Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association

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The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (Chinese: 中国天主教爱国会, pinyin: Zhōngguó Tiānzhǔjiào Àiguó Huì), abbreviated CPA, CPCA, or CCPA, is a division of Beijing's Religious Affairs Bureau, and has oversight over China's Catholics. According to the American Catholic magazine, Commonweal, [1] the CPCA is neither a Church itself, nor are China's Catholics required to be members of the organization. It is the only organizational body of Catholics in China as officially recognized by the government of the People's Republic of China. The CPCA's bishops however were formally excommunicated by Pope Pius XII in 1957 when the CPCA claimed organizational independence.

1 CPCA and the Beijing Government
2 CPCA and the Roman Catholic Church
3 Effects on China-Holy See relations
4 Other "patriotic" Churches
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] CPCA and the Beijing Government

Officially, religious organizations in mainland China today must be Government-recognized and approved, though many unofficial unregistered organizations do in fact exist. The Communist Party of China wants no organization in mainland China owing allegiance to "foreign influence", in this case, the Pope. Critics of the CPCA argue that it was created precisely to establish state control over Catholicism in mainland China.

CPCA - under pressure of the Communist government - had to declare rejection of papal authority and non-acceptance of formulations of Catholic teaching and instructions issued by the Holy See after 1949, the year communists gained power over entire continental China. Thus the CPCA could not recognize the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1950) by Pope Pius XII, nor the canonizations from 1949 onward (e.g. the canonization of Pope St. Pius X), nor the Vatican instructions on devotional piety (e.g. Ad Caeli Reginam of 1954, declaring Mary Queen, nor Haurietis Aquas, on the Sacred Heart of Jesus), nor the results of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965); neither did it implement the 1969-1970 revision of the rite of Mass. As a result, from 1976 until about 1990, all masses conducted by the CPA were still according to the Tridentine rite Mass, while from 1970 to 1980 virtually all underground clergy changed to the revised liturgy. Only as late as the early 1990's did the CPCA reform its eucharistic liturgy to a modern form closely adhering to the one in general use in the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic Church (1970 reformed Missal).

It has been historically the policy of the PRC government, as well as previous governments, for the state to reserve the right to regulate all social activities for what it judges as the benefit of state and people. Though the 21st century has seen some signs of a slight relaxation of the attitude of the government, CPCA still cannot speak out against laws that contravene Catholic moral teaching, such as those enforcing abortion and artificial contraception, and its clergy have been forced to declare their support for these measures.

[edit] CPCA and the Roman Catholic Church

The establishment of CPCA in 1957 brought about a severe division from the Holy See. However, despite the difficulties that have confronted China's Catholics over the last sixty years, the Vatican has never declared the Chinese Catholics attending CPCA church services to be schismatic, despite calls to do so by organizations outside of China[2]. The separated group was generally considered as not heretical and as conserving valid Holy Orders, passed on, within a Christian community, by episcopal successors of bishops who themselves had been validly ordained before the emergence of the CPCA. Consequently, the other sacraments also that require a priest as minister (in particular the Eucharist) are also considered valid by the Roman Catholic Church and Catholic theology.

According to canon law (canon 2314 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law then in force), the CPA is a schism from the Catholic Church, because it usurps jurisdiction on its own. Moreover cooperation and active support of communism is penalized by excommunication since 1938. In consequence, Pope Pius XII immediately declared, with regret, that this applied to the bishops who set up CPCA and claimed autonomy from the universal jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff. The latter claim is sometimes considered to be heretical too, as it apparently rejects the dogma of papal judicial primacy as defined during the First Vatican Council (1870).

In mainland China there are about 4 million members of the CPA, and 12 million members of the underground Roman Catholic Church, defined as being in full communion with the Holy See. These numbers however are disputed. Many CPCA members have accepted the Government-imposed formalities without intending to break in any way their relationship of full dependence on the Pope, and the Holy See has, from the 1980s on, granted the request for recognition that many of the present CPCA bishops have presented, generally in secret, because acceptance of a connection with Rome is illegal. The CPA and the underground church has considerable overlap, and it is rumored that presently as many as 70% of the CPCA clergy have thus been reconciled with the Vatican and are secretly part of the unofficial church. It is also said that of seventy CPCA bishops, all but nine have secretly declared their allegiance to Rome.

