Towards an "Independent and Democratic Church"

The National Congress of Catholic Representatives (July 7-9) assails the official Church because of its tighter controls

 Bejing (AsiaNews) – From July 7 to July 9 the National Congress of Chinese Catholic Representatives (NCCCR), the body in charge of the policies and the pastoral works of the official Catholic Church, will take place. Changes to the constitution of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) and the Bishops' Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC) are on the agenda.

The gathering, held at a Beijing hotel, is the seventh of its kind and brings together bishops of the official Church (recognised by the government) as well as priests, nuns and laymen. The latter, who are defined as "community leaders", are however representatives imposed by the government and are, for the most part, atheist and more responsive to the needs of the government than those of the Church.

The NCCCR is the organisation that believers and bishops object to the most for it claims the right to set pastoral lines by "democratic vote." Bishops, who should be the Church's principal leaders, are instead always in the minority. There are about 70 bishops in the official Church and its ruling committee is made of 300 people. Ye Xiaowen, director of the State Administration of Religious Affairs has often praised the "democratic character" of the decision-making institutions of the Church, but bishops and believers see in this structure an attempt to "protestantise" it  and control it in ways that risk changing its character and its apostolic mission, based as they are on the primacy of bishops.

Scheduled for 2003, the Congress was postponed due to the outbreak of SARS. Amending the Church's constitution is increasingly seen as necessary since the government knows that five bishops in six (85%) follow the Pope. The retirement age of the official representatives of the bishops and the CCPA is one of the topics on the agenda. The age limit discussed is 80 years. According to experts of the Chinese Church, there are at least 35 bishops in the official Church who are older than that. The new requirement would thus marginalise those bishops who were imprisoned and manipulated by the regime opening the door to a new generation, one that would be more naïve and unprepared.

Changes to the constitutions of the CCPA and the BCCCC are also on the agenda. Three documents were approved last year establishing the CCPA total control over every aspects of Church life: the appointment of bishops, clergymen, parish priests; the running of seminaries, convents, and finances.

The Congress is expected to back this takeover despite the fact that almost all official bishops are opposed to this type of tight control and to the CCPA. Indeed, for the bishops the CCPA should either remain an organisation of Catholic lay people subordinate to the bishops, or should just be disbanded.

Another subject dear to the bishops is the training of the clergy, nuns and lay people. The economic and cultural changes China is now undergoing have brought new challenges to pastoral work such as abortion, divorce, secularisation, individualism, consumerism, etc.

Having experienced a traditional rural lifestyle, living in isolation and under the yoke of persecution, many priests and bishops are today unable to cope with these new challenges. Given the focus on politically controlling the Church, it is still not clear whether the Congress will debate these issues, so essential to the Church and its missionary work.

Two preparatory sessions took place before the Congress, one in Changsha (Central China) in April and the other in Wuyishan (Fujian) in May. In both cases discussions focused on how to run the

Church in an "independent and democratic way" and how to "adapt it to socialism." Jiang Jianyong, deputy director of the United Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party, was present at all these meetings.

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