(New Beginnings, No. 14)
Some months ago, when visiting China, I took the opportunity of trying to find out a little about the Catholic Church in one part of the country, in the city of Xi’an (Shaanxi). I asked if there were a church in the city, was given an address, and went there by taxi.
What I saw was a pleasant surprise, a Chinese-looking building, set in a quiet part of a side street. A surprise, because in China at the moment, there is in place a process of Westernization, and many traditional-style buildings have been demolished, replaced by functional concrete and glass vertical boxes. For example, the city walls around Beijing, the capital, have been demolished. It was good to see a church that looked part of the scene rather than an import.
Having taken a photo, I went over to get a closer look, followed by a fussy young man, whom I took to be a plain-clothes policeman, who seemed to want me to go away. He emphasized that the church was locked, drawing my attention to the padlocks on each of the three front doors. I looked at a notice-board, all in Chinese, but at least I could read the numbers, which I took as referring to times of Masses. Three and two. Fortunately, Mr. Fussy went away after a while, and I was free to explore.
I went around to the back and found a small door open. I went in and found myself in the sanctuary of the church, a building which could accommodate perhaps two hundred people. A sanctuary lamp was lighting in front of the tabernacle, and the altar was in place, facing the people. There were confessionals, and side altars with shrines of the Sacred Heart, Our Lady, St. Joseph, St. Anthony, St. Thérèse of Lisieux and others, decorated – not too tastefully – with brightly-coloured plastic flowers. A bookshelf contained hymn-books printed in 1993, with a system of musical notation that involved numbers rather than notes. The church was very clean and tidy, almost suspiciously so. (Very tidy churches may perhaps be unused.) There were air-conditioning and public address systems, the former a necessity in a hot climate. In the sacristy at the back, a young woman was making altar breads. Mr. Fussy was with her, but happily ignored me.
Going back outside, I was met by a charming old gentleman with whom I shared not one word, but who seemed to understand the situation all the same. He brought me round to the other side of the church, where there was a four-storey building, perhaps ten years old, running a length of about forty metres.
He brought me in and introduced me to an elderly priest. We began a reasonably adequate conversation in Latin. He was Fr. John Capistran, a Franciscan, born in China in 1916, and ordained in 1946. The church, he told me, was under the patronage of Saint Francis of Assisi. They had 3 Masses each Sunday, and 2 on weekdays, all of them packed. Lots of people came to confession. Young people came to Mass in large numbers, were well instructed in the faith and eager to learn more. The Franciscans have 10 novices in the city of Fungchow.
Bishop Anthony To-Nga of the diocese of Xi’an was away, he said, but had his rooms and offices in the building, along with 8 priests who served 3 parishes in the city, with a total of 4,000 Catholics. In the diocese there were 60 priests, most of them young, and 400 sisters, most of whom were also young. I thought to myself that there must be few bishops in the First World who have such an apparently healthy situation in their diocese.
Fr. John Capistran offered me some of his home-made wine, a potent brew with a heavy taste of vinegar. After I had taken a few unenthusiastic sips I think he got the message and didn’t press me to have more. He told me they had had a visit from the General Minister of the Franciscans in 2001. I asked him about relations with the pope. He replied, ‘Episcopus noster non habet relationem cum Vaticano, propterea Vaticano habet relationem cum Taiwan’. This was the official line of the Catholic Patriotic Church, set up by the Communists after they took power in 1949: ‘Our bishop does not have relations with the Vatican because the Vatican has relations with Taiwan’. Taiwan is described by Beijing as ‘a renegade province’. The unity of China is a sore point, after what China suffered in the nineteenth century at the hands of European colonial powers, who forced humiliating concessions from an inward-looking empire led by the cunning but ignorant and reactionary Dowager Empress Ci’xi.
The Patriotic Church is not fully its own master; the Communist Party controls it to a degree. But Fr. John Capistran’s resentment of Vatican relations with Taiwan seemed genuine, even if it was not the full story. The Catholic Patriotic Church has valid sacraments and, apparently, a thriving pastoral life. One must hope that a rapprochement with the underground Catholic church and with the universal church is possible. I have read that the Vatican has offered to drop relations with Taiwan and to recognize Beijing – it is one of the few states which does not recognize it – in exchange for an easing of restrictions and freedom for the pope to appoint bishops. Perhaps.
After a while, a young priest, Fr. John Gao Mu Yi, came along. He didn’t know Latin, so we could not communicate at all, but he showed me through the building. There was a dispensary and an in-patient ward. There were diocesan offices and rooms for the 8 priests, as well as rooms for other purposes. This led me to ask Fr. John Capistran about how the diocese is financed, as it did not seem to be poor, yet I could not imagine the Sunday congregations being able to offer much support. He told me that many of the priests and sisters worked at ordinary jobs – Fr. Gao Mu Yi was a lawyer, for example, and one of the sisters was an artist – and did pastoral work in the evenings and at week-ends. Priest-workers or worker-priests, I thought? Workers who become priests, or priests who become workers? Could there be a pointer here to the future in a changing church situation in the West?