DEFENDING
THE RIGHTS OF
CHINESE
CATHOLICS FAITHFUL TO THE POPE
LA
DEFENSE DES DROITS DES CATHOLIQUES FIDELES AU PAPE
Table des matières
Cadre réglementaire afférant à la religion
Actualités de l'Eglise catholique clandestine en Chine
MOTIVATION DE RECOURS DEVANT LA COMMISSION DES RECOURS DES REFUGIES FONDE SUR L'APPARTENANCE À L'EGLISE CATHOLIQUE CLANDESTINE:
L'OFRPA a considéré comme établi que XX est un catholique pratiquant.
Sur la base de cette observation, il y aura lieu de déclarer fondée la demande de XX.
En effet, il y a lieu de s'interroger sur les risques au regard des lois pénales chinoises pour déterminer si la libre pratique de sa religion par XX, s'il devait rentrer en Chine, l'exposerait à des brimades officielles.
Pour autant que l'examen des lois chinoises confirme l'existence de diverses lois soumettant l'exercice de la religion catholique guidée par le Pape à des répressions, les craintes de XX doivent dès lors être considérées comme réalistes et fondées juridiquement.
Tout catholique fidèle à Rome pratiquant sa religion en Chine est susceptible d'être arrêté et poursuivi en application de la loi pénale chinoise parce que
1. son Eglise n'est pas enregistrée en conformité avec les lois nationales auprès du Religious Affairs Bureau (Règlement N° 145 afférant à la gestion des lieux pour les activités religieuses, Décret du State Council de la République Populaire de Chine, articles 13 et 14),
2. il pratique sa religion en dehors des lieux de culte autorisés à cette fin par le Gouvernement (Règlement N° 145, article 2),
3. cette Eglise prête allégeance à une autorité suprême étrangère (Règlement N° 145, article 5),
4. sa religion détruit l'unité de la nation, l'unité parmi les minorités ethniques, la stabilité sociale, ou cause un préjudice physique aux citoyens ou crée une obstruction au système d'éducation national (Règlement N° 145, article 5),
5. la pratique de sa religion peut être assimilée au recours à la superstition (article 99 de la loi pénale) ou à la pratique d'un « culte » (article 300 de la loi pénale),
6. l'article 16 de la loi relative à l'éducation obligatoire interdit à la religion d'interférer avec les activités éducatives. Le gouvernement communiste justifie sa politique d'interdiction de formation religieuse pour les mineurs par une conjugaison malaisée de l'article 34 de la Constitution qui garantit le droit de vote sans discrimination sur la base de la religion aux personnes ayant atteint l'âge de la majorité (18 ans) et l'article 36 de la Constitution garantissant la liberté de religion.
Le 18 décembre 2004, le State Council a promulgué les Regulations on Religious Affairs qui entreront en vigueur le premier mars 2005. Le Règlement comporte 48 articles répartis en 7 chapitres régissant les entités religieuses, les activités religieuses, le personnel religieux et les biens religieux. Il résulte d'un processus en cours depuis 6 ans et qui a impliqué une gamme d'autorités et de personnes concernées. Tout en remplaçant le règlement de 1994, il ne le modifie que peu. Surtout il précise les conditions d'obtention d'une licence de construction de tout lieu d'activités religieuses comportant des démarches aux niveaux du comté, de la ville et de la province.
Le Secrétaire d'Etat du Vatican, l'Archevêque Giovanni Lajolo, a officiellement reproché au nouveau règlement que « l'immatriculation des communautés religieuses ne peut pas être considérée comme une condition préalable à la jouissance de cette liberté ».
Dans les débats devant la Commission, cet état de fait est désormais un lieu commun. Mais, si ce n'est que de manière surabondante, nous joignons à notre dossier une compilation de sources officielles et de reportages de presse attestant la discrimination endémique pratiquée à l'encontre des catholiques pratiquant en Chine au sein de structures sous contrôle étranger, comme l'Eglise catholique fidèle au Pape à Rome.
Ayant constaté que la Commission, au moins dans certaines de ses compositions, ne prête "aucune valeur probante" à de telles informations, nous tenons à préciser que leur intérêt n'est pas d'établir que XX a été victime en Chine avant son départ de persécutions à cause de sa religion, mais qu'il le serait s'il y retournait tout en continuant sa pratique de la religion catholique.
Dans ce dernier contexte, les reportages disent quelles sont les persécutions subies par les catholiques en donnant de nombreux exemples avec des citations de noms de personnes notoirement connues dans la communauté catholique chinoise. En ce sens, ces reportages établissent que tout catholique est susceptible de faire l'objet de persécutions en Chine.
Si la Commission convient que XX est un catholique pratiquant, la conclusion est inéluctable qu'il serait exposé personnellement à des persécutions à cause de sa religion s'il devait rentrer en Chine.
Dans ces conditions, la demande de XX d'admission au statut de réfugié sera considérée comme fondée.
XX cite comme précédents de la Commission les affaires suivantes en tant que décisions d'admission au statut de réfugié pour cause de persécutions en tant que catholique:
1. Madame C (N° 438691, le 10 octobre 2003),
2. Monsieur C (N° 435977, 10 mars 2004),
3. Monsieur L (N° 454505, 28 janvier 2004),
4. Mademoiselle C (N° 498264, 17 février 2005),
5. Monsieur Y (N° 503002, 17 février 2005),
6. Mademoiselle C (N° 485630, 10 mai 2005,
7. Monsieur L (N° 508556, du 23 mai 2005).
8. Monsieur W (N° 10017453, du 10 mars 2011).
9. Madame L (12000553 (19 avril 2012)
Dans les affaires
de Monsieur Y et de Monsieur W, le Rapporteur a recommandé à la Commission son
admission au statut de réfugié parce que son appartenance à l'Eglise
clandestine avait été prouvée et que la crainte de persécutions était dès lors
fondée.
Dans l’affaire de Madame L, la Cour Nationale
du Droit d’Asile a jugé qu’en raison des peines auxquelles sont condamnés les
dirigeants des congrégations non répertoriées,, qui sont qualifiées d’illégales
et de menaces pour al stabilité sociale, mais également du fait des arrestations
arbitraires dont leurs membres sont victimes, comme en atteste le rapport publié
par le Home Office en novembre 2010, l’intéressée craint donc avec raison, au
sens des stipulations précitées de la Convention de Genève susvisées, d’être
persécutée en cas de retour dans son pays du fait de son appartenance confessionnelle ».
Cabinet d'avocats
JURISPRUDENCE
COMMISSION
DES RECOURS DES REFUGIES
Dans ces affaires, la Commission des Recours a reconnu comme démontrés les faits suivants :
- dans la région de Wenzhou, Province de Zhejiang, entre 1995 et 2001 des persécutions de catholiques fidèles au Pape, consistant selon les cas en emprisonnement (mort s'en étant suivie dans un cas), en menaces, en actes de harcèlement empêchant l'organisation du culte; des arrestations de fidèles après une messe clandestine;
- dans la région de Ruian, Province de Zhejiang, depuis 2000, les autorités ont poursuivi l'organisateur de l'impression et de la distribution non autorisées de 20.000 exemplaires d'un livre de chants catholiques; il a été condamné à 4 ans d'emprisonnement;
- dans la région de Changle, Province de Fujian depuis 2003, s'agissant d'une étudiante en théologie dans l'Eglise clandestine, son arrestation et détention pendant une semaine et des menaces pour obtenir qu'elle renonce à sa foi;
- dans la région de Tieling, dans la Province de Liaoning, depuis 2003, s'agissant d'un jeune catholique, il a été poursuivi pour avoir emmené à une messe clandestine un mineur, la messe ayant été célébrée au domicile d'un fidèle;
- dans la région de Wenzhou, Province de Zhejiang, un jeune catholique a été accusé d'avoir organisé un rassemblement religieux non autorisé; il a été menacé pour obtenir qu'il renonce à sa foi; détenu pendant 24 heures, il a reçu une convocation devant le Tribunal pour sa participation à des activités religieuses non autorisées;
- dans la région de Wenzhou, Province de Zhejiang, depuis 2000, s'agissant d'une jeune catholique, pour sa participation ardente au culte et plus particulièrement pour l'enseignement du culte à des enfants, pour sa participation à un pèlerinage au tombeau de Monseigneur Bai, et après une réunion de prières et de chants pour les 120 Martyrs, elle a été poursuivie par la police chinoise; et
- dans la région de Changle, Province de Fujian, depuis 2002, s'agissant d'un jeune catholique qui animait une association de jeunes paroissiens, à l'issue d'une messe clandestine, son placement en garde-à-vue pendant quelques jours, et alors qu'il rendait visite à des paroissiens âgés, interpellation et mauvais traitements pendant une garde-à-vue de 24 heures, menaces pour obtenir sa renonciation à sa foi.
- dans la région de Wenzhou, Province de Zhejiang, en 2009, un catholique est reconnu comme ayant subi des brimades et des menaces de poursuites pénales pour escroquerie pour ses activités en tant que comptable pour sa paroisse au sein de l'église clandestine; aussi, la Cour a reconnu que l'intéressé craint avec raison, au sens des stipulations de la convention de Genève, "en raison des des peines auxquelles sont condamnés les dirigeants des congrégations non répertorié, qui sont qualifiées d'illégales et de menaces pour la stabilité sociale, mais également du fait des arrestations arbitraires dont leurs membres sont les victimes, comme en atteste le rapport publié par le Home Office en novembre 2010".
Dans une de ses décisions, la Commission a tenu les propos suivants concernant la situation des catholiques clandestins :
Les autorités publiques chinoises ont regardé les
responsabilités laïques de l'intéressée au sein de l'Eglise catholique
catholique romaine et son refus réitéré de dénoncer les fidèles refusant leur
affiliation à l'Eglise chinoise sous contrôle de l'Association Patriotique
comme la manifestation d'un prosélytisme spirituel sous influence étrangère
destiné à promouvoir dans la sphère privée une activité socialement
condamnable.
CONSEIL D'ETAT
Préfecture de Police de Paris c. C, 09/07/2001
This decision rendered by the Conseil d'Etat in France represents a correction by the Courts of an excess of jurisdiction of the Préfecture for having decided to send out of the country a Chinese clandestine at the origin a candidate for asylum based on his exposure to official persecution as a Catholic faithful to Rome. A major consideration was the lack of proportionality of the administrative decision against a man with more than 10 years of presence in France and who by virtue of his age would not easily be reintegrated in China.
Cette décision du Conseil d'Etat fait progresser la jurisprudence en ce quelle corrige une décision préfectorale pour excès de compétence pour avoir cherché à éloigner du territoire un clandestin chinois qui à l'origine avait été candidat au statut de réfugié pour cause de son exposition à des persécutions officielles pour sa pratique de la religion catholique fidèle à Rome. Un motif déterminant a été fondé sur le manque de proportionalité de la décision administrative compte tenu en particulier de l'ancienneté de la présence sur le territoire de l'intéressé (plus de 10 ans) et aussi de son âge avancé (plus de 60 ans).
texte de l'arrêt / text in French of the decision
TRIBUNAUX ADMINISTRATIFS
1. - Monsieur C.,
Tribunal Administratif de Paris, Paris N° 0415446/8, 10 juillet 2004
2. - Monsieur Z., Tribunal Administratif de
Paris, 19 janvier 2005
3. - Madame Z., Tribunal Administratif de
Paris, N° 0506137/8, 13 mai 2005
4. - Madame L., Tribunal Administratif de
Paris, N° 0512909/8, 22 août 2005
5. - Monsieur X., Tribunal Administratif de
Paris, N° 0515078, 19 septembre 2005
6. - Monsieur C., Tribunal Administratif de
Paris, N° 0520404/8, 17 décembre 2005
7. - Madame F., Tribunal Administratif de
Paris, N° 0520766/8, du 10 janvier 2006
8. - Monsieur C., Tribunal Administratif de
Paris, N° 0615675, du 9 janvier 2007
9. - Madame G., Tribunal Administratif de
Paris, N° 0705531/8 du 14 avril 2007
10. - Madame G., Tribunal Administratif de Paris,
N° 071499988/5/8, du 22 novembre 2007
11. - Monsieur R., Tribunal Administratif de
Paris, N° 0814298, du 31 décembre 2008
12. - Monsieur R., Tribunal Administratif de
Paris, N° 0814298, du 31 décembre 2008
13. - Monsieur Z., Tribunal Administratif de
Montreuil, N° 0912558, du 24 juin 2010
Cabinet d'avocats
ACTUALITES DE L'EGLISE CATHOLIQUE CLANDESTINE EN CHINE
New regulations, November 2004
New regulations for
controlling religions
General sources of information
Radio Blogs
Religious
Freedom Page
Human
Rights Watch: East Asia
Religion and human rights in China
International
Religious Freedom Report, Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights,
and Labor, United States Department of State
A Brief Historical and Legal Description of Religious, Religion and Law Research Consortium
Chinese Government sources
Freedom of Religious Belief in China,
Information Office of the State Council of the PRC, October 1997, Beijing
English
version
Chinese version
Religions in China -
China Internet Information Center
Freedom of religion before the
European Court for Human Rights
Judgments of
the European Court for Human Rights invloving freedom of religion
News stories on religious freedom in China
Deux évêques chinois clandestins libérés à Pâques
LA CROIX - MONDE – 16/04/2012
Deux évêques chinois non-reconnus par
le gouvernement chinois ont été libérés par les autorités le Dimanche de Pâques,
annonce l’agence UcaNews, citant des sources ecclésiastiques chinoises.
Mgr Pierre Shao Zhumin, évêque de
Wenzhou, au Zhejiang (est), et Mgr Pierre Jin Lugang, évêque de Nanyang
(centre), étaient détenus depuis respectivement quatre semaines et quatre
jours.
Selon de sources ecclésiastiques
locales, Mgr Shao, 49 ans, avait été arrêté le 19 mars dernier et aurait été détenu
dans le diocèse de Leshan, au Sichuan (sud-ouest) dont l’évêque, Mgr Paul Lei
Shiyin a été excommunié suite à son ordination sans mandat pontifical en juin.
Sa détention aurait inclus un « lavage de cerveau » au cours d’enseignements
sur la politique religieuse du pays.
Mgr Shao aurait été arrêté dans un
contexte de « grande inquiétude » concernant une ordination épiscopale
clandestine à Tianshui, dans le Gansu (nord-ouest), à laquelle il aurait pris
part l’année dernière. « Les autorités sont préoccupées par cette ordination
vue comme un acte de défiance vis-à-vis des élections et ordinations décidées
par l’Église officielle », ont confié des sources à UcaNews.
De son côté, Mgr Jin avait été arrêté
jeudi 4 avril, les autorités souhaitant l’empêcher de célébrer la messe
chrismale et les autres célébrations pascales. Il a été détenu dans une maison
d’hôtes.
DEUX ÉVÊQUES CLANDESTINS LIBÉRÉS À PÂQUES
Infocatho16 avril 2012
Deux évêques chinois non-reconnus par le
gouvernement chinois ont été libérés par les autorités le dimanche de Pâques.
Ils étaient détenus depuis respectivement quatre semaines et quatre jours.
Selon
des source ecclésiastiques locales, Mgr Pierre Shao Zhumin, évêque de Wenzhou,
au Zhejiang, et Mgr Pierre Jin Lugang, évêque de Nanyang, avaient été arrêtés,
Mgr Shao le 19 mars et Mgr Jin le 4 avril.
Leur détention aurait inclus un «
lavage de cerveau » au cours d’enseignements sur la politique religieuse du
pays.
Mgr Shao aurait été arrêté dans un contexte de « grande inquiétude »
concernant une ordination épiscopale clandestine à Tianshui, dans le Gansu, à
laquelle il aurait pris part l’année dernière. « Les autorités sont préoccupées
par cette ordination vue comme un acte de défiance vis-à-vis des élections et
ordinations décidées par l’Église officielle », ont confié des sources à
UcaNews.
De son côté, Mgr Jin a été arrêté jeudi 4 avril, parce que les
autorités souhaitait l’empêcher de célébrer la messe chrismale et les autres célébrations
pascales. Il a été détenu dans une "maison d’hôtes" et non dans une
prison. (source : Ucanews)
‘Underground’
bishops released
Prelates taken on guided tour,
urged to cooperate more with authorities
ucanews.com
reporter, Wenzhou, April 16, 2012
Two Chinese bishops not recognized
by the government were freed by authorities on Easter Sunday, according to
Church sources.
