004 as coadjutor of Hengsui, Joseph Xing Wenzhi as auxiliary of Shanghai on 28 June 2005 and Anthony Dang Ming Yan as coadjutor of Xian on 26 July of the same year were all papal appointments, which were followed by the government-imposed procedures of the appointee's election by representatives of the diocese and consequent approval by the Chinese government itself. The Holy See refrained from making any statement, and no papal document of appointment was read at the ordination rites. However, it was noted that at least Bishop Xing swore to be "faithful to the one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church, with Peter as its head."

In a further highly significant gesture, Pope Benedict XVI invited three CPA-appointed bishops, together along with one "underground" bishop, to the October 2005 assembly of the Synod of Bishops as full members, not as "fraternal delegates", the term used for representatives of non-Catholic churches invited to attend. Government permission for them to travel to Rome was withheld.

The Vatican stated that it had given its prior approval for the episcopal ordination of two CPA-approved bishops in September 2007, and the Rome-based missionary news service AsiaNews, which follows events in China closely, quoted a Chinese source as saying the government was no longer imposing its own candidates as bishops and was now allowing the church more freedom.

Effects on China–Holy See relations

Main article: China–Holy See relations

The existence and activities of the CPA division of the Government's Religious Affairs Bureau has prevented the Holy See from establishing diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. On the part of the Holy See, a normal condition for establishing diplomatic relations with a country is a satisfactory level of freedom of religion, a condition whose fulfilment in China is subject to debate.

However, the same condition could be seen as not required for appointing a papal representative, resident in Beijing, to continue, after an interruption, the diplomatic relations established with China in the 1930s. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine that the Holy See would agree to this without some loosening of the governmental ban on religious links between Catholics in China and Rome.

At the time of the definitive Communist victory in mainland China, the papal diplomatic representative did not move to Taiwan, the island to which the Nationalist government withdrew. This fact might have made it possible to continue diplomatic relations with the new government as regularly happens when a country's government is changed by election, coup, revolution or overthrow by rebel forces. Instead, the Communist government expelled the papal representative, whose delay in leaving then made him unacceptable to the Taipei government. His successors were accepted, and maintained relations with the government that at that time was still recognized by the United Nations as the government of China. When the United Nations gave recognition instead to the Beijing government, the Holy See decided to appoint no further heads of its diplomatic mission in Taipei, leaving it from then on in the care of a chargé d'affaires.

Due to One-China policy, Beijing has several times declared that, in the case of the Holy See, a break with Taipei is a necessary preliminary condition to establish diplomatic relations.

There have been a number of efforts to reconcile the PRC government with the Vatican. An article in The New York Times estimated that the status of Taiwan is not a major obstacle, and appointment of bishops can be handled with the Vatican picking from a list pre-screened by the government. Most reports, it said, indicate that the main obstacle is the PRC government's fear of being undermined by the Catholic Church, especially since Pope John Paul II was widely seen as having influenced the fall of Communist governments in Poland and other Eastern European countries.

Some observers have described a difference in the phenomena of civil society and state-society relations between China and the Western world. As a result, what Westerners may see as state regulation of social activities, the PRC government often describes as necessary policies to preserve social stability.

When Pope John Paul II died in 2005, churches throughout China held special memorial services to commemorate and mourn his passing. Such activities are permitted, though official policy toward the Pope in Rome remain the same. Many Chinese Catholics, often with no awareness of any real rift between the two sides, expressed that they would have liked him to visit China, as he had once indicated was his desire.

The PRC government also expresses its view that the Catholic Church has not sufficiently apologized for alleged abuses by missionaries and clergy which occurred prior to the establishment of the PRC, some of them, it says, substantiated by international scrutiny. It harshly criticized the canonization in 2000 of 120 Chinese and foreign martyrs in China, beatified much earlier, claiming that many of the non-Chinese among the martyrs had perpetrated abuses and crimes against the Chinese people. It also criticized the Vatican for proceeding with this action without securing Chinese input, and put on the Holy See the blame for the non-existence of the diplomatic channels that would have facilitated input. It made a similar accusation of Holy See unilateralism (which some would interpret instead as Beijing's refusal to distinguish between religion and politics) when Pope Benedict XVI invited four bishops from mainland China – three of whom were government-approved – to the October 2005 assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome.

The 20 November 2010 ordination of a bishop against the wishes of the Holy See indicated that the government was taking a more hard-line attitude. Pope Benedict XVI expressed his concern firmly. At the end of June 2011, another bishop was ordained against the wishes of the Holy See, while a priest with Holy See approval was arrested, so preventing his ordination as a bishop. A similar ordination took place on 14 July 2011, causing the Holy See to issue a declaration that the Pope "once again deplores the manner in which the Church in China is being treated and hopes that the present difficulties can be overcome as soon as possible".

Other state-endorsed religious organizations

CPA is one of three state-endorsed religious organizations set up in China after 1949. The other two are the Three-Self Patriotic Movement for Protestants, and the Islamic Association of China.

See also

• Underground church
• Religion in China
• Christianity in China
• Catholic Church in China
• Chinese Catholic Bishops Conference
• Catholic Church in Macau and Catholic Church in Hong Kong
• Separation of church and state

References

Bibliography

• Bays, Daniel H. (2011). A New History of Christianity in China. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-4284-0.
• Charbonnier, Jean (2007). Christians in China: A.D. 600 to 2000. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. ISBN 978-0-89870-916-2.
• Chow, Alexander (2021). "Introduction: Ecclesial Diversity and Theology in Chinese Christianity". In Chow, Alexander; Law, Easten (eds.). Ecclesial Diversity in Chinese Christianity. Palgrace Macmillan. pp. 1–23. ISBN 978-3-030-73069-7.
• Wickeri, Philip L. (2011). Seeking the Common Ground: Protestant Christianity, the Three-Self Movement, and China's United Front. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. ISBN 978-1-61097-529-2.

External links

• Official website (in Chinese)
• Website about Chinese Christianity today
• The Cardinal Kung Foundation's definition of Catholicism in China
• Ad Apostolorum Principis Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XII regarding the Church in China
• Letter of Pope Benedict XVI to Catholics in the People's Republic of China