Scottish Catholic Observer

Visiting China with the Chinese Cultural exchange the bishop (above) said ‘the Church in China is not as I imagined it.’

“Many stayed faithful throughout the difficult years but can now practice their faith freely,” he said. “And the Faith is growing. In Beijing, the capital city, there are 2000 adult converts a year. Most of these are young people. One young lady tells us that since she became a Catholic her aunt too has been Baptised. Her hope is that her parents also will become Catholic. Among these new Catholics there is a great desire to pass on the Faith to others.”

The bishop also spoke about a young nun and priest he met.

“Mary was only a young child in the mid 1960s when the Cultural Revolution started in China,” he said. “One of her earliest memories was of the Red Guards coming to the house and taking away her grandmother. When her grandmother returned, she was badly beaten and bruised but happy that she had not denied her Faith. At that moment when all seemed dark for the Church in China the seeds of a vocation were sown and Mary longed to become a nun. Today that vocation is now bearing fruit as Mary seeks to set up a religious community.

“We meet Matthew who shows us a picture of his great-great uncle who in 1900 was put to death in the Boxer Revolution. His great-great uncle is now a canonised saint and Matthew is a Catholic priest,” he said. “Fr Matthew and Sr Mary come from villages where the people have kept the Faith and where the majority are still Catholic and are now openly practising their Faith. Indeed Matthew’s church is no modest structure but seats over 2800 people.”

“We are used to hearing that the Church in China is divided,” the bishop went on. “In the past it was common to talk about the official Patriotic Catholic Church and the unofficial Underground Church. But those terms are no longer used by the

Vatican. It is more correct to talk about the registered and unregistered Church. The government want all religious bodies to be registered. Lack of trust in the government means that some parts of the Church refuse to register and therefore are considered illegal. All Catholics in China pray for the Pope and consider him as their spiritual leader.”

The bishop said that ‘the Church is now accepted as long as it is seen to work for the development of the harmonious society of China.’

“The Catholics I met in China were not held back by grievances about past persecutions, but were keen to take this new opportunity to spread the Faith and to show to the government that the Catholic faith is good not just for themselves but good also for China,” he said.

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—This story ran in full in the October 30 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.

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