Coadjutor Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin
of Wenzhou in eastern Zhejiang province and Bishop Peter Jin Lugang of Nanyang
in central Henan province were detained for three weeks and four days
respectively.
Bishop Shao was detained on March
19. Local Church sources said his detention included a “brainwashing” learning
class on the country’s religious policies.
Government officials expressed “great
concern” over the secret Episcopal ordination of the Bishop of Tianshui in
north-western Gansu province last year, in which Bishop Shao and four other
underground bishops took part.
The sources said this was the main
reason why Bishop Shao was detained.
“Central government has attached
importance to the ordination, which it sees as an act of defiance to the
official Church’s ‘self-election and self-ordination’ of bishops,” said the
sources.
Bishop Shao was also warned to
restrain himself and not to travel too extensively to visit Wenzhou Catholics
who do business across the country.
The 49-year-old prelate had been
taken “sightseeing” in south-western Sichuan province. He was escorted by
government officials to Leshan diocese where he met the excommunicated Father
Paul Lei Shiyin, who received Episcopal ordination without a papal mandate last
June.
Fr Lei and the officials showed
Bishop Shao a Church-run hospital, guesthouse and the construction site of the
new bishop’s house.
Bishop Shao was told it was rare
honor for the Catholic Church in Leshan to enjoy such development considering
is proximity to an area held sacred by Chinese Buddhism, the sources said.
Then, they visited some historic
monuments to the Long March (1934-36), where the officials told Bishop Shao
that building a country is not easy and urged him to cooperate with the
government.
The bishop told them he is not
opposed to cooperation as long as it does not go against the “one, holy,
Catholic and apostolic Church.”
Father Paul Jiang Sunian,
Chancellor of Wenzhou, who was detained with Bishop Shao, was released on March
24.
Meanwhile, Bishop Jin was taken
away on April 4, Holy Thursday, by officials wanting to prevent him from
celebrating the Chrism Mass, which symbolizes a bishop’s communion with his
clergy, and other Easter liturgies.
The prelate was detained in a guesthouse and taken by
four officials to several tourist spots before being released on Easter Sunday,
according to Church sources.
China subjects Catholic bishops, priests to ‘political sessions’
April 18, 2012
Two Chinese bishops of the “underground”
Church have been released by police after having been held for “political
sessions” in which they were pressured to cooperate with the Catholic Patriotic
Association. The AsiaNews service reports that dozens of priests are being
temporarily detained to attend similar sessions.
Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin, coadjutor
of the Wenzhou diocese, had been arrested and held for 4 weeks. During that
time he was allowed to visit Lei Shiyin, a bishop who was ordained last July
without permission from the Vatican and consequently excommunicated; Chinese
authorities clearly were holding up Bishop Lei as a model for Bishop Shao to
emulate.
Bishop Peter Jing Lugang Nanyang of
Henan was taken into custody on Holy Thursday and released on Easter Sunday—too
late to lead his diocese in the liturgical ceremonies of the Easter Triduum.
Government officials told him during his “holiday” that he should join the
Patriotic Association.
A recent rise in the number of
bishops and priests subjected to these “political sessions” has been
interpreted by Chinese Catholics as a move by the government to encourage
loyalty to the Patriotic Association in advance of the Communist Party Congress
that will be held in October. The Chinese government has established a pattern
of cracking down on ideological enemies in advance of major Party meetings.
Two underground bishops
released, but many priests are arrested
Wang Zhicheng – AsiaNews.it – 04/17/2012
Bishop Shao Zhumin was arrested for four weeks,
interrogated, brought on "vacation" away from his diocese,
"recommended" to join the Patriotic Association. The model to follow:
the excommunicated bishop Lei Shiyin. Bishop Jin Lugang detained for four days
so he would not celebrate the Easter Triduum with the community. Dozens of
underground priests are held for weeks and subjected to "political
sessions". First the security of Communist Party's Congress and plan to
eliminate the underground Church.
Beijing (AsiaNews) - Two bishops of
the underground community, not recognized by the Chinese government, were
released after a period of "political sessions". But sources tell AsiaNews
that every week dozens of unofficial priests of the communities are taken
and forced to attend lectures on the government's religious policy and only
released after week.On Easter Sunday, Mgr. Peter Shao Zhumin, coadjutor bishop
of Wenzhou (Zhejiang) and Msgr. Peter Jin Lugang Nanyang (Henan) were able to
return to their homes. The two were held, respectively, for four weeks and four
days.
Msgr. Shao was arrested in March (see: 07/04/2012 Police pressure
on underground community. Easter in the Church of Silence). His
arrest was due mainly to gain information from him on the ordination of an
underground bishop in Tianshui, in a clear "disobedience" to the
politics of self-elections and self-ordinations wanted by the government (see:
24/08/2011 Tianshui: police
arrest dozens of underground priests and lay faithful).
The bishop was also subjected to
political sessions to subscribe to the Patriotic Association (PA), which
promotes a national church independent from the Holy See. The prelate was also
brought on a "vacation-visit" to the diocese of Leshan (Sichuan), led
by bishop Lei Shiyin, ordained on July 14 without the permission of the pope
and excommunicated. Bishop Lei showed the buildings under construction in his
diocese, and government representatives "recommended" cooperation
with the government. Local sources quoted by UCAN said that Bishop Shao he was
in favour of collaboration, provided that it is not against "the one,
holy, catholic and apostolic".
Msgr. Jin Lugang was arrested on April 4,
Holy Thursday and freed on Easter. His detention prevented him from celebrating
any of the Holy Triduum or Easter liturgies. The police and government
officials took him "on holiday" and also "advised" him to
join the PA.
AsiaNews sources confirm that this style of detention,
political sessions, "advice" to join the Patriotic Association and
release after a few weeks has become very common this year. "Dozens of
priests are taken every week - sources say - and are released only after
several days." In many areas, including Hebei, all underground communities
are afraid of arrest and fear has stopped the activities of the faithful.
"Even the controls are more avid: home visits, telephone, internet .. they don't miss
anything."
According to some, the increase in arrests and controls is due
to the attempt to provide security before the Communist Party Congress, to be
held next October, during which the leadership of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao will
change hands. For others there is a clear pattern of wanting to hasten the
demise of the underground community by absorbing them into the official church.
Bishop, priest taken
for ‘learning classes’
Will be released if they are
'intelligent enough in their learning,' officials say
ucanews.com
reporter, Beijing, March 22, 2012
Coadjutor Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin
of Wenzhou and his chancellor Father Paul Jiang Sunian were spirited away this
week to attend “learning classes,” sources say.
Bishop Shao, 49, was appointed by
the Holy See in to lead Wenzhou’s “underground” community in 2007 and is not
recognized by the government.
He and Fr Jiang were taken on
Monday.
If Bishop Shao and Father Jiang are
“intelligent enough in their learning,” they will be allowed back soon; if not,
they will be detained longer, local Church sources quoted government officials
as saying.
“This implies their release depends
on whether they accept the government’s religious policies,” one of the sources
said.
Among 17 underground priests, a few
of them have been summoned to meet with religious officials in the past two
days, the sources said.
Some were told to remain behind
while others were allowed to return home the same day, they added.
Though no official reasons have
been given, the sources suspect the recent events may be linked to the secret
episcopal ordination in Tianshui diocese in Gansu province last year.
Government officials are
investigating who was involved in the ordination, they said.
Bishop John Wang Ruowang of
Tianshui was taken away for “learning classes” at an undisclosed location in
January.
A Church observer who asked not to
be named said China’s religious policy is “moving backwards” and is reflected
in the current situation with the Catholic Church and with the 30 Tibetan monks
and nuns who have self-immolated in
the fight for religious freedom.
The spate of detentions of
underground clergy since the fall of last year was a decision coming from the
government, he noted.
On March 2, a bureau chief of the
United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China told a joint
meeting of leaders of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the
Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China that he hoped the two
Church bodies could do a good job in “converting the underground community.”
Beijing's Theology of Repression
China is cracking down on
Christians who consider God, not the
Communist Party, the head of the
church.
By DAVID AIKMAN
JULY 11, 2011
Wall Streezt Journal :
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304760604576428260216373754.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
For we must consider that we
shall be as a city upon a hill," Puritan John Winthrop famously preached
to fellow immigrants to America aboard the Arbella in 1630. At least two
American presidents in the 20th century, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, have
quoted him, and his words have resonated for many Americans ever since,
reminding them of their spiritual obligations, not just to each other, but to
the whole
world.
If Winthrop were alive today, he
would undoubtedly be heartened to see his words quoted in the quarterly
magazine of Shouwang Church, one of Beijing's largest unsanctioned
"house" churches (shouwang means "keeping watch" in
Chinese). He would share, too, the anguish of the church members at their
continued intimidation by the authorities. Since early April, police have
prevented church members from gathering
for
normal Sunday worship services—albeit at an outdoor plaza and not a church
building. Hundreds have been detained for short periods and the entire church
leadership has been under house arrest since April.
Ironically, Shouwang Church,
whose 1,000-strong congregation is mostly upscale professionals, actually paid
$4 million for meeting space in a Beijing office building. But under pressure
from the authorities, the sellers refused to hand over the keys, leaving the
church with no place to meet.
China tolerates Christian church
services, but only within the narrow boundaries of theology and church life
dictated by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, which oversees two
Church umbrella groups, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and, for
Protestants, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). Estimates of the number
of Christians in China vary widely, ranging from the TSPM's figure of about 20
million for its own churches to that of outside observers who say the total is
as high as 130 million. The reason? Most Chinese Christians belong to
unofficial house churches like
Shouwang, which reject Communist
Party-controlled TSPM theology and consider God—not the Communist Party—the
head of the church. The number of house-church Christians, while hard to
estimate, is likely more than 60 million.
The recent crackdown on
house-church Christians is the outgrowth of a Communist Party initiative
launched last December, called "Operation Deterrence," to force all
house-church Christians to be incorporated with the TSPM or suffer persecution.
In light of the savage treatment of practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditation
group brutally repressed since 1999, the implications of "Operation
Deterrence" are alarming.
Shouwang Church was founded in
1993 by Jin Tianming, a graduate of Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University.
Its steady growth is partly due to the increase in recent years of Christian
converts among urban professionals, but it's also due to skillful
self-administration. Its literary quarterly "Almond Flowers" recently
published a detailed explanation of why Shouwang refused to join the TSPM.
Explaining that the TSPM was an
outdated product of the Cold War, "Almond Flowers" asked, "Is
there any reason for such an agency to exist today?" It pointed out that
"the faith that the TSPM adheres to is what church history calls liberal
theology, while the faith of the house churches is evangelical theology."
Evangelical churches around the
world, of course, have always stressed the need for Christians to share their
faith. The TSPM, however, forbids its members to evangelize. Last autumn, that
ban meant the the TSPM was not able to attend the Lausanne Conference on World
Evangelism because its representatives could not sign the mandatory Lausanne
pledge to promote evangelism. It then stood back as authorities blocked some
200 invited Chinese house-church representatives who were willing to sign the
pledge from leaving China.
The crackdown on Christians is
part of a rising tide of répression against dissent that's often accompanied by
interrogations and torture. Recently, the wife of blind human rights activist
Chen Guangcheng said that she and her husband were beaten and tortured for
several hours by a gang of plainclothes thugs led by the village Communist
Party secretary. Worryingly, some of the Shouwang Church detainees found TSPM
representatives taking part in the police interrogations, "educating"
and "rebuking" the Shouwang Christians. Incredibly, TSPM Chairman Fu
Xianyou denies that house churches even exist.
Sadly, the TSPM is often hosted
in the United States by churches and organizations such as the World
Evangelical Alliance and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which ought
to know better. It was the Rev. Graham himself, during a 1988 visit to China,
who took gréât pains to visit privately with one of China's most revered
house-church heroes, Rev. Wang Mingdao. Wang had spent two decades in prison
for his refusal to join the TSPM.
If America's churches are truly
to be "as a city upon a hill," they should follow the Rev. Graham's
example and help to shed light on the ongoing repression of their brethren in
China.
Mr. Aikman, a former Beijing
bureau chief for Time magazine, is the author of "Jesus in Beijing: How
Christianity Is Transforming China And Changing the Global Balance of
Power" (Regnery, 2006).
Government
recognizes ‘underground’ bishop
Church sources say Holy See did not
know about move or give any instruction to him
ucanews.com, Nanyang,
June 30, 2011
Retired “underground” bishop Joseph
Zhu Baoyu of Nanyang from central Henan province was installed as a
government-recognized bishop today.
The prelate, 90, who was secretly
consecrated in 1995 with Vatican approval, spent many years in detention or undergoing
reform-through-labor. Pope Benedict XVI accepted his resignation last year.
Catholic sources said Bishop Zhu
decided to seek recognition from the civil authorities in order to claim back
Church properties that were confiscated during the Cultural Revolution
(1966-76).
Nanyang diocese
has about 20,000 Catholics scattered in Nanyang city, two districts and 11
counties in southwestern Henan.
Bishop John Baptist Yang Xiaoting
of Yan’an, vice-president of the government-sanctioned Bishops’ Conference of
the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC), officiated at the installation ceremony.
Thirty priests from the local and
neighboring dioceses concelebrated the morning Mass at the Nanyang Catholic
Church. About 50 laypeople also attended.
Bishop Zhu’s decision is not out of
personal interest, but for the diocese, one priest explained.
“There are many churches yet to be
returned. We can hardly protect our rights and interests [without government
recognition].”
With the prelate’s installation,
the diocese can now legally claim back property and this will also benefit
evangelistic work, he said.
According to Church sources, the
Holy See did not know about Bishop Zhu’s move or give any instruction to him.
His decision also didn’t get the
backing of all members in his diocese, including Coadjutor Bishop Peter Jin
Lugang and almost half the 21 diocesan priests.
They believe religious affairs
officials have been persuading Bishop Zhu to seek government recognition.
Some also think ambiguous policy of
the Holy See have encouraged this outcome.
Government officials only allowed
priests whom they trust to attend the installation. Bishop Jin was forbidden to
leave his Church this morning, sources said, adding that they were worried
Bishop Zhu’s installation would split the diocese.
Bishop Zhu, a Nanyang-native, was
born in 1921. Less than a year after he was ordained a priest in 1957, he was
arrested for his faith and sentenced to reform-through-labor. He returned to
his hometown in 1967 and began to administer sacraments for Catholics secretly.
He was imprisoned for “counter-revolutionary
crimes” in 1981 and was released on parole eight years later. After that he
served as a parish priest until he was ordained a bishop in 1995.
Test of faith
Unshaken by threats of eviction and even jail,
Shouwang Church members worship when and where they can
Verna Yu
May 08, 2011
"I was a little bit scared at first, but I
trusted we were in the care of almighty God," said the 27-year-old finance
executive, who spent his Easter weekend in custody. "I went with a
peaceful heart."
Hue, who declined to disclose his full name for
fear of reprisals, is one of hundreds of Christians from the Beijing-based
Shouwang Church who have been risking detention, losing their jobs or being
evicted by their landlords by defying government orders not to worship outdoors
over the past month.
The 1,000-strong congregation of Shouwang -
technically an illegal church because it is not approved by the state - has been
trying to hold its Sunday services at a public plaza after official pressure
forced its previous landlord to evict it from its usual place of worship last
month. Officials also blocked the congregation from moving into a
1,500-square-metre office space the church had bought for 27 million
yuan (HK$32 million).
Before Hue went out on Easter Sunday, he
already knew he could be detained, because police had held dozens of his fellow
church members on the past two Sundays. But he was undeterred.
"We just need somewhere to worship our
Lord. We don't want to get involved with politics, but we have nowhere to
worship, so we don't have a choice."
Police detained 169 worshippers the first
Sunday, then nearly 50 the second week and more than 30 in each of the past two
Sundays. The church will attempt to hold another outdoor service again today.
Some Christians have been detained two or three
times, although many who have been in custody once have been stopped by police
from leaving home on subsequent weekends. The six leaders of the church have
been confined to their homes for weeks.
Last week, Hue, like many fellow Shouwang
Christians who have been detained, had to move because the authorities
pressured his landlord to evict him. He is lucky that he does not work in the
state sector - many members who do are facing dismissal from their jobs.
Academics say the high-profile confrontation
between Shouwang and the government is unprecedented in recent mainland church
history and poses one of the most serious tests of church-state relations in
years.
Shouwang, which means "to keep
watch", had several run-ins with the government over the past few years,
but its congregation continued to grow. In 2008, police raided one of its
services, accusing it of illegal gathering; in 2009, it was evicted from its
rented premises and worshipped in a park while its pastor was detained; last
year, church leaders and members were turned back from the airport when they
tried to travel to South Africa to participate in the Lausanne Congress on
World Evangelisation. The authorities were angered that members of the
unofficial churches sought to represent China.
Although the Christians' attempts to worship
outdoors are seen by some as a bold public display of defiance, they insist
they have no political agenda. They say they have no choice but to take to
public spaces unless the authorities allow them to move into a permanent place
of worship.
After the church was similarly forced to
worship outdoors in November 2009, officials gave verbal approval for it to go
back indoors in another rented space, but a little more than a year later, it
was told to leave again.
The Reverend Jin Tianming ,
the pastor of the church, has said it has been forced to move more than 20
times since it was founded in 1993. Now, it is no longer willing to be made
homeless every few months and wants the authorities to give it formal approval
to worship freely in its own property without further harassment.
"This is a manifestation of our faith ...
Jesus Christ is the head of the church, and the government cannot interfere
with the church's faith," Jin said of the church's attempt to worship
outdoors in an earlier phone interview. Jin, who has been under house arrest
since April 9, could not be reached by phone during the past week.
Not a typical "house" church - small
groups of Christians on the mainland holding clandestine services at home to
escape persecution - Shouwang's fast-growing and dynamic congregation has long
posed a headache for the central government, which bans religious services
outside state-sanctioned churches.
Attended by a well-to-do and educated crowd -
among them university lecturers, doctors, lawyers, NGO workers and even
Communist Party members - Shouwang has come to symbolise a new breed of young
urban Christians who are no longer contented to practise their faith in secret.
It resembles many thriving evangelical churches
overseas. Led by a committee chosen by its members, the dynamic church has a choir, a Sunday school, Bible classes and charity initiatives.
It even has its own magazine and a sophisticated website with video clips of
sermons. Before it was evicted, it ran three services every Sunday.
Religious-affairs experts say that while the
authorities have largely tolerated small gatherings of the unregistered
churches, Shouwang's speed of growth, its influence and its development into an
independent organisation have unnerved them. They do not tolerate independent
groups outside the control of the Communist Party, but Shouwang has developed
into just that.
From what began in 1993 as a
gathering of fewer then 10 Christians worshipping in the one-bedroom flat of
Jin, then a recent chemical-engineering graduate from prestigious Tsinghua
University, the number of worshippers grew to about 300 in 2005, 600 in 2008
and about 1,000 now.
Religious-affairs experts say the clash between
Shouwang and the authorities has come to symbolise the strained underground
church-state relations on the mainland, which stems from the government's
outdated religious policies and its failure to recognise that state-sanctioned
churches can no longer serve the needs of a fast-growing Christian population.
The number of Christians on the mainland has
grown dramatically in recent decades, from about 2 million 30 years ago to the
current estimated 23 million (official figure released last year) to 130
million.
Liu Peng, a Beijing-based academic who studies
church-state relations, estimates that about 50 million mainlanders are
underground church members. Instead of suppressing them, he said the government
should grant their churches legal status and allow them to worship freely.
He said the central government's model of the
management of churches was simply outdated and its desire to have all
Christians worship in state-sanctioned churches unrealistic.
"The growth in the number of Christians
has outpaced the growth of the number of [approved] churches," he said.
"It's like a child outgrowing his clothes. If there is no reform, there
will only be more problems."
All religious bodies on the mainland are
required to register with the government - a de facto authorisation procedure
that weeds out all independent groups outside the control of the party.
Shouwang has repeatedly tried to register with the authorities since 2006 but
was always refused.
House churches took root soon after the
Communist regime took over the mainland in 1949, when churches and religious
establishments were forced to sever ties with Western churches, then seen as
agents of "foreign imperialists".
Those who refused to come under the control of
the state-sanctioned church in the so-called "Three-Self Patriotic
Movement" in 1954 were driven underground and many church leaders were
jailed.
Unregistered churches have come a long way
since then, and many urban churches have become oases for young professionals
who seek spiritual solace and moral guidance in an increasingly materialistic
society - and they flourish as a result.
But despite continuous calls for the government
to recognise these unofficial churches, there is no sign that it is prepared to
shift its position any time soon.
The State Administration for Religious Affairs
announced in January that its priority this year was to "guide Protestants
at unregistered churches into worshipping at government-sanctioned ones",
according to Xinhua.
Other fast-developing evangelical churches on
the mainland have also been targets of similar crackdowns in the past couple of
years. The Wanbang Church in Shanghai, Liangren Church in Guangzhou, and
Qiuyuzhifu Church in Chengdu have all been evicted from their rented premises
and have had to move from place to place, although none have been cracked down
on as heavily as Shouwang.
But Christians who worship at unofficial
churches are adamant that they will not join state-sanctioned churches, because
they say they could not practice their faith freely in institutions controlled
by the atheist Communist Party.
"The Three-Self church is not established
on the foundation of faith. Things like who gets to preach and what is said in
the sermon are controlled by the government," Hue said. "But the
Bible says, `Besides me there is no God,' so I can't participate in that kind
of church."
The persecution of Shouwang comes amid the
mainland's harshest crackdown on dissent for years, prompted by government
fears that revolts in the Arab world could spread to China. Dozens of
dissidents and rights advocates have been detained or are facing charges.
Under such a tense political atmosphere,
analysts fears the central government might run out of patience and launch an
all-out crackdown to end the long-drawn-out confrontation.
"My rather pessimistic view is that the
government will not allow this to drag on," said Professor Ying Fuk-tsang,
a divinity scholar at Chinese University of Hong Kong. "In the worst
scenario it might ban this church as an illegal organisation and arrest its
leaders."
But Shouwang's church leaders and members say
they are not afraid to go to jail. "There is such a possibility and we
were mentally prepared for it right from the start. There is no turning
back," said church elder Sun Yi, who is still under house arrest.
"But ... we're still hoping to reach a
consensus that we can both accept and genuinely solve the problem."
Both sides have taken firm stances: the church
refuses to disband or split into smaller groups and demands that the government
allows it to take possession of its property; the government insists that
Christians were taking part in illegal gatherings.
"Both sides have a very clear bottom line,
so conflict is inevitable," said a mainland-based academic who researches
house-church issues. "They have no common language - the church has its
own set of logic and the government has its own set of logic. The government
believes that whoever goes out on the street poses a threat to the government,
and the church believes that whatever happens, they must carry on
worshipping."
The long battle will hurt the church badly
anyway, even if the authorities do not step up the crackdown, scholars say. The
church will start losing its followers as those who do not wish to risk
detention choose to worship elsewhere.
"We will definitely lose some people ...
but I think Shouwang has a fundamental vision [of worshipping together], and
through this test, people who are committed to that vision will stay,"
Sun said. "This is the most difficult test
in the history of Shouwang. If we don't handle this well, the church might
split into smaller groups."
The Shanghai-based Wanbang church, which had
1,000 followers, split into several groups after being evicted from its rented
premises in 2009. Its pastor said it had lost several hundred congregation
members.
But government efforts to suppress the church
might prove counter-productive, as they seemed to have only bolstered the
Christians' beliefs. Shouwang's faithful believe God may have his purpose in
this persecution: to spread the gospel to officials and police.
The church said in an online message: "We
thank God for giving the church an opportunity, to enable the police to feel a
sense of peace and freedom from Christ through these Christians."
In their testimonies posted on the internet,
church members described heart-warming scenes of praying and singing hymns
together in custody without hindrance and being filled with a sense of peace
and joy. Some said they discussed their faith with police, some of whom were
genuinely interested in Christianity.
"We have to give thanks that we were able
to share our faith with the police ... some had never heard of the gospel, and
some were pretty interested, too," Hue said.
An official at the State Administration for
Religious Affairs refused to comment on questions related to Shouwang Church.
Des chrétiens
protestent en Chine
AFP
12/05/2011
Un regroupement d'Eglises
chrétiennes clandestines a pris l'initiative inhabituelle d'adresser
aujourd'hui une pétition au parlement chinois pour demander la fin des
persécutions et la liberté de culte en Chine.
Les pasteurs de 17 Eglises non
enregistrées officiellement se plaignent dans cette pétition, adressée au
président de l'Assemblée nationale populaire (ANP) Wu Bangguo, de la répression
visant à la cessation des activités de ces Eglises.
C'est la première fois
qu'un tel nombre d'Eglises clandestines demandent collectivement la liberté de
religion en Chine communiste, a déclaré China Aid, association dont le siège
est aux Etats-Unis, qui publie leur pétition sur son site internet.
"Ces
six dernières décennies (depuis l'arrivée au pouvoir du Parti communiste, NDLR)
la liberté religieuse garantie aux chrétiens du pays par la Constitution de la
République populaire de Chine ne s'est pas traduite dans les faits", selon
le texte.
Les auteurs de la pétition demandent à l'ANP de se pencher sur la
constitutionnalité de la gestion des affaires religieuses par le gouvernement
qui n'autorise la pratique de la foi qu'au sein d'Eglises reconnues par
lui. Ils demandent également aux députés d'adopter une loi protégeant les
libertés religieuses.
Les catholiques et protestants en Chine sont divisés
entre "officiels" appartenant à ces Eglises sous la houlette du Parti
communiste chinois (environ 20 millions, selon Pékin) et les fidèles des
"Eglises du silence" clandestines, qui dépasseraient les 50 millions.
Over 30 Christians detained as
church clampdown continues
Verna Yu in South China Morning
Post
May 2, 2011
http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a0/?vgnextoid=522c5c96eebaf210VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&ss=Chin
More than 30 Christians from one
of the mainland's most influential unofficial churches were detained and dozens
were confined to their homes yesterday, after they tried to worship outdoors in
defiance of government orders amid a crackdown that has continued for four Sundays.
At least 31 members of Shouwang
Church were taken away near its proposed place of worship amid a heavy police
presence in Beijing's commercial Zhongguancun area, said Christians who
declined to be named. The church's leaders - three pastors and three elders -
remained under house arrest while many congregation members were prevented from
leaving home.
The church's pastor, Jin Tianming , has been confined at home since April 9, the eve
of the church's first attempted outdoor service. He could not be reached by
phone yesterday.
Last week, he said many church
members who had been detained on previous Sundays were stopped by police from
going out on subsequent Sundays. Others were told by local police to sign
statements promising not to worship outdoors again.
Three journalists from Al-Jazeera
English who were trying to cover the event had been stopped by police outside
the building where the service was supposed to take place, correspondent
Melissa Chan said. They were required to hand over their videotape before being
released.
The congregation has tried to
worship on the podium terrace of a commercial building for the past four
Sundays. Police detained 169 worshippers the first time, nearly 50 the second
time and 36 on Sunday last week. Most were released within 24 hours in the
first weeks, but last week some were held for 48 hours.
The church, which has nearly
1,000 members, lost its previous place of worship early last month after
official pressure forced its landlord to evict it from a spacious film studio.
Officials also blocked the congregation from moving into an office space the
church had bought for 27 million yuan (HK$32 million).
The church, which has been
evicted more than 20 times since 1993, had wanted the authorities to give it
formal approval to worship freely on its own property without further
harassment. It has tried to register with the government, but the state, which
controls religious affairs, has repeatedly refused to give it authorisation.
Shouwang, which means "to
keep watch", was criticised last week by the Global Times for
"politicising" religious issues. In response, the church issued an
online statement insisting that it had no political agenda and would go back
indoors as long as it has "a guaranteed meeting place".
"Any speculation about the
church having political motivation can easily be quashed," it said.
Police harass foreign reporters
at banned Easter service
BROADCAST / PRINT MEDIA NEWS]
On April 24, CNN correspondent
Stan Grant and his crew were briefly detained when they attempted to report on
an unauthorized outdoor Easter service in downtown Beijing organized by
Shouwang Church, an unregistered Protestant group that has complained of being
denied an indoor meeting space. The journalists' credentials were confiscated,
and hundreds of police officers prevented them from accessing the area. At
least 36 church members who joined the congregation
were taken into custody. Shouwang's senior pastor, Jin Tianming, is now under
house arrest, and the church's website has been made inaccessible. At another
Sunday service held by Shouwang in Beijing on April 10, Bill Schiller of the
Toronto Star was interrogated for three hours after he took photographs of
participants and the police.
* New York Times 4/24/2011: China
detains church members at Easter services
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/world/asia/25church.html?src=me>
* CNN 4/24/2011: Church
officials: Chinese authorities block Easter service in Beijing http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/24/china.easter.crackdown/index.html
Foreign journalist detained at church gathering
On April 10, Bill Schiller, the Toronto Star's
Asia bureau chief, was detained and interrogated for three hours in Beijing
after he took photographs at an unauthorized outdoor church service in the
city's Zhongguancun district. More than 150 members of the Shouwang Protestant
Church were also rounded up by the authorities; the church operates without
government approval and has been barred from buying or renting space in which
to worship. Schiller said he was asked to delete pictures from his camera, and
had his government-issued press card confiscated. The police claimed he had
conducted interviews in public without permission, a rule has been more
strictly enforced since calls for a protest-driven "Jasmine
Revolution" circulated on the internet in mid-February. Schiller's account
of his experience, which comes amid a broader crackdown on journalists,
bloggers, and other activists, adds to existing evidence that the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) has redefined the limits of permissible expression in the
country, while resorting to extralegal tactics to suppress dissent. Zhou
Yongkang, a CCP Politburo Standing Committee member who oversees the country's
law enforcement bodies, is said to be one of the driving forces behind the
current crackdown, including the recent disappearances of Chinese dissidents.
* Toronto Star 4/11/2011: Star reporter
detained, interrogated by Chinese police for taking photo
<http://www.thestar.com/news/world/china/article/972598--star-reporter-detained-interrogated-by-chinese-police?bn=1>
* Wall Street Journal 4/11/2011: China's
crackdown signals shift
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704366104576254630352511472.html>
Beijing
police halt unapproved church service
Apr 10,2011
http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/beijing-police-halt-unapproved-church-service/643991.html
BEIJING (AP) — Beijing police on Sunday detained
dozens of worshippers from an unapproved Christian church who were trying to
hold services in a public space after they were evicted from their usual place
of worship, a parishioner said.Leaders of the unregistered Shouwang church had
told members to gather at an open-air venue in Beijing for Sunday morning
services, but police, apparently alerted to their plans, taped off the area and
took away people who showed up to take part.Chinese authorities have been on
high alert for large public gatherings in the wake of anonymous online calls
for anti-government protests modeled on demonstrations in the Middle East and
North Africa.No major protests have occurred in China following the calls, but
the security crackdown they sparked has resulted in the arrest or detention of
dozens of public interest lawyers, writers, intellectuals and activists.China's
Communist government allows worship only in state-approved churches, but many
Christians belong to unregistered congregations. Such "house
churches" are subjected to varying degrees of harassment by
authorities.More than 60 million Christians are believed to worship in China's
independent churches, compared with about 20 million who worship in the state
church, according to scholars and church activists.A church member who went to
the gathering spot for services and managed to evade police told The Associated
Press that about 200 people were taken away and were being held at a local
school. Their cellphones were confiscated, said the man, who would give only
his English name, Kane, for fear of police reprisals.An AP videographer saw
about a dozen people escorted by police onto an empty city bus and driven
away.Shouwang pastor Yuan Ling said by telephone that he was unable to go to the
venue because police had put him under house arrest Saturday night. Yuan said
he knew of at least six other church members who were also under house
arrest.Yuan said fellow parishioners also told him that many worshippers were
being held at a school in Beijing's Haidian district, though he wasn't sure of
the exact number.Shouwang had been holding services at a Beijing restaurant
until they were evicted last week.Ai Weiwei, an internationally known
avant-garde artist who is also an outspoken government critic, became the
highest-profile person targeted in the crackdown on dissent when he was
detained at a Beijing airport a week ago. The Foreign Ministry says he is being
investigated for alleged economic crimes, though Beijing police have yet to
confirm he is in custody.Ai was last seen being led away by police at the
airport after being barred from boarding a flight to Hong Kong.About 50
pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong on Sunday demanded Ai's release,
peacefully chanting "No to political persecution" outside the central
Chinese government's liaison office. Opposition legislator Lee Cheuk-yan tossed
a picture of Ai into the grounds of the compound.Former British colony Hong
Kong enjoys Western-style civil liberties as part of its special semiautonomous
status under Chinese rule.On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton called for Ai's release and criticized China for what she said was a
deteriorating human rights situation in the first part of 2011.Clinton made the
remarks while announcing the release of the U.S. State Department's annual
assessment of human rights around the world. It said China stepped up
restrictions on critics and tightened control of civil society in 2010 by
limiting freedom of speech and Internet access.As it does each year, China
fired back with its own report, accusing Washington of hypocrisy and
criticizing the U.S. for its own human rights record, citing figures showing
high crime, homelessness, racial discrimination, and killings of civilians and
other abuses by U.S. forces overseas.The report pointed to the huge amount of
money poured into last year's midterm congressional elections as a perversion
of democracy, and accused Washington of advocating Internet freedom to boost
its influence over other countries, while at the same time pursuing legal
challenges to the WikiLeaks secret-spilling website."We hereby advise the
U.S. government to take concrete actions to improve its human rights
conditions, check and rectify its acts in the human rights field, and stop the
hegemonistic deeds of using human rights issues to interfere in other
countries' internal affairs," the report said.___Associated Press
videographer David Wivell in Beijing and AP writer
Shouwang
Church Easter plans foiled
BEIJING, April 24 (UPI) -- Leaders of China's
independent Shouwang Church said police blocked their plans for Easter Sunday
services in Beijing.
An estimated 500 members of the church were
prevented from leaving their homes Sunday and another 36 were detained,
including the chief pastor, who was said to be under house arrest.
CNN said it tried to send a crew to cover the
services, but they were turned away and had their press credentials confiscated
by police.
Shouwang Church is one of largest independent
"house" churches in China and has repeatedly sparred with government
authorities. CNN said police officers told them they were on the scene for
"security reasons."
Chief Pastor Jin Tianming told CNN his flock
would not be discouraged by the setback. "We will not change our decision
to worship as this is a matter of faith," he said.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/04/24/Cops-foil-Beijing-churchs-Easter-plans/UPI-55681303654339/<http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/04/24/Cops-foil-Beijing-churchs-Easter-plans/UPI-55681303654339/.>
Shouwang
again
From Agence France Press via SCMP
(20 avril 2011):
An unregistered mainland Protestant church
urged its followers yesterday to ignore government warnings and risk being
arrested by attending Easter services in Beijing at the weekend.
In an appeal posted on its Google Buzz page,
the Shouwang Church warned that police would likely detain those gathering at a
set meeting site, but that it was more important that followers stood up for
their faith.
Beijing police have rounded up scores of church
followers after they sought to hold outdoor services in Beijing's university
district over the past two Sundays. Most were released after 24 hours. The
police action comes amid a widening crackdown on dissidents, civil rights
lawyers and activists, including the disappearance into police custody of Ai Weiwei , an outspoken artist who is widely known for his
political activism.
"The courage that we sacrifice becomes the
peace between the oppressor and the oppressed," the church said. "Our
sole desire is that we can awaken the conscience of our rulers through our
peaceful and holy action of sacrifice. We also hope that this action can
dissipate the hatred between people ... Only in this way can we really love our
government."
The Shouwang church, one of Beijing's largest
unregistered churches, was forced outdoors after the government blocked the
rental of its previous place of worship and prevented it from buying a new
meeting place, the church said.
On Saturday, senior church Pastor Jin Tianming
and several other leaders were detained, but later released into house arrest.
Beijing's widening crackdown on dissent comes
after anonymous calls on the internet for so-called jasmine protests on Sunday,
similar to those that have rocked the Arab world.
The church has denied it has any links to these
rally calls.
"We again reiterate that the Shouwang
church is a church of Jesus Christ and we are not under the control of, or
being used by, any domestic or foreign organisation," yesterday's
statement said. The church set up its Google Buzz page, a Twitter-like
microblog service, after its China-based webpage was shut down recently.
Although freedom of religion is enshrined in
China's constitution, all religious groups are required to register with the
government and worship in officially sanctioned churches.
About 15 million Protestants and 5 million
Catholics worship at official churches on the mainland, according to recent
official data. But more than 50 million others are believed to pray at
underground or "house" churches.
Beijing church faces eviction in tense times
By Chris Buckley and Sui-Lee Wee Chris Buckley And
Sui-lee Wee _ Sun Apr 3, 2011, 7:48 am ET
BEIJING (Reuters) _ Tears flowed at one of Beijing's biggest "house"
churches when some 300 Chinese Christians prayed on the last Sunday before they
face eviction from their makeshift place of worship, pressed by officials wary
about religion outside of their grip.
The Shouwang Church, with about 1,000 members, is one of the biggest Protestant
congregations in Beijing that has expanded beyond the confines of churches
registered and overseen by the ruling Communist Party's religious affairs
authorities.
But the Party is wary about any potential unrest, and this gathering of neat
middle-class and student Christians has been told by its landlord that it can
no longer worship at the "Old Story Restaurant," with its walls lined
with pictures of Chinese Party leaders shaking hands with former U.S.
presidents.
Church leaders warned that unless the church can find a new home, its members
may be forced to worship outdoors, a risky step in this nation where big
gatherings often attract official scrutiny and can be broken up by police.
"This is the cross that the church has to bear," Pastor Jin Tianming
told the worshippers about the prospect of worship outdoors. Some of them wiped
tears from their faces.
"We need a formal approval from the authorities to allow us to find an
indoor meeting place. If not, we will not waver in worshipping outdoors."
Members of the church told Reuters that they did not see themselves as
political activists or foes of the government. But the pressures they face
shows the extent of China's recent crackdown on dissent and potential sources
of unrest.
"Some people may face getting caught, may have to stand trial or may even
be sentenced," You Guanhui, an older pastor told the congregation about
the possibility of gathering in a park or other public place.
"God, we especially want to plead to you as we face these dangerous
trials. Please find a way out for us."
China has arrested and detained dozens of lawyers, bloggers and dissidents
after the online calls for pro-democracy "Jasmine" gatherings.
On Sunday, prominent Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, a combative critic of Party
censorship, was stopped by police from boarding a flight from Beijing to Hong
Kong, his assistant told Beijing lawyer Pu Zhiqiang. Police also searched Ai's
studio in Beijing, according to Pu and messages on Ai's Twitter account.
Ai could not be contacted on his phone.
In recent years, restrictions on "house" churches across China eased,
allowing them to grow and become more settled.
These churches started as Bible study groups that often grew into large
congregations, sparking fears in China's ruling Party that they could undermine
its grip. But those fears eased in many areas in recent years, and many such
churches are now much bigger than could fit into a normal house.
There are 40 to 60 million Protestants in China, divided between the official
and unregistered churches, according to Carsten Vala, a Maryland-based
professor at Loyola University who specializes in Chinese Christians.
The eviction is the latest chapter in a long series of restrictions on the
Shouwang church, which started out as a "house church" in a rented
apartment in 1993. It holds three services every Sunday, partly because even
the restaurant cannot hold all the members at the same time.
When pressed to register with the government Administration for Religious
Affairs, the Shouwang church declined, said Cao Zhi, a Shouwang church member
in his thirties who works for a non-government group.
"Traditionally, home churches haven't been willing to register, because
the church is considered to belong to God," said Cao, a former journalist.
Since then, the church has been evicted from rented premises many times. In
2009, the last time it was kicked out of its place of worship, the church
assembled in a park in a snowstorm. Promise Hsu, a church member, said about
700 to 800 people turned up.
In 2009, the church raised 27 million yuan ($4.12 million), in donations from
members and tried to buy a space in a commercial building as a permanent home.
But authorities pressured the seller not to hand over the property to the
church, even though it had paid for it, church members said.
"As citizens and worshippers, we've fulfilled all our duties and just want
to worship," said Cao, the church member.
"Churches need their own homes so they can develop. Why can companies buy
their own places but not churches?" ($1 = 6.548 yuan)
(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee and Chris Buckley; Editing by Andrew Marshall)
Catholic
seminarians mount rare protest (SCMP)
Dozens of students at a Catholic seminary in Hebei province staged a rare
protest yesterday outside a government office against the appointment of a
non-Catholic government official to the school's leadership.
The show of defiance raised eyebrows, as the seminary is operated by the
government-backed church. It added to the mounting tension before a key
national congress in Beijing on Tuesday, when the mainland church will select
its new leaders.
The Vatican opposes the congress, saying it breaches Catholic doctrine about
bishops' autonomy. Sino-Vatican relations were already strained after Beijing's
unilateral ordination of a bishop in Hebei last month. Brandishing slogans and
wearing their white uniforms, about 100 seminarians studying for the priesthood
at the Catholic Theological and Philosophical Seminary of Hebei in Shijiazhuang
staged a silent protest outside the offices of the Hebei Ethnic and Religious
Affairs Bureau from early yesterday morning.
They demanded that the government remove the seminary's newly appointed deputy
rector.
"We have no option but to stage this silent protest," said one
seminarian who took part. "We can stand the situation no longer."
Bureau officials said they were negotiating with the protesters but refused to
give further details.
Tang Zhaojun, a section chief at the bureau who is not a Catholic, was appointed
by the government on November 11 to the seminary's leadership. He will take
part in managing the religious institute and teach political education classes.
The appointment sparked an uproar among the students, who have been on strike
for two weeks with the support of their teachers, demanding that government
officials not be appointed to head seminaries.
Church insiders said the government had promised earlier to remove Tang in
light of the strong protests by members of the seminary.
But the possible resolution was thwarted after Beijing's ordination of Joseph
Guo Jincai as bishop of the Chengde diocese last month.
Some of the eight bishops who took part in what the Vatican called an
"illicit" ordination ceremony are directors of the seminary. The rector
is Joseph Ma Yinglin, who was ordained without papal approval as bishop of Kunming , Yunnan , in 2006.
At two meetings with the seminarians yesterday, officials refused to remove
Tang "because the appointment was a [Communist] Party decision", some
of those present said.
Anthony Lam Sui-ki, a senior researcher with Hong Kong's Holy Spirit Study
Centre, said the rising discontent among Catholics against the government as
demonstrated in the protest could deter bishops who are loyal to Rome from
attending next week's national congress.
Yesterday's open protest by Catholic seminarians against the authorities was
the first since January 2000, when more than 150 seminarians at the National
Seminary in Beijing refused to attend a ceremony in which five bishops were
ordained by the government without papal approval.
Many of those who took part in that boycott were dismissed from the seminary.
By Ambrose Leung, additional reporting by Mandy Zuo
Bishops for
pawns
The Economist, Nov 25th 2010, 13:57 by J.H. | VATICAN CITY
THE first to disappear was Joseph Li Liangui, the Bishop of Cangzhou. He was
seen leaving his house with government officials on November 12th. Three days
later, Bishop Peter Feng Xinmao of Hengshui stopped answering his mobile
telephone.
Both men re-emerged on November 20th in the city of Chengde in north-eastern
China at a ceremony that has prompted the most serious crisis to come between
between the Vatican and China_s government in years. Messrs Li and Feng were
among eight bishops who took part in what the Vatican regards as an illicit
episcopal ordination: that of the Reverend Guo Jincai. A member of the Chinese
parliament, the National People_s Congress, Mr Guo is a former
vice secretary-general of China_s government-backed Catholic church, the
Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA). China-watchers close to the
Vatican believe he is being groomed for yet higher office in the state
apparatus that oversees religious activity. Hence Beijing_s determination to
have him elevated.
Chinese officials ignored repeated objections to his ordination conveyed by
Rome through the informal channels whereby the Holy See maintains contact with
the Chinese leadership (they have no diplomatic relations). According to the
Holy See_s press office, all the bishops at the ceremony were coerced into
attending_a claim denied by the CCPA_s vice-president, Liu Bainian. The
ordination took place under tight security at at Chengde_s Pinquan church.
Dozens of police surrounded the building and reporters were prevented from
entering.
The Communist Party forced China_s Catholics to cut their links with the
Vatican in 1951 and then created the CCPA six years later. The effect of its
clampdown was to create an _underground_ faction of the church loyal to the pope.
Estimates of the number of Catholics in China vary widely (most put the figure
at between 12 and 15 million) though it is generally accepted that the
underground part of the church is significantly bigger than the CCPA. In recent
years there has been some overlap and reconciliation.
China had stopped ordaining Catholic bishops without Vatican approval in 2006,
when both sides adopted a practice of agreeing informally on mutually
acceptable candidates. In 2007 Pope Benedict wrote China_s Catholics a letter
that was seen as conciliatory to the authorities. It described the naming of
bishops by the Vatican as a guarantee of church unity, but said it was
_understandable_ that the government would be attentive to the choice of church
leaders whose functions had civil as well as spiritual implications. The
weekend_s ceremony sent relations between the Vatican and China back to the
dark days of before that truce was struck.
Relations had appeared to improve since then, although progress was sometimes
halting. Last year, the Chinese authorities again arrested Julius Jia Zhiguo, a
much-imprisoned bishop of the underground church who had been working for its
reconciliation with the CCPA. Yet so far this year, ten bishops acceptable to
both Beijing and the Vatican have been ordained.
The latest ceremony has shattered the perception of gradual improvement that
those ordinations had brought about. And it has inspired some unusually harsh
language from the Catholic side. _Once more, they have crucified Jesus,_ declared
Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, a former archbishop of Hong Kong and a leading
adviser to the pope on Chinese affairs. The methods used to force the bishops
to take part in the ceremony, he said, were _fascist_.
A statement from the Vatican on November 24th was only slightly less strident.
It called the treatment of the bishops a _grave violation of freedom of
religion and conscience_ and said the implied claim of the authorities to guide
the life of the Catholic church _offends the Holy Father, the Church in China
and the universal Church_.
The road back from Chengde looks like being a long and arduous one.
China
Launches Major Crackdown on House Churches, Labels Them a 'Cult'
Contact: Tracy Oliver, Media Coordinator, 267-210-8278, Tracy@ChinaAid.org; Mark
Shan, Spokesperson, 617-943-1340, Mark@ChinaAid.org; both with ChinaAid,
888-889-7757, info@ChinaAid.org; www.ChinaAid.org, www.MonitorChina.org
BEIJING,_ Dec. 7, 2010 /Christian Newswire/ -- In a grave and troubling
setback, Chinese authorities last week launched a crackdown directed at
Christians who belong to China's vast network of unregistered house churches,
calling a "cult" one of the fastest-growing populations of Christians
in the world, according to top-secret information obtained by ChinaAid
Association.
The all-powerful Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party launched
"Operation Deterrence" on Dec. 1. According to the Politburo's
top-secret instructions, the crackdown on the largest component of the mainland
Chinese church is to continue through March 2011, and the party's Central
Committee for Comprehensive Management of Social order, the foot soldiers of
China's security apparatus, have been notified to collect information about
house churches throughout the country and turn these reports in to their
superiors. A long "blacklist" of church leaders and influential
believers reportedly has been drawn up.
Perhaps unbeknownst to China's atheist Communist leaders, the start of the
crackdown coincides with Advent, marked by Christians worldwide as the season
leading up to the celebration of the greatest historical event of Christianity:
the birth of Jesus Christ, the son of God, to save mankind from sin and eternal
damnation.
Operation Deterrence harks back to the previous era of hostilities and often
brutal government persecution that had for decades driven unknown hundreds of
thousands of believers "underground," worshipping in secret and
fearing for their lives and freedom.
That could result in the more practical and immediate -- and chilling --
possibility_ that the same measures that have long been used against
practitioners of Falungong, which the Beijing regime labeled a cult in late
1999, can now be employed against house church Christians. The Chinese
government's brutal systematic campaign against Falungong since July 1999 has
earned it worldwide censure.
Beijing authorities very effectively turned the tide of public opinion against
the non-violent, meditating Falungong practitioners by using the same
re-labeling tactic they are now adopting with the house church Christians.
Originally regarded as an apolitical qigong exercise group, Falungong was
reclassified by the government as "an evil cult," "a sect"
and "superstition," and a subsequent all-out government media
campaign eroded any public opposition to the government's crackdown on
Falungong.
Le
Vatican déplore l'arrestation d'un évêque "clandestin" en Chine (le
Monde)
LE MONDE | 14.04.09 | 14h54
PÉKIN CORRESPONDANT
Depuis deux semaines, l'évêque chinois Julius Jia Zhiguo a disparu. Dans
l'après-midi du 30 mars, cinq policiers sont venus chercher ce prélat de la
province du Hebei (qui encercle Pékin), dans son église du Christ-Roi située
dans le village de Wuqiu.
Mgr Jia, une personnalité connue de l'Eglise catholique "clandestine"
chinoise, est un habitué des geôles du régime : il a été arrêté plus d'une
dizaine de fois depuis 2004. Sa dernière interpellation remonte au 24 août
2008, il avait été relâché le 18 septembre. Ces trois semaines de détention,
passées dans différents hôtels et lieux touristiques du Hebei, étaient liées à
l'organisation des Jeux olympiques de Pékin. Les autorités avaient alors pris
soin d'éliminer tous les "gêneurs" susceptibles de troubler
l'événement.
Selon Eglises d'Asie, l'agence d'information des Missions étrangères de Paris,
l'arrestation de Mgr Jia serait due au fait que l'évêque "officiel"
du diocèse de Shijiazhuang, (capitale du Hebei), Mgr Paul Jiang Taoran, aurait
choisi de se rapprocher du Vatican et demandé sa légitimation au pape Benoît
XVI. Après que celle-ci lui eut été accordée, ce prélat a fini par se
considérer évêque auxiliaire de Mgr Jia. "Pour les autorités chinoises,
l'unité de l'Eglise ainsi acquise n'est pas acceptable", écrit Eglises
d'Asie.
L'Eglise catholique chinoise est en effet divisée entre deux entités. L'une,
"officielle", est regroupée au sein de l'Association patriotique des
catholiques chinois et compterait 5,6 millions de membres. L'autre,
"clandestine", pourrait compter une douzaine de millions de fidèles.
En dépit d'un rapprochement entre Pékin et le Vatican depuis quelques années -
le Saint-Siège étant soucieux d'oeuvrer à l'unification de l'Eglise catholique
chinoise -, la reprise des relations diplomatiques (rompues en 1951) reste un
horizon lointain. Si le Vatican a fait savoir son intention de couper les liens
avec Taïwan, son insistance à garder la main sur la nomination des évêques
constitue, pour Pékin, un obstacle à la normalisation diplomatique.
DIALOGUE AU POINT MORT
Selon Joseph Kung, de la Fondation cardinal Kung, un groupe d'activistes basé
aux Etats-Unis, la situation des catholiques clandestins "est en train
d'empirer". En 2007, Pékin avait nommé des évêques qui avaient reçu le
soutien du Saint-Siège, une décision qui avait été interprétée comme un signe
d'ouverture de la part de la République populaire. Mais depuis 2008, aucune
nouvelle nomination n'a été faite et le dialogue semble au point mort.
Le Vatican a réagi vertement à l'interpellation de Mgr Julius Jia Zhiguo : au
lendemain de la réunion, à Rome, de la Commission pour l'étude des questions
d'importance majeures relatives à la vie de l'Eglise en Chine, réunie du 30
mars au 1er avril, un communiqué a fait part "de la douleur profonde"
ressentie après "l'arrestation" du prélat. L'incident constitue
"un obstacle au climat de dialogue avec les autorités concernées, précise
le texte. Il ne s'agit pas d'un cas isolé : d'autres ecclésiastiques sont
privés de liberté (en Chine) ou sont soumis à des pressions et à d'injustes
limitations de leurs activités pastorales."
Bruno Philip
Article paru dans l'édition du 15.04.09
An
activist priest moves on (SCMP)
A champion of the underdog who was overtly political, Joseph Zen polarised
Catholics
Ambrose Leung Updated on Apr 16, 2009 When more than 170 priests
gathered in the Catholic cathedral last Thursday to prepare for the Easter
liturgy, much of their hushed talk revolved around a man who has made it his
earthly mission to protect the weak and downtrodden.
They were speaking of Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun - their outspoken bishop who
retired yesterday after patrolling the borders of social justice since 1997.
"Some people didn't like him, but many more loved him," one elderly
diocesan priest said. "Whatever people have felt about him, all should be
laid to rest now because he is retiring. After all, he has tried his best to
fulfil his mission entrusted by God."
Pope Benedict's approval last night of the 77-year-old cardinal's long-desired
retirement certainly marked the end of an era. Cardinal Zen was disliked by
some for his often swift and always fierce condemnation of what he considered
unjust and wrong. Others admired him for his work as a protector of the weak
and poor, and his castigation of those who abused their wealth and position.
Love or loathe him, few could deny he has held firm to his principles in a time
of social and political upheaval since becoming second-in-command of the local
Catholic church in 1997 - and, later, bishop of Hong Kong after succeeding the
late Cardinal John Baptist Wu Cheng-chung in 2002.
With a low profile and extensive teaching experience on the mainland, the then
Father Zen was considered a dark horse when he was designated by the late Pope
John Paul II as Cardinal Wu's successor. Humble yet confident, Cardinal Zen
reiterated during his farewell press conference last week that it was not his
own idea to help mainland children born to Hongkongers who were seeking right
of abode. Rather, he said, it was Cardinal Wu's decision in 1999 to open the
doors that so often separate high-ranking clerics from people on the streets.
Cardinal Zen rolled up his sleeves and camped out with abode seekers during
overnight protests; lambasted officials who claimed Hong Kong would be flooded
by more than 1 million migrants; visited those jailed when their campaign
turned violent; and resorted to civil disobedience by enrolling non-resident
children in church schools.
By shifting the focus of the church away from its conservativism on public
affairs, he made his name as a champion of the underdog - a conviction
instilled in him by the church's social reforms undertaken during his studies
in Rome in the 1960s. His dictum was that people should fight the culture of
"collective selfishness" amid a trend of "toadying to the rich
and powerful while despising the weak".
His outspokenness, which has made him as many enemies as friends, continued
throughout the slump that overtook Hong Kong during the severe acute
respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003. Public grievances were intensifying as
the government insisted on ramming through the controversial Article 23
national security bill in the Legislative Council. Cardinal Zen became one of
the highest-profile opponents to the legislation, saying it would damage civil
liberties. The proposed law was later shelved after half a million people took
to the streets on July 1, 2003.
Undaunted by abuse from local leftists - among them pro-Beijing unionist Leung
Fu-wah, who branded him a "pathological saint" - Cardinal Zen further
agitated the government when he sided with the pan-democratic camp and gave his
full backing to the campaign for universal suffrage.
Despite being a devout Catholic, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, along
with his administration, denounced the cardinal by name on December 22, 2005,
after the pan-democrats blocked what they and Cardinal Zen considered to be an
undemocratic constitutional reform proposal for elections.
He earned respect and also drew criticism for his role in the pro-democracy
campaign, as well as for his support for the vindication of those killed in the
1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing. On several occasions, Cardinal Zen
expressed sadness over criticism that the church was meddling in politics - a
charge made frequently by Beijing.
"I have been misunderstood and have been used by others to some extent.
There were many things that I failed to achieve," he said last week.
"But God didn't ask us to be successful. God only required us to remain
faithful and do our best."
One veteran church watcher in Hong Kong said that, despite inspiring people
both inside and outside Catholicism, Cardinal Zen was a polarising figure, with
his activism stirring unease in many people, even some Catholic priests.
"While some joined the church because of me, I have also heard some left
the faith because they didn't like me," Cardinal Zen said. But he called
himself "a conservative" in matters of faith - for example, his
adherence to traditional family values, despite being more radical in public
affairs.
To officials and some educators, the cardinal's persistent opposition to
relinquishing the church's control of its 300-plus publicly subsidised schools
under the government's education reform exercise was baffling; officials said
the reform would create room for community participation in school governance.
Pope Benedict fully backed the diocese's efforts to run church schools. A
judicial review filed by the diocese has yet to be completed.
The Pope's support was only a small part of his identification with the Hong
Kong prelate. As well as elevating him in March 2006 to the rank of cardinal -
the second most senior position in the church - Pope Benedict bypassed the
Vatican bureaucracy and made Cardinal Zen his closest adviser on church affairs
on the mainland.
With his long-standing criticism of Beijing's control of mainland Catholics
through the state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Cardinal
Zen struck a raw nerve when he exposed in 2000 how state officials in Hong Kong
had warned the diocese against celebrating the canonisation of 120 19th-century
Chinese martyrs - whom Beijing considered to be imperialists.
Cardinal Zen's fierce criticism of Beijing's unilateral appointment of several
mainland bishops without papal approval between 2000 and 2006 (coupled with his
already tainted record in Beijing's eyes for his social and political
activism), resulted in the central government abandoning efforts to mend
relations following his groundbreaking visit to his native Shanghai in May 2004.
In recent years, he has focused on religious freedom on the mainland, and his
unceasing campaign both in Rome and Hong Kong was instrumental in the creation
of a long-absent mechanism in the Holy See to handle China affairs.
This formation of the papal commission on China affairs in 2007 caused a stir
among bureaucrats in the Holy See. But determinedly ignoring hurdles in Vatican
bureaucracy, Cardinal Zen, who had the support of Pope Benedict, helped lay the
foundations and agenda for the Vatican's China policy for years to come.
In February last year, Bishop Zen called a secret conference, attended by
Cardinal Ivan Diaz, head of the Vatican's worldwide missionary department, and
dozens of international experts on mainland church affairs. Many recommendations
were adopted by the papal commission's first plenary meeting in March last
year.
And what of his own future? Cardinal Zen has said he will focus on his role as
papal adviser after he hands over the daily diocesan administration today to
Bishop John Tong Hon. "You are afraid that my retirement will be
boring?" he asked. "The diocese office was like a jail. My only fear
is that this new freedom will keep me too busy."
Memorable dates in a controversial career
December 1996
Ordained as coadjutor bishop
December 2001
Opens church schools to mainland children seeking right of abode
September 23, 2002
Succeeds Cardinal Wu as Bishop of Hong Kong
June 4, 2003
Calls for vindication of Tiananmen "martyrs"
July 1, 2003
Leads prayer session ahead of the 500,000-strong march against Article 23
March 24, 2006
Elevated to cardinal by Pope Benedict and is given an advisory role on China
affairs
January 2007
Convinces the Pope to create a Vatican commission on China policy
April 15, 2009
Retirement approved by the Pope
Confrontational
cardinal was not always right (SCMP)
Updated on Apr 16, 2009
After delivering his last Easter liturgy as Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal
Joseph Zen Ze-kiun said his successor, Coadjutor Bishop John Tong Hon, would
continue in the direction the church had taken. The cardinal has championed
many worthy causes and deserves credit for raising awareness of social issues.
But he has also backed some questionable positions, notably on amending the
domestic violence ordinance and opposing school management reform. Bishop Tong
should, therefore, think carefully before adopting his predecessor's approach
wholesale.
Cardinal Zen's outspokenness has contributed to the city's democratic
development. He has stuck firmly to his principles. But he has also been a
polarising figure. This has not helped smooth the Vatican's relations with
Beijing. The cardinal is known to be a close adviser to Pope Benedict on the
Vatican's China policy. Overtures to Beijing made by the Pope soon after his
election were overshadowed by the cardinal's vocal criticism - on topics
ranging from Beijing's human rights record to the Vatican's prerogative to
appoint bishops on the mainland. This was a wasted opportunity. The
confrontational stance has not helped Catholics on the mainland or furthered
the interests of the Vatican. Bishop Tong should consider taking a more
diplomatic approach.
The stance the cardinal has taken on some domestic issues also needs to be
reconsidered. A law requiring publicly funded schools to include more parents,
teachers and alumni in their management boards has widespread public support.
Bishop Tong should abandon the cardinal's uncompromising opposition - including
threats to launch a High Court appeal - and accept much-needed reforms to
improve school governance.
The cardinal's hostility - along with other religious groups - towards a
proposed amendment to domestic violence laws has made the issue a divisive one.
The proposal aims to extend legal protection to people in same-sex
relationships who may be caught up in violent situations at home, but it does
not sanction same-sex marriage, a key concern of the church. It should be
passed into law.
Cardinal Zen will not be an easy act to follow. Bishop Tong should build on his
achievements, but not be afraid to make changes where necessary. With a little
finesse, and a little less confrontation, he may win support not only from more
Catholics, but from the wider Hong Kong community as well.
New Catholic leader vows to defend rights (SCMP)
Ambrose Leung
Updated on Apr 16, 2009
The new leader of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese vowed last night to
continue the church's role in defending human rights and caring for
underprivileged groups.
But Bishop John Tong Hon, who succeeded Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun after Pope
Benedict approved his retirement yesterday, said the way he would put his
teachings into action might be different from that of his politically outspoken
predecessor. "As a church, we will definitely continue our role in public
affairs," Bishop Tong said. "God has created mankind who is endowed
with freedom. Upholding freedom and caring for the underprivileged is part of
our faith."
Bishop Tong praised Cardinal Zen for his "excellent leadership" when
the diocese was under his care, and said he would miss the cardinal, who will
now concentrate on advising the Pope on mainland church affairs.
Bishop Tong said he and his predecessor had "shared the same goal" in
the social teachings of the church since 1997.
But he might not follow the strategies and expressions of his predecessor when
the church participated in social affairs.
"Cardinal Zen was truly gifted," he said. "The church must make
its voice heard. But how I will make my voice heard might be a little bit different.
I will follow the church's collective wisdom."
The 69-year-old, who enjoys a weekly game of basketball at the Holy Spirit
Seminary in Aberdeen - his residence for 17 years, said he was still
considering whether to move into the Diocesan Centre in Caine Road,
"because I like the tranquility here".
Bishop Tong to Lead Catholics in Hong Kong
(WSJ) APRIL 17, 2009 By SKY CANAVES
HONG KONG -- Bishop John Tong, the new head of the Roman Catholic Church in
Hong Kong, said he is eager to serve as a liaison between the Vatican and
mainland China.
"We will gladly act as a bridge if needed," said Bishop Tong,
speaking at his first news conference in Hong Kong after Pope Benedict XVI
formally appointed him to his new post Thursday. "Or if the Chinese
government wants to use us to [communicate] to the Holy See, we will gladly
participate."
Bishop Tong succeeds the outspoken Cardinal Joseph Zen, a longtime critic of
China's record on human rights and democracy. The new appointment could help
facilitate the restoration of formal ties between the Vatican and China, which
were broken off soon after the Communists took power in 1949. The Vatican has
sought to improve relations with China, where Catholicism has relatively few
adherents compared with other Christian denominations, which are growing in
popularity.
Bishop Tong said he hopes to promote greater "unity and communion among
the different communities in the Church in China," a reference to the
division among Catholics, who are split between those practicing in China's
state-sanctioned church, loyal to the Communist Party, and the underground
churches that take the Vatican as the highest authority. The Vatican has
clashed with China over the appointment of bishops in the Beijing-sponsored
church and the Vatican's continued diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Bishop Tong is widely regarded as more amenable to Beijing than his
predecessor, who participated in demonstrations and held prayer meetings on
human rights. Since 1980, Bishop Tong headed a diocesan office in Hong Kong
that studies issues related to the Catholic Church in China. Last year, he was
appointed co-adjutor bishop of Hong Kong, paving the way for Cardinal Zen's
retirement. Bishop Tong attended the Olympic Games in Beijing last summer at
the Chinese government's request, an invitation that wasn't extended to
Cardinal Zen.
Bishop Tong said he won't participate in the public vigils to mark this year's
20th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, crackdown on the Tiananmen prodemocracy
activists, noting that he hadn't attended such vigils in the past.
He added, however, that he supports the vindication of the Tiananmen victims,
and described the current situation with regard to religious freedom and human
rights in mainland China as "far from ideal."
"Religious freedom and human rights are all connected," he said.
"If there is some gross injustice, I will speak out." Write to
Sky Canaves at sky.canaves@wsj.com
A
Cardinal for China
(WSJ) OPINION ASIA
APRIL 16, 2009, 2:19 P.M. ET
Hong Kong's Cardinal retires, a loss for China's Catholics and freedom-loving
people everywhere.
Beijing's bureaucrats rail loudly against religious figures when it suits their
political needs, and one of their frequent targets in recent years has been
Cardinal Joseph Zen, an outspoken advocate for democracy and freedom in China.
The Shanghai-born priest retired this week as bishop
of Hong Kong. It's not just his successor who will carry on his work; it's also
the millions of Christians and freedom-loving people everywhere for whom he is
an inspiration.
Cardinal Zen, 77, has served China's Catholics for most of his life -- as a
Salesian priest, as bishop and ultimately as cardinal. Born in Shanghai, he
arrived in Hong Kong in 1949, fleeing the Communists. He returned to the
mainland in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when he
traveled across the country teaching at Chinese seminaries.
After Hong Kong's return to China in 1997, Cardinal Zen became known as the
"conscience" of Hong Kong. He worked to ensure that that Catholics in
the territory maintained their freedoms and called for greater freedoms for
worshippers of all faiths in China -- where the Communist state sanctions and
controls religious activity. Catholics in China face persecution, and people of
other faiths, such as Tibetan Buddhists, have suffered even stronger
crackdowns.