By receiving individuals into full communion, the Holy See hopes to prepare for future reunification of CPCA with the many persecuted Chinese Catholics (often referred to as an "underground Roman Catholic Church" or "persecuted Catholics" who came into existence in 1957) who, in spite of being subject to official harassment, and the repeated jailing of their leaders on political grounds, refused to join CPCA and generally do not attend its services, preferring to remain clearly faithful to the Papal See in Rome since 1957. Estimates of their number differ widely: some put it at less than that of CPCA, others put it at three times the CPCA number.

The ordinations of Peter Feng Xinmao in 2004 as coadjutor of Hengsui, Joseph Xing Wenzhi as auxiliary of Shanghai on 28 June 2005 [3] 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 Government itself. The Holy See has refrained from making any statement, and no papal document of appointment has been 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 CPCA 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.

[edit] Effects on China-Holy See relations

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 for the Communist Government to continue diplomatic relations as most often 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 head of its diplomatic mission in Taipei, leaving it from then on in the care of a chargé d'affaires. The end of the last major governments to recognize Taiwan is seen as a major impetus for Beijing to establish relations with the Vatican.

Although, in the case of countries like the United States, a break of diplomatic relations with the Taipei Government accompanied, rather than preceded, the establishment of relations with the Beijing Government, the Communist government has several times declared that, in the case of the Holy See, such a break is a necessary preliminary condition.

The existence of the CPCA in place of an official church under the authority of the Vatican 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 that hardly any independent observer claims exists today in mainland China. 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 Government ban on religious links between Catholics in China and Rome.

There have been a number of efforts to reconcile the official Church with the Vatican. A New York Times article 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 partially 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 Chinese 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 political implications or the rift between the two sides, expressed that they would have liked him to visit China, as he had once indicated was his desire.

The Chinese 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 substantiated by international scrunity. The canonization in 2000 of 120 Chinese and foreign martyrs in China, beatified much earlier, was harshly criticized by Beijing, 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, putting on the Holy See the blame for the non-existence of the diplomatic channels that would have facilitated input. A similar accusation of Holy See unilateralism (which some would interpret instead as Beijing Government refusal to distinguish between religion and politics) was made 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.

[edit] Other "patriotic" Churches

CPCA was only one of three "patriotic" religious organizations set up in China after 1949. The other two were the Three-Self Patriotic Movement for Protestants, and the Chinese Patriotic Islamic Association. These, however, did not have the complication of any dependence with religious authorities geographically outside mainland China.

The same tactic was also employed by the Communist governments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, generally with less apparent success, though the true feelings of CPCA members are hard to gauge. In the Soviet Union, The Nation Union of Baptists and the government backed Living Church which had broken off from the patriarchal Church in 1922 advocating support for the Soviet government, are two such examples. In many churches by having nominations to ecclesiastical offices under the authority of the State, "patriot priests" were able to enter important posts. The governments tried to ensure constant replacement of less pliable clergy by those loyal to the government and so enable the Communist party to hold sway over Church matters.

The governments of countries in the contemporary era vary in their attitude toward religious influence -- particularly that tied to a religious authority outside the country, such as the Vatican -- in their societies. For instance, the government of Turkey, has attempted to eschew overly-powerful religious influences in that society, favoring instead secularization. The United States has historically held a principle of non-establishment or the separation between church and state. In many cases, however, the pressure to restrict religious or external influence has come from the society and culture and not directly from the state; several US presidential candidates, and candidates for other office, including John F. Kennedy, later president, and Alfred Smith, faced pressure from citizens who would not support members of the Catholic Church as elected officials, fearing that they would be overly subject to influence from the Vatican and thus potentially act contrary to the will of their own country's populace.

Similar Church divisions for political rather than religious reasons occurred even before the rise of Communism. Examples are: