AsiaNews
– BEIJING, CHINA
(Crux) Continuing a controversial plan, Chinese bishops allied with the government have told dioceses to prepare local versions of a “Sinicization” program to bring the Catholic Church more in line with the government’s understanding of Chinese culture, society and politics. “It is to complete the Chinese-style socialist road within five years,” a source in Hibei province told ucanews.com. “Even if they do not get approval from the Holy See, they will still get trust from the government.”
The Sinicization program could be a factor in ongoing Chinese-Vatican relations, the source said: “China and the Vatican can establish diplomatic relations regardless of the conditions, and the mainland can still tighten its grip on the Church with its plan.” The Catholic Church in China has been split between the government-sanctioned Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and the underground Church, which is persecuted and whose Episcopal appointments are frequently not acknowledged by Chinese authorities.
The underground churches are monitored by local officials but generally tolerated. However, many underground priests, bishops, and laity have faced persecution and harassment. In June, government authorities in Henan province destroyed images of the Way of the Cross at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a popular Christian destination since 1903.
In June, the government-approved Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China and the state-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association issued a 15-page five-year plan to all dioceses promoting the Chinese Catholic Church’s adherence to Sinicization. They have asked the dioceses to create their own five-year plans and report back before the end of August. Training programs about the process have been run in all the dioceses of Hebei province, which is in northern China near Beijing, and in the Diocese of Yibin in southwestern China’s Sichuan province.
The Sinicization effort follows new regulations on religious activities in China which took effect February 1. Worship is allowed only in designated churches and according to a schedule approved by government administrators. Worship is illegal in every other place, including private houses. Group prayer in private houses is forbidden, and can result in arrest. The regulations also require that every church must display at its entrance a notice that the building is “prohibited to minors under age 18” and that children and teenagers are not allowed to take part in religious rites.
The Sinicization program has met considerable resistance from critics, both in China and abroad. In February, Daniel Mark, chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, wrote in First Things that Sinicization of religion is “a process of manipulating and subduing faith so as to render it compatible with the state’s totalitarian aims.”
Professor Ying Fuk-tsang, director of the divinity school at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told ucanews.com that Sinicization is unavoidable for all religions in China following President Xi Jinping’s proposal of the program in 2015. The Chinese government has proposed Sinicization in three areas: political identity, social identity and cultural identity. The Catholic five-year plan accommodates all three of these aspects.
“Christianity,” Father Vermander said, “can certainly become more Chinese; at the same time, it can help China to become more open and harmonious.
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