Cardinal Zen understands that religious rights can never be fully separated
from political rights. He has repeatedly criticized Beijing for its handling of
the Tiananmen Square massacre and for delaying democracy in Hong Kong, which he
described as a "a bloodless Tiananmen Square." When the Hong Kong
government tried to pass an antisedition law that would have restricted free
speech in 2003, he called for citizens to protest the measure.
His advocacy for democracy in Hong Kong earned him a backhanded accolade from a
vice president of the state-run church in China, Liu Bainian: "If China's
bishops were all like him then it would be dangerous like Poland."
Cardinal Zen has acted as unofficial liaison between China and the Vatican. The
two severed ties in 1951, and attempts at reconciliation have stalled. Beijing
insists that the Vatican has to break its diplomatic ties with Taiwan before
negotiating with China. The Vatican demands affirmation of the Pope's right to
appoint bishops in the Catholic Church in China.
In the meantime, the Church's presence in China continues to grow. Many Chinese
are turning to religion -- be it Buddhism, Daoism or Christianity -- to help
them find a moral compass in a rapidly changing environment. Roughly six
million Catholics worship in officially sanctioned Chinese churches, and at
least that many again worship in secret. Vatican-appointed bishops who are not
also recognized by China's state church are often targeted for persecution.
Nine bishops are currently in jail, according to the U.S.-based Cardinal Kung
Foundation.
In retirement, Cardinal Zen will continue to advise the Vatican on Chinese
issues. He told local the Hong Kong press this week that he will continue to
speak out for democracy and religious freedom.
His successor as bishop of Hong Kong, John Tong, has not been as outspoken on
issues of human rights. But in remarks to the press this week, Bishop Tong gave
every indication that he will continue the Cardinal's mission. "God has
created mankind who is endowed with freedom," he said. "Upholding
freedom and caring for the underprivileged is part of our faith." Cardinal
Zen couldn't have said it better.
Chine: inquiétudes pour l'avocat dissident Gao
Zhisheng (AFP)
Vendredi 13 mars, 11h53
Des connaissances de l'avocat chinois dissident Gao Zhisheng, dont la famille a
fait défection aux Etats-Unis, ont fait part vendredi de leurs inquiétudes sur
sa situation. Lire la suite l'article
"Je suis très inquiet", a déclaré à l'AFP Teng Biao, un avocat
spécialisé dans la défense des droits civiques qui connaît Gao.
"Pendant des années, il a perdu sa liberté, il a été battu plusieurs fois
et il peut souffrir encore plus", a-t-il dit.
Le 4 février, des membres de la police secrète sont venus chercher Gao dans son
village natal, dans la province du Shaanxi (nord) et depuis personne n'a de
nouvelles, selon l'association Human Rights in China, basée à New York.
Cette dernière et Radio Free Asia ont annoncé jeudi que l'épouse et les enfants
de Gao Zhisheng, un garçon de 5 ans et une fille de 15 ans, étaient arrivés aux
Etats-Unis mercredi et allaient demander l'asile politique.
Li Fangping, un autre avocat célèbre pour son engagement en faveur des droits
de l'Homme, a estimé que Gao pouvait se trouver à Pékin.
"Si sa famille est partie de Chine sans que les autorités ne le sachent,
ils peuvent exercer des représailles ou des pressions sur Gao Zhisheng",
affirme-t-il.
Mais, ajoute-t-il, Gao, âgé d'une quarantaine d'années, devrait être soulagé de
savoir sa famille désormais en sécurité, même si cela sera difficile.
"Maintenant, il n'y a plus que lui, cela ne va pas être facile car il n'a
pas de proches à qui parler -- cela peut-être un gros problème pour lui",
a ajouté M. Li.
Gao, avocat et autrefois membre du Parti communiste, s'est fait connaître pour
avoir pris la défense des chrétiens clandestins, des cyberdissidents, mais
aussi des adeptes du Falungong, mouvement spirituel qualifié de secte par Pékin
et interdit en 1999.
En novembre 2005, il avait été radié du barreau et placé sous surveillance
policière après avoir appelé à la fin des persécutions contre le Falungong. En
décembre 2006, il avait été condamné à trois ans de prison avec sursis pour
subversion puis placé sous résidence surveillée avec mise à l'épreuve pendant
cinq ans.
En 2007, il avait affirmé avoir été torturé après avoir envoyé une lettre au
Congrès américain.
16/03/2009 18:52
Le site
du Vatican bientôt accessible en chinois (La Croix)
Le site Internet du Vatican sera accessible à partir du jeudi 19 mars en
chinois
Le site internet du Vatican, déjà traduit en sept langues (l'italien,
l'anglais, français, espagnol, l'allemand, le portugais et le latin), va
désormais avoir une version en chinoise.
"Grâce à ce nouveau service, les internautes du monde entier pourront
accéder aux textes (...) du pape Benoît XVI traduits en caractères chinois
traditionnels et simplifiés", commente le Vatican. Les catholiques chinois
sont estimés entre 12 et 14 millions (voir notre dossier sur les catholiques en
Chine).
La Chine et le Saint-Siège n'ont plus de relations diplomatiques depuis 1951.
Le rétablissement de ces relations est un enjeu pour Pékin, qui souhaite
améliorer son image à l'étranger, mais le Vatican, qui cherche aussi à
améliorer ses rapports avec les autorités chinoises, y met comme condition la
possibilité de réunir sous l'autorité du pape tous les catholiques actuellement
divisés entre "officiels" et "clandestins".AFP
Sons of heaven (the Economist)
Oct 2nd 2008 | BEIJING AND SHANGHAI
From The Economist print edition
Inside China_s fastest-growing non-governmental
organisation
ZHAO XIAO, a former Communist Party official and
convert to Christianity, smiles over a cup of tea and says he thinks there are
up to 130m Christians in China. This is far larger than previous estimates. The
government says there are 21m (16m Protestants, 5m Catholics). Unofficial
figures, such as one given by the Centre for the Study of Global Christianity in
Massachusetts, put the number at about 70m. But Mr Zhao is not alone in his
reckoning. A study of China by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, an
American think-tank, says indirect survey evidence suggests many unaffiliated
Christians are not in the official figures. And according to China Aid
Association (CAA), a Texas-based lobby group, the director of the government
body which supervises all religions in China said privately that the figure was
indeed as much as 130m in early 2008.
If so, it would mean China contains more Christians than Communists (party
membership is 74m) and there may be more active Christians in China than in any
other country. In 1949, when the Communists took power, less than 1% of the
population had been baptised, most of them Catholics. Now the largest,
fastest-growing number of Christians belong to Protestant _house churches_.
In a suburb of Shanghai, off Haining Road, neighbours peer warily across the
hallway as visitors file into a living room, bringing the number to 25, the
maximum gathering allowed by law without official permission. Inside, young
urban professionals sit on sofas and folding chairs. A young woman in a Che
Guevara T-shirt blesses the group and a man projects material downloaded from
the internet from his laptop onto the wall. Heads turn towards the display and
sing along: _Glory, Glory Glory; Holy, Holy, Holy; God is near to each one of
us._ It is Sunday morning, and worship is beginning in one of thousands of
house churches across China.
House churches are small congregations who meet privately_usually in
apartments_to worship away from the gaze of the Communist Party. In the 1950s,
the Catholic and main Protestant churches were turned into branches of the
religious-affairs administration. House churches have an unclear status,
neither banned nor fully approved of. As long as they avoid neighbourly
confrontation and keep their congregations below a certain size (usually about
25), the Protestant ones are mostly tolerated, grudgingly. Catholic ones are
kept under closer scrutiny, reflecting China_s tense relationship with the
Vatican.
Private meetings in the houses of the faithful were features of the early
Christian church, then seeking to escape Roman imperial persecution.
Paradoxically, the need to keep congregations small helped spread the faith.
That happens in China now. The party, worried about the spread of a rival
ideology, faces a difficult choice: by keeping house churches small, it ensures
that no one church is large enough to threaten the local party chief. But the
price is that the number of churches is increasing.
The church in Shanghai is barely two years old but already has two offspring,
one for workers in a multinational company, the other for migrant labourers. As
well as spreading the Word, the proliferation of churches provides a measure of
defence against intimidation. One pastor told the Far Eastern Economic Review
last year that if the head of one house church was arrested, _the congregation
would just split up and might break into five, six or even ten new house
churches._
Abundant church-creation is a blessing and a curse for the house-church
movement, too. The smiling Mr Zhao says finance is no problem. _We don_t have
salaries to pay or churches to build._ But _management quality_ is hard to
maintain. Churches can get hold of Bibles or download hymn books from the
internet. They cannot so easily find experienced pastors. _In China_, says one,
_the two-year-old Christian teaches the one-year-old._
Because most Protestant house churches are non-denominational (that is, not
affiliated with Lutherans, Methodists and so on), they have no fixed liturgy or
tradition. Their services are like Bible-study classes. This puts a heavy
burden on the pastor. One of the Shanghai congregation who has visited a lot of
house churches sighs with relief that _this pastor knows what he is talking
about._
Still, the teething troubles of the church are minor compared with the vast
rise in the number of Christians. After the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989
many disenchanted democrats turned to Christianity: six of the 30 or so student
leaders of the protests became Christians. China_s new house churches have the
zeal of converts: many members bring their families and co-workers. One
Confucian Chinese says with a rueful smile that most of the pretty girls at
university were Christians?and would date only other
Christians.
Holier and trendier than thou
Christianity also follows Chinese migration. Many Christians studied in
America, converted there and brought their new faith home. Several of the
congregation of the Shanghai house church studied abroad, as did Mr Zhao. In
2000, says one Beijing writer and convert, most believers were in the
countryside. After 2000 they brought their faith into the cities, spreading
Christianity among intellectuals.
All this amounts to something that Europeans, at least, may find surprising. In
much of Christianity_s former heartland, religion is associated with tradition
and ritual. In China, it is associated with modernity, business and science.
_We are first-generation Christians and first-generation businessmen,_ says one house-church pastor. In a widely debated article
in 2006, Mr Zhao wrote that _the market economy discourages idleness. [But] it
cannot discourage people from lying or causing harm. A strong faith discourages
dishonesty and injury._ Christianity and the market economy, in his view, go
hand in hand.
So far, Christianity_s spread has been largely a private matter for individual
believers. The big question is whether it can remain private. The extent of its
growth and the number of its adherents would suggest not. But at the moment,
both Christians and Communists seem willing to let a certain ambiguity linger a
while longer.
_Christians are willing to stay within the system,_
says Mr Zhao. _Christianity is also the basis for good citizenship in China._
Most Christians say that theirs is not a political organisation and they are
not seeking to challenge the party. But they also say clashes with public policy
are inevitable: no Christian, one argues, should accept the one-child policy,
for example.
Formally, the Communist Party forbids members to hold a religious belief, and
the churches say they suffer official harassment. The president of the Beijing
house-church alliance, Zhang Mingxuan, was thrown out of the capital before the
Olympic games and told he was unwelcome when he returned. In early June, the
state government of Henan arrested half a dozen house-church members on charges
of illegally sending charitable donations to Sichuan earthquake victims. CAA
claims harassment of house churches is rising.
In fact, the state_s attitude seems ambivalent. In December 2007, President Hu
Jintao held a meeting with religious leaders and told them that _the knowledge
of religious people must be harnessed to build a prosperous society._ The truth
is that Christians and Communists are circling each other warily. But it is
hard to avoid the conclusion that Christianity will have a political impact one
day. _If you want to know what China will be like in the future,_ concludes Mr Zhao, _you have to consider the future of
Christianity in China._
Mainland Chinese bishops absent at Vatican (IHT)
The Associated Press
Friday, October 3, 2008
VATICAN CITY: The Vatican said Friday that no bishops from mainland China will
be attending a worldwide meeting of prelates in Rome next week _ a clear sign
there has been no breakthrough in the Vatican's efforts to improve relations
with Beijing.
Officials say 253 bishops will attend the meeting that will discuss the
relevance of the Bible for contemporary Catholics. They include bishops from
Macau and Hong Kong, but none from the mainland.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi says there were no requests from the
bishops "because the conditions weren't there."
"It's quite obvious knowing the Chinese that if one can't reach an
agreement, they (the bishops) can't come," he told reporters.
Pope Benedict XVI has made the improvement of relations with Beijing a priority
of his papacy.
Ties between the Vatican and China's communist government are long strained.
Beijing objects to the Vatican's tradition of having the pope name his own
bishops, calling it interference in China.
China appoints bishops for the state-sanctioned Catholic church. In recent
years, some of those bishops have received the Vatican's tacit approval.
Still, many of the country's estimated 12 million Catholics worship in
congregations outside the state-approved church with bishops loyal to the pope.
In May, the China Philharmonic Orchestra performed for Benedict in a landmark
concert at the Vatican. China's ambassador to Italy attended the concert, even
though China's officially atheist Communist Party cut ties with the Vatican in
1951.
The Vatican meeting, known as a synod of bishops, will run from Monday through
Oct. 26. Chinese bishops have not been allowed to travel to similar meetings in
the past.
A document prepared for the meeting rejected a fundamentalist approach to the
Bible and said a key challenge was to clarify for the faithful the relationship
of scripture to science. A rabbi will address the conference on Monday,
believed the first time a Jew has participated at such a meeting.
Benedict on Sunday will read a Biblical passage on Italian television to kick
off a marathon televised Bible reading.
Losing my religion: the Jews of Kaifeng (SCMP)
Zhang Xingwang belongs to a small community of Jews living in a rundown
mainland city - but no one is sure how they came to be there. Now, an academic
is questioning their faith and claims they are victims - or even perpetrators -
of a hoax
Didi Kirsten Tatlow
Updated on Oct 12, 2008
Zhang Xingwang, a former sports teacher with brown eyes and a bushy,
salt-and-pepper beard, invites the children of Kaifeng's Jewish community to
his home on Friday or Sunday afternoons. The flat Zhang shares with his wife is
filled with symbols of Judaism: menorah (seven-branched candelabra) stand on
tables; a Star of David flag pokes out of a flower pot; copies of the Torah,
the holiest Jewish scriptures, line a shelf. Photographs of Zhang, 61, with
visiting Israeli dignitaries and scholars hang from a wall.
Wrapping a voluminous tallit (prayer shawl) around his shoulders, Zhang sits at
the head of his dining table and tells the children stories about their Jewish
heritage and the Lost Tribes of Israel. "Just stories. That's all. I don't
proselytise," he says.
Judaism has no official status on the mainland and domestic Jews are classified
as Han Chinese or Muslim on their identity documents. Zhang knows proselytising
is illegal and is careful to stay within the law. Yet despite the obstacles,
the former member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference for
Kaifeng, a city of nearly 5 million in Henan province, is determined to pass on
his knowledge of Judaism. He also wants his ashes to be interred in Israel when
he is dead. "I want to go back to the land of my ancestors."
The story of Kaifeng's Jewish community, which numbers between 300 and 900
(depending on who you talk to), is an object of fascination among Chinese and
Jews alike. It has spawned dozens of newspaper stories and even research
departments at universities, some helped by overseas donations. Established
after the resumption of diplomatic ties between the mainland and Israel in
1992, the Nanjing University Institute of Jewish Studies changed its name in
2006 to the Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies, following donations by wealthy
American real-estate developers Guilford and Diane Glazer.
The story goes like this: about a millennium ago, a small tribe of Jews left
the Holy Land on an arduous 7,000km voyage to China, where they settled in the
flourishing Northern Sung capital of Kaifeng. Here they made their homes in
Pluck the Sinews Lane (a reference to the Jewish practice of removing sinews
from meat before cooking), built a temple, traded, joined the Confucian scholar
hierarchy, inter-married and assimilated.
Or did they?
In a bold new theory, Hong Kong University historian and Judaic scholar Zhou
Xun says the established story of Kaifeng's Jewish community is a
"hoax". Her research suggests the Jews of Kaifeng are at best
deluded, or may be exploiting a status they don't deserve.
Underpinning her controversial idea with historical irony, Sichuan-born Zhou -
who gained a master of arts degree in Judaic studies at the Hebrew University
in Jerusalem and wrote her thesis at the University of Oriental and African
studies in London - says the Jews were really Muslims, and that the whole
theory arose over a misunderstanding by 17th-century Jesuit missionary Matteo
Ricci - specifically, over a hat.
