http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/05/chinas-catholic-moment-1243211148

A very well written article, summarising the condition of the faith in China and the developments (up to 2009 – sadly to say in the next few years after that until today, relations had gone from bad to worse).

A good quote from the article (2 paragraphs near the end) :

“Beijing always has such priorities as the economy, unemployment, ties with Taiwan, and relations with the United States—all good reasons to put the Catholic issue on the back burner. But Catholics could become a major issue for Beijing if radicals get the upper hand. The Chinese leadership has trouble understanding what the power of the Catholic Church is and to what extent it might represent a benefit or a danger.”

“The trouble is that Beijing thinks of the Vatican in purely political terms and cannot quite grasp that the mission of the Church is spiritual rather than temporal. China’s leaders simply do not have the historical and cultural references to understand the Church after the Second Vatican Council. Beijing wants to offer Rome a minimum presence on a trial basis, waiting to see the result. In turn, Rome is wary that the Chinese Communist party will exploit ties with Rome without making the substantial concessions required for effective communication between the Vatican and Chinese Catholics.”

China is the world’s fastest growing Christian nation, but as outlined in this article, most Chinese Christians learn about the faith from ambiguous and untrained sources, self-learning the faith rather than properly, and many of these ‘preachers’ are not even mainstream Christians at best, reason why I noticed more than half of Chinese Christian immigrants in Italy who are Jehovah’s Witness and other non-Christian entities claiming to be Christian (a data from a region in Italy mentioned about 92% non-Christians, 8% Christians, with Catholics numbering only 3.5% of the 8%, Jehovah’s Witness made the bulk of the non-Catholic Christians). This is the danger when one simply take the faith upon him/herself, and not being in communion with the whole Universal Church, where we can learn and understand the faith more and appropriately, through the teachings and traditions handed down to us from the Apostles.

Let us pray and work indeed that, all Christians in China (and beyond) will return to the One and only Church, established by Christ. China indeed is the future of the Church, and there is more than a billion potential new Catholics (and Christians) out there in that country. The faith is not necessarily against the rich Chinese tradition and culture, and in fact, the faith only serve to enrich that great culture even more. Remember yesterday’s Gospel reading, that no matter how much prosperity and affluence you have, if you have no love, you are nothing.

Faith adds this love, as the core of every being, to anchor the person firmly in God, and make them from nothing, to the greatest of all.

+Ut Omnes Unum Sint, ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam

(That they all may be One, for the greater glory of God)