According to Ricci, Kaifeng scholar A Tian visited the Jesuit Mission in
Beijing in 1605. There, A Tian told Ricci he belonged to a religion that
believed in the one true God, yet was not a Muslim. That statement, plus other
clues, led Ricci to decide that a blue hat worn by A Tian identified him as a
Jew, since Muslims wore white hats.
Later, says Zhou, that encounter was taken up by 19th-century Protestant
missionaries schooled in the popular story of the Lost Tribes of Israel, the 10
tribes cast out of their homeland by the Assyrians some 2,700 years ago.
The missionaries hoped China's Jews, cut off from the Middle East for
centuries, might own an uncorrupted version of the Scriptures. They also hoped
it would be easier to convert Jews to Christianity than Buddhists, who were
proving hard to convince. First of all, they had to persuade the Chinese
themselves they were Jewish.
Unfortunately for the Christians, says Zhou, a fact-finding mission to Kaifeng
ordered by the Anglican bishop of Hong Kong in 1850 failed to find any evidence
of a Torah. Undaunted, a second trip was planned.
"The 'miracle' happened on July 20, 1851," says Zhou. This time, Chiu
Tiansheng and Chiang Jungchi, two emissaries of the London Missionary Society,
brought back Torah scrolls and two Jews, although they were reluctant to
confirm the scrolls had anything to do with the Kaifeng community.
"It is very likely that these scrolls were copied down locally in Kaifeng,
under the instruction of the two delegates," says Zhou. "For the
locals in Kaifeng, a place of overwhelming poverty, selling fakes to westerners
had become a reasonably profitable business."
Other key evidence of Kaifeng Jewry includes two stone pillars, or steles, that
reportedly date from the 15th and 17th centuries. Only one survives. There are
photographs of them in an unofficial museum set up by Zhang. Engraved with
accounts of religious stories, Jewish rituals and details of their Kaifeng
temple, they are said to also contain reports of the Torah scrolls. The
surviving stele is in the Kaifeng Museum, but its script is faded and
unreadable. Calls to the museum are fruitless; it is closed for renovation. The
second stele has not been seen since it disappeared from the gates of an
Anglican church in the early part of last century, after the synagogue site was
sold to Christians in 1912. Anyway, says Zhou, neither stele has ever been
scientifically dated.
Despite that, the Jews of Kaifeng have grown in reputation and a small, but
growing, trickle of emigration to Israel has begun. Although Zhang is content
to wait for death before fulfilling his dream of going "home", others
are not.
Yecholya Jin, 24, is one of four young women who left for Israel in 2006,
helped by Shavei Israel, or Israel Returns, a Jerusalem-based organisation
active around the world in its search for the lost tribes. Once there they were
all "made aliya", or converted, since Israel's powerful Rabbinical
courts did not automatically recognise them as Jews. China's is a patriarchal
society and Jewish8ness can only be handed down the female line.
All converted successfully. Michael Freund, the founder of Shavei Israel, says
Jin ran circles around the rabbis. When they challenged her chosen name,
Yecholya, she pointed to where it appeared in a little-known book of the
Scriptures, and to what it meant: "God can do anything."
Today, Jin lives in Jerusalem, where she is studying for her university
entrance exams. She has no plans to return to the mainland, though she left her
parents and younger sister behind in Kaifeng. "This is my home now,"
she says. "Since I was very small my father told me I was Jewish. Our
family didn't eat pork, we had a mezuzah [parch8ment inscribed with Hebrew
verse] on the door and our gravestones were different from other people's. My
parents really supported me in returning 'home'.
"I like it here. Israel is an immigrant country and people come from
everywhere and treat you well. You can learn a lot."
Like all the Kaifeng Jews, Jin had little to go on to confirm her ancestry
beyond her father's statement that she was Jewish.
"All they had is that one sentence," says Freund. "It's
fascinating how through the transmission of that sentence they were able to
keep alive the spark of Jewish consciousness."
Kaifeng is an hour's drive east of Henan's capital, Zhengzhou. It's an unlovely
place, despite having been capital of several Chinese dynasties. Its roads are
lined with broken paving stones and most of its buildings are dirty.
Kaifeng-born Shi Lei, 30, says he just "knew" he was Jewish. He
speaks fluent Hebrew, having studied for three years at Bar-Ilan University, in
Israel. "My family always told me I was Jewish."
Shi is momentarily floored by Zhou's theory but rises to the debate.
"That's K quite brilliant," he says. "Maybe A Tian was Muslim.
But for me, I'm quite sure I am a Jewish descendent."
Zhou's theory has angered overseas Jews. US-based Beverly Friend, executive
director of the China Judaic Studies Association, likened it to Holocaust
denial. "If anything is a hoax, I think it is this article, and you can
quote me on that," Friend fumes in an e-mail.
Yet on the ground in Kaifeng, the Jews exist in a limbo of hope and loss. In
large part, this is because they have no synagogue to provide focus. Henan
authorities have blown hot and cold on the issue, tempted by the opportunities
for tourism yet scared off by the political sensitivities. For years, says
Zhang, police harassed him, warning him off Jewish activities. The government
recognises just five religions - Buddhist, Daoist, Muslim, Catholic and
Protestant - and while the authorities tolerate religious activity by overseas
Jews in Shanghai, Beijing and other major cities, experts says it is unlikely
they will permit the building of a synagogue for native Chinese.
Professor Xu Xin, doyen of Chinese Jewish studies and head of the Nanjing
institute, has long urged the authorities to allow a synagogue and help the
community revive. "It [would] show a positive side of Chinese culture,
that [Jews] were never persecuted here, it shows China is a multiethnic and
multicultural society, in a way."
The political sensitivity of the topic is reflected by Zhang's skittishness as
we tour old Kaifeng. He was born in 1947 in what is today known as Jiaojing
hutong, or Teach the Scriptures Lane, a narrow, long path lined with rundown
houses. His childhood home houses several families and looks like a slum.
"When I was born, it was called Tiaojing hutong [Pluck the Sinews
Lane]."
Some scholars say it is unlikely such a name would have been made up by
Protestant mission8aries, who would have thought it derogatory.
Two lanes away from the former Jewish quarter is the modern Muslim quarter. These
days, Zhang doesn't normally bring visitors to the Great Eastern Purity mosque.
"[The police] are very worried about ethnic harmony," he says.
Inside the rambling, flower tree-filled compound, Zhang points at two lines of
blue tiles on a green-tiled roof and whispers: "They stole them from our
synagogue, you know."
Outside, among the crowding ranks of peddlers, he greets the Imam. Zhang, born
and raised in these streets, knows everyone. Back then, he says, Jews and
Muslims lived next door to each other and got on well.
Several kilometres away in Millennium City Park, a Northern Song theme park,
Zhang has set up the Kaifeng Jewish Culture Museum in a two-storey
courtyard-style house. The museum has thrived under the protection of the park
owner, a rich businessman Zhang declines to name. All requests to the
government to set up a museum on state-owned property have been rejected.
Shi Lei's father, Shi Xinguang, also runs a private museum about the mainland's
Jews. In two small rooms in a modern brick courtyard of the old family home -
about to be demolished - the exhibits consist mostly of photographs and include
one from the mid-20th century taken to commemorate the Muslim festival of Eid.
It shows rows of young men in front of a banner belonging to the
"Central-South Muslim and Jewish Academy".
Shi Lei believes there are about 900 Jewish descend8ants in Kaifeng, though -
curiously - he claims to have never heard of Zhang Xingwang. Shi's quest to
revive his religious identity was prompted by contact with overseas Jews, and
he was full of curiosity and buoyed by his growing sense of Jewishness when he
arrived at university in Israel - only to be confronted by a shock.
"It was like being hit by a big hammer, or having cold water thrown on
me," says Shi, who was 23 at the time. "Everyone said to me, 'You're
not Jewish', because if your mother isn't a Jew then you're not a Jew. But in
China, everything is passed down through the father's line."
Rabbi Seth Farber runs Itim, the Jewish Life Information Centre, which helps
navigate rabbinical bureaucracy. Despite success stories such as that of Jin,
Farber says it's hard for Kaifeng's Jews to immigrate. Although the 1971 Law of
Return declared anyone who could prove his grandparents were Jewish had the
right to Israeli citizenship, in practice the bar is set much higher by the
official Rabbinate, which is suspicious of imposters.
Two types of people from China contact Itim for help proving Jewish ancestry;
women who want to marry Israelis and Kaifeng Jews.
"Every once in a while we get a call or an e-mail, about four or five a
year. We tell them we're all for helping them but in the absence of proof that
you are a member of the world Jewish community it's hard to grant them that
status."
Tudor Parfitt is professor of modern Jewish studies at London University's
School of Oriental and African Studies. He has written extensively on the Lost
Tribes and says colonists and mission8aries imagined Jewish communities
everywhere.
"Anywhere where you get Protestant mission8aries in a quasi-colonial
context you're going to have the construction of Jewish identity as part of the
whole symbiosis between occupied and occupier," says Parfitt. "They
would find all kinds of behaviour that they found weird and would then decide
was Biblical, and so Jewish."
Whatever the truth about the Jews of Kaifeng, one thing is for sure: spurred by
a steady flow of visitors from the US, they are learning how to be Jewish
again.
"When I was at school my Jewish ancestry was not so important to me,"
says Shi. "But as I started to meet more and more Jewish visitors I began
to learn more and realise it is in my blood. Basically you can say the Jewish
descendants are on a learning curve. They are picking up what we have forgotten
in previous generations."
Religion, la révolution silencieuse
(Le Monde) LE MONDE | 19.08.08 | 14h17 ¥ Mis à jour
le 19.08.08 | 14h17 PEKIN, ENVOYE SPECIAL
Le crucifix noir se découpe sur le blanc du mur. La
pièce est d'une clarté vive, comme irradiée par la lumière qui perce les vitres
de cet appartement perché au sommet d'une tour HLM de Pékin, non loin du
village olympique.
Derrière son pupitre de fortune, le pasteur Li,
livre des psaumes à la main, chante à gorge déployée. A ses côtés, une adepte
l'accompagne au piano. En face, une vingtaine de croyants entonnent à leur tour
les louanges évangéliques. Ils sont assis sur des chaises métalliques au
dossier rembourré. La plupart sont des trentenaires et des quadras. Variés, les
profils mêlent femme au foyer, intellectuel à lunettes, fille branchée en
débardeur ou garçon coiffé en hérisson.
Yu Jie se tient en léger retrait de l'assistance.
Il est plongé dans le recueillement. Teint pâle et visage rond, il tient la
Bible entrouverte dans ses paumes. Il la feuillette quand le pasteur prêche
"l'amour de Dieu". Sa discrétion est trompeuse : Yu Jie est en fait
une personnalité de poids de cette église officieuse qui célèbre le culte ce
dimanche après-midi de juillet. L'église de l'Arche, née d'un groupe de prières
lancé par sa femme, doit beaucoup à son abnégation, à son prestige personnel
aussi.
Yu Jie est ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler un
"dissident". Essayiste libéral, admirateur de la démocratie
américaine - et à ce titre, bête noire des nationalistes chinois les plus
ultras - il est surveillé de très près par la Sécurité d'Etat, qui le laisse
toutefois libre de ses mouvements. A l'issue d'une longue réflexion politique
et spirituelle, il a embrassé la foi chrétienne en 2003. Figure de la mouvance
pékinoise des "églises à domicile" - structures officieuses tolérées
mais évoluant dans un environnement précaire -, il est aujourd'hui l'un des
intellectuels protestants les plus en vue de la capitale. Avec deux de ses
coreligionnaires, il a même été re*u en 2006 à Washington par George Bush,
déclenchant la fureur du régime chinois.
FOI ET POLITIQUE INTIMEMENT LIEES
Yu Jie n'est qu'un exemple parmi tant d'autres. Il
incarne une petite révolution silencieuse : un nombre croissant d'intellectuels
libéraux dans la Chine urbaine se sont ralliés ces dernières années au
protestantisme. Outre Yu Jie, les plus connus sont Wang Yi, Li Baiguang, Gao
Zhisheng, Jiao Guobiao, Li Heping, Li Jinsong, Ai Xiaoming. La plupart sont des
professeurs et des juristes impliqués dans la défense des droits civiques. Ils
sont la pointe émergée d'un phénomène plus large : après les zones rurales dans
les années 1980, la ferveur religieuse - notamment chrétienne - est en train de
gagner les grandes villes, en particulier au sein d'une classe moyenne en quête
de valeurs spirituelles par réaction au matérialisme dominant. Les chiffres
officiels sous-évaluent cette résurgence de la foi. Selon les estimations plus
crédibles de certains spécialistes, la Chine compterait aujourd'hui entre 40 et
50 millions de protestants pour 10 à 12 millions de catholiques, soit des
communautés chrétiennes représentant près de 5 % de la population. Une part
encore très minoritaire mais en expansion. Dans le cas de Yu Jie, foi et
politique sont intimement liées. Agé de 35 ans, il est trop jeune pour avoir
pris part au printemps étudiant de 1989 sur la place Tiananmen. Mais
l'écrasement sous les chars du rêve démocratique n'a cessé de le hanter. Au fil
de la réflexion, la religion s'est imposée comme un substitut à un idéal politique
inaccessible. Et dans cette recherche-là, le christianisme est apparu comme la
plus séduisante des tentations. "Les valeurs libérales trouvent leur
source dans le christianisme, analyse-t-il. La tradition chinoise ne me
satisfait pas de ce point de vue : on ne trouve pas de références à la liberté
et aux droits de l'homme dans le confucianisme."
Yu Jie a beaucoup lu, s'est plongé dans l'histoire
de l'évangélisation en terre chinoise, a réfléchi au lien entre christianisme
et modernité. Il a pu mesurer le rôle du protestantisme dans la formation des
élites réformistes en Chine à l'aube du XXe siècle, en particulier chez Sun
Yat-sen, le fondateur de la République. "Plus je lisais, plus je
découvrais que la religion chrétienne avait contribué à la modernisation de la
société chinoise avant la révolution de 1949, poursuit-il. Or, cet apport est
totalement occulté par nos manuels d'histoire officiels, qui présentent le
christianisme comme l'instrument de l'impérialisme occidental."
"J'AI FINI PAR NOURRIR UNE HAINE DE LA
SOCIETE"
Wang Guangze est un autre de ces intellectuels
néoprotestants. Journaliste dissident, ancien du Quotidien de la loi et de
Reportage économique du XXIe siècle - dont il a été exclu pour ses opinions
démocrates -, il a le même âge que Yu Jie. Comme chez ce dernier, le
traumatisme de Tiananmen a pesé lourd dans son évolution spirituelle. En mai
1989, soit avant la répression du mouvement, il n'était qu'un lycéen de la
province du Henan (centre), mais il s'était mêlé aux manifestations de soutien
qui avaient alors enfiévré la jeunesse à travers le pays. L'intervention
sanglante des chars sur Tiananmen l'a totalement "désespéré".
"J'étais tellement désabusé, se souvient-il,
que j'ai fini par nourrir une haine de la société, cette société devenue
l'esclave du pouvoir." Au sortir de ses études de droit, il cherche à se
guérir de cette rage. Les traditions chinoises, comme chez Yu Jie, ne lui sont
guère d'un grand secours. "Le confucianisme est une pensée de l'élite,
grince-t-il, et le bouddhisme ne vise qu'à devenir un saint." Mais il
continue à chercher, à lire, à débattre des voies du salut avec ses amis. Ce
qui le révèle soudainement au christianisme, explique-t-il, c'est la "notion
de péché". Il tient là - enfin ! - la clé qui lui permet de s'arracher à
l'exécration du monde. "Nous sommes tous des pécheurs, dit-il. Il n'existe
pas de gens plus nobles que d'autres." "C'est ainsi que j'ai apaisé
ma colère contre le Parti communiste, continue-il. Les communistes sont des
pécheurs comme moi, même s'ils servent un système qui opprime." Wang
Guangze devient donc "tolérant", "modéré", il estime qu'il
"faut s'entraider entre pécheurs". Il a fondé une association prônant
la "réconciliation" en Chine sur le modèle sud-africain.
Fan Yafeng, lui aussi, a retrouvé la paix de l'âme
grâce à Dieu. Juriste à l'Académie des sciences sociales, il avait 20 ans en
1989. Il était monté de sa province de l'Anhui à Pékin vivre aux premières
loges la fronde étudiante. "Après la répression, je suis devenu totalement
déprimé, témoigne-t-il. Pendant des années, je me suis senti faible, fragile,
vide." Il s'essaie au bouddhisme mais celui-ci ne répond pas à ses
"interrogations sur le sens de la vie". L'hiver 1996, c'est la
révélation. Un ami pasteur qui, lui, était passé de l'hindouisme au
protestantisme l'invite au culte d'une "église à domicile". "Là,
j'ai vu les gens respirer de bonheur, des gens très simples, une coiffeuse, une
employée d'assurance, se souvient-il. Leur visage était illuminé." Quelques
mois plus tard, Fan Yafeng est baptisé. Si 1989 a précipité ses tourments
passés, il ne veut toutefois pas politiser à l'excès sa découverte de la foi :
"Nos églises permettent de sauver les âmes, pas la société."
Tous les néoprotestants de Pékin ne baignent pas
dans pareille béatitude. Cheveux longs à mèches rousses, Wang Wangwang, est un
artiste peintre, célèbre concepteur d'affiches prisé de l'avant-garde de la
capitale. Il s'est converti en 2004 car, malgré ses succès et son
enrichissement, il éprouvait "un vide spirituel". Quatre années plus
tard, il a pris du recul. "J'ai senti en moi, dit-il, une contradiction,
un conflit entre valeurs occidentales liées au christianisme et les valeurs
chinoises dont je suis porteur." Depuis, il s'efforce de les "harmoniser".
Il est aujourd'hui parvenu, souligne-t-il, à une "synthèse
satisfaisante". Mais au prix d'un désengagement de l'"église à
domicile" qu'il avait rejointe. Il préfère "pratiquer" seul,
chez lui, dans le capharnaÙm de ses tableaux o* le Christ s'affiche au coude à
coude avec Mao.
Un pasteur de l'église clandestine arrêté près du
temple où George Bush a prié
Frédéric Bobin, Article paru dans l'édition du
20.08.08 LE MONDE | 12.08.08 | 14h41 ¥ Mis à jour le 12.08.08 | 14h41 (à Pékin)
La photo de George Bush entouré de jeunes chrétiens
chinois sur le seuil d'un petit temple protestant pékinois a été diffusée
depuis dimanche, mais un incident est resté hors champ : un pasteur de l'église
clandestine chinoise a été arrêté alors qu'il tentait de se rendre à vélo à la
cérémonie.
Frédéric Bobin, Article paru dans l'édition du
20.08.08Le temple de Kuanjie, o* le président américain a assisté à l'office en
chinois, appartient à l'église protestante officielle, chapeautée par le
Mouvement patriotique des trois autonomies, et donc par l'Etat-parti. Pour
échapper à cette tutelle, de plus en plus de protestants chinois pratiquent à
domicile, et dans la clandestinité : ils seraient près de 40 millions, quatre
fois plus que les membres de l'Eglise officielle. Le pasteur Hua Huiqi est l'un
des activistes le plus en vue de cette église souterraine. Il s'est aussi
impliqué dans la défense de protestataires, ce qui lui a valu d'être tabassé
par la police en octobre 2007 et de passer six mois en prison. Assigné à
résidence et surveillé de près pendant les Jeux, Hua a pourtant tenu à se
rendre au temple de Kuanjie : "Je lui ai dit que la période était sensible
et qu'il valait mieux s'abstenir, a déclaré son frère Huilin à l'Irish Times.
Il m'a répondu qu'il était déterminé à s'y rendre, parce que c'est dans ce
temple qu'il a été baptisé. Il était inflexible."
Frédéric Bobin, Article paru dans l'édition du
20.08.08Dimanche matin, des gardes du bureau des affaires religieuses ont
appréhendé le pasteur Hua et lui ont confisqué sa bible. Gardé au secret, il a
pu s'échapper, profitant de ce que son garde s'était endormi. Sur les marches
du temple, George Bush avait déclaré : "Aucun Etat, aucun homme, aucune
femme, ne doit craindre l'influence d'une religion d'amour." Peu après, il
a remercié le président Hu Jintao d'avoir arrangé cette visite au temple. On ne
sait pas s'il était alors au courant de l'arrestation.
China's
repression of civil society will haunt it
(FT) By Minxin Pei Published: August 4 2008 19:21 |
Last updated: August 4 2008 19:21
International visitors to Beijing during the
Olympics will be impressed by the "Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium, the
millions of flowers adorning the streets of China's capital and the freshly
repainted façades of its buildings. What they may not realise is that all this
represents the power of the state. In the run-up to the games, the government
has mobilised unimaginable resources to make its capital a shining symbol of its
success. Missing in this picture is China's civil society: non-governmental
organisations have been conspicuously absent in the preparations.
For a nation known for its top-down, state-centric
political system, this anomaly might seem trivial. But for those who have been
hoping that China's rapid economic modernisation will foster a vibrant civil
society which will push for future democratisation, the weakness of Chinese
NGOs must be a rude reminder that the political evolution historically
associated with economic development is not taking place in China - or at least
not as quickly as one might have hoped.
Of course, China's economic development and opening
to the outside world have given its people unprecedented personal freedom. In
the 1980s, Beijing's policy on civil society was also relatively liberal. NGOs
faced fewer restrictions and flourished. However, following the Tiananmen
crackdown in 1989, the Chinese government imposed registration requirements
that made it very difficult for genuine NGOs to register and operate legally.
The party feared that independent civic organisations would have the potential
to challenge its authority.
Consequently, the growth of Chinese civil society,
as measured by the number or quality of its NGOs, has woefully lagged behind
China's economic growth. China has more than 350,000 legally registered NGOs,
but perhaps only about 10 per cent of them can be considered genuine NGOs in
the western sense. Most of the rest are so-called "government-organised
non-governmental organisations", or Gongos, an appellation that would make
George Orwell proud. As a rule, Gongos are affiliated with a government
bureaucracy, headed by retired officials and funded by the state. They have no
genuine autonomy.
Even among genuine NGOs, one cannot find civic
groups, such as independent labour unions, student unions and religious groups,
which are capable of large-scale collective action. Most Chinese NGOs are small
groups engaged in leisure activities, environmental protection and local charity
work like health and education. A promising development may be the formation of
local chambers of commerce in Zhejiang province, where the private sector
accounts for more than 90 per cent of the economic output. But this is the
exception that proves the rule.
The hardline policy toward civil society was
vindicated several years ago when the so-called "colour revolutions"
swept through the Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. In China, as well as Russia,
western-supported NGOs were seen as having played an outsized role in the
ousting of unpopular regimes. Restrictions on Chinese NGOs were subsequently
further tightened.
The Communist party perhaps knows better than
anybody else the potential of even the most innocuous civic groups. In the
1920s, the party operated like today's NGO to win the hearts and minds of the
masses. It offered free literacy classes to workers, set up clinics for the
downtrodden and formed independent labour unions and peasant associations to
defend their rights. Today, as the ruling party, it can be forgiven for
suspecting the revolutionary potential of modern NGOs.
Ironically, the government's restrictions on civil
society have been so effective that it is beginning to pay the price of
success. It has limited Beijing's ability to provide adequate social services,
fight corruption and manage state-society conflict. The party needs to see that
suppressing civil society also implies assuming unlimited political liability
for itself. Without alternative civic organisations to provide relief,
aggrieved Chinese citizens naturally hold the government responsible for its
failings. A civil society is a stabilising buffer between the state and the
masses.For now, the party will stick to its post-Tiananmen strategy: relying on
growth to maintain legitimacy and prevent the emergence of an organised
opposition at all cost. This has worked wonders for the party since 1989 and
the Beijing Olympics will give the party no reason to alter its course.The
writer is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
in Washington Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Avec la
secte de "Mentu" aux confins du désert de Gobi
(le Figaro) François
Hauter, notre envoyé spécial à Yulin (Shaanxi) 04/08/2008 | Mise à jour : 19:48
|
Les congrégations religieuses qui fleurissent dans
les campagnes représentent un réel danger de déstabilisation du pouvoir.
Aux confins du désert de Gobi et du plateau de
loess chinois, la nature n'a rien d'accueillant : les plantes rampent sur le
sable, tant le vent souffle fort, et sous la lumière blanche d'un ciel
écrasant, la petite ville de Yulin (300 000 habitants) a des airs de Far West.
N'étaient des mines de charbon et des gisements de gaz, Yulin ne serait pas la
ville champignon, réputée pour ses vingt restaurants servant des plats de
chiens, qu'elle est aujourd'hui.
A quarante kilomètres de là, c'est encore un autre
monde : dans le village de Yuxing, la misère règne. La campagne est ravinée, le
ma¥s pousse vaille que vaille sur les maigres lopins de terre. Des slogans sont
peints en rouge sur les murs en terre : "Les filles sont aussi bien que
les gar*ons"! ou "Moins d'enfants, c'est la
fortune plus rapidement". Mais pour Hua, une paysanne de 40 ans qui en
paraît vingt de plus et qui vit dans une ferme troglodyte, la seule réalité de
ce monde, c'est "Mentu", la troisième réincarnation du Christ. Elle
s'adresse à lui matin et soir, nous explique-t-elle, avec ferveur.
Car ce "Mentu", selon Hua, guérit toutes
les maladies dès que l'on croit en lui. Il offre également de bonnes récoltes,
sans utiliser d'engrais, et protège le bétail. La femme et ses amies ne croient
en rien d'autre qu'en ce prophète. Elles ignorent que le fondateur de leur
secte, un paysan nommé Ji, originaire du village de Yaoxian, a été tué en 1997
dans un accident de voiture ; que son successeur Wei Shiqiang est mort en 2001
d'un cancer ; et que la Çtroisième réincarnationÈ de "Mentu", Chen
Chirong, est en prison... Ces sectes n'ont rien d'anodin en Chine.
"Mentu" aurait 350 000 disciples dans 15 provinces, mais la seule
région du Shanxi en compterait une trentaine d'autres. Parmi elles, celle du
"Dieu éclair" annonce des catastrophes pour la Chine, l'arrivée d'une
femme messie, et évidemment l'inutilité de toute médecine. Comme ces sectes
fondent leur recrutement sur le mécontentement des paysans ou des chômeurs,
elles annoncent que leurs membres se doivent de Çrenverser le parti mafieuxÈ(le Parti communiste chinois, NDLR) ou d'abattre le
Çgros méchant dragon rougeÈ. Dans ces sectes, les affaires d'escroqueries et de
viols sont monnaie courante. Les malades décédant parce qu'ils refusent d'être
soignés se comptent en milliers chaque année, à Yulin et aux alentours.
500 millions de personnes à déplacer Hua, sur son
lit, prie sous l'affiche portant une croix rouge (le crucifix est rouge, en
Chine), mais n'a aucune notion de ce qu'est le christianisme, le catholicisme
ou le protestantisme. Elle re*oit, à l'égal des autres adhérents de
"Mentu", la visite impromptue d'autres paysans, payés pour recruter
et colporter la fable de prétendus ÇmiraclesÈ.
Pékin a créé le bureau 610 pour lutter contre les
sectes, après l'avènement du Falungong en 1999. Mais depuis cette époque où la
répression fut féroce, la stratégie de l'état se veut plus fine et intelligente
: le gouvernement investit massivement dans les campagnes. Une belle route
goudronnée conduit depuis peu au village de Yulin jusqu'à Yaoxian. Le bureau de
la police a été renforcé, les paysans n'y paient plus l'impôt sur le revenu
comme partout ailleurs en Chine. Depuis peu, ils sont les bénéficiaires d'une
assurance-maladie. Le chef local de la police nous l'assure : à Yaoxian,
"les sectes c'est du passé".
C'est malheureusement faux, et les pasteurs des
églises chrétiennes officielles de Yulin sont les premiers à le déplorer :
"La progression des sectes est foudroyante, assure l'un d'eux". Les
cibles de ces groupes d'illuminés restent toujours les mêmes populations : les
paysans pauvres, malades et mécontents, les employés des petites villes de province,
tout juste arrivés de leurs villages. Des femmes principalement.
Dans l'histoire chinoise, les sectes et les
sociétés secrètes ont toujours joué un rôle capital dans le processus de
renversement des dynasties, excitant paysans et citadins contre un ordre établi
défaillant. L'état chinois affronte en la matière une période difficile.
Aujourd'hui, la Chine a une population composée de 58 % de ruraux. Les paysans
ne devront plus représenter que 20 % des habitants d'ici à 2033. Soit 500
millions de personnes à déplacer vers les villes. "Si vous ne sentez pas
assez finement les besoins de ces migrants, vous ne sentez pas les crises et
les révolutions qui se préparent", nous explique un haut fonctionnaire du
Conseil des affaires d'Etat (l'équivalent de notre gouvernement).
Les dizaines de milliers de caméras déployées à
Pékin pendant ces JO surveilleront en priorité ces dizaines de milliers de
Chinois anonymes, qui tous peuvent être des sectaires illuminés à la recherche
d'une publicité inespérée.
Liberté
religieuse : "signaux" de Pékin
(AFP) 04/08/2008
Le secrétaire d'Etat du Vatican, le cardinal
Tarcisio Bertone, a estimé que Pékin, qui s'apprête à accueillir les jeux
Olympiques, avait envoyé des "signaux positifs" concernant la liberté
religieuse, lors d'une interview à la télévision publique italienne. "Nous
savons qu'il y aura à Pékin trois églises dans lesquelles il sera possible de
prier et d'assister à la messe et nous savons aussi que les évêques de Macao et
de Hong Kong sont invités aux jeux Olympiques: ce sont des signaux positifs
qu'il ne faut pas négliger", a déclaré le cardinal Bertone. "Les jeux
Olympiques seront aussi l'occasion pour le monde d'inciter le peuple chinois à
plus de sagesse et d'harmonie", a ajouté Mgr Bertone, à quatre jours de
l'ouverture des jeux.
La Chine et le Saint-Siège n'ont plus de relations
diplomatiques depuis 1951. Le rétablissement de ces relations est un enjeu pour
Pékin, qui souhaite améliorer son image à l'étranger, mais le Vatican y met
comme condition la possibilité de réunir sous l'autorité du pape tous les
catholiques actuellement divisés entre "officiels" et
"clandestins". Le pape Benoît XVI avait souligné en mai que les jeux
Olympiques de Pékin étaient "un événement de grande valeur pour l'humanité
entière".
En Chine,
Bush ira à l'église et parlera de liberté de religion
(AFP) 1.07.08
Le président américain George W. Bush assistera à
un service religieux pendant son séjour en Chine pour les Jeux olympiques et
fera ensuite une déclaration sur la liberté de religion dans le pays, a indiqué
un haut collaborateur de la Maison Blanche mercredi.
La Maison Blanche a par ailleurs sérieusement douté
que les aires dédiées par les autorités chinoises aux manifestations lors des
Jeux permettent véritablement de protester, et a réclamé qu'elles soient
ouvertes non seulement aux Chinois, mais aussi aux étrangers. M. Bush se rendra
dans une église pour y suivre le culte le dimanche 10 août, a indiqué Dennis
Wilder lors d'une conférence de presse.
"Il fera ensuite une déclaration dans laquelle
il dira ses positions sur la liberté religieuse en Chine", a dit M.
Wilder, directeur pour les affaires asiatiques au Conseil de sécurité
nationale, qui conseille le président. La liberté de culte, à commencer par
celle de la communauté chrétienne, en Chine, est une grande préoccupation de M.
Bush. M. Wilder a répété que M. Bush se rendait à Pékin avec l'intention de ne
pas politiser les Jeux, mais aussi de soulever la question des libertés en
dehors du stade, lors de ses entretiens politiques avec les dirigeants chinois.
"On peut délivrer le message de liberté sans politiser l'événement
lui-même que sont les Jeux", a-t-il dit.
Selon lui, les Etats-Unis attendent de la Chine
qu'elle profite de son exposition à l'attention internationale pendant les Jeux
pour montrer qu'elle ouvre sa société.
"Je suis dé*u qu'ils aient sévi contre
l'internet", a-t-il rapporté.
M. Bush voudrait voir libérer les prisonniers
politiques dont le gouvernement américain a soumis des listes aux autorités
chinoises, a-t-il ajouté.
"Les Chinois ont annoncé qu'il y aurait des
manifestants. Nous espérons vraiment beaucoup que ces aires de protestation
seront ouvertes, non seulement aux citoyens chinois, mais aux étrangers",
a encore déclaré M. Wilder.
Le président américain a dit espérer aussi que ceux
qui voudront manifester dans ces zones pourront effectivement le faire.
"Que les Chinois soient vraiment en train de prendre cette direction reste
à démontrer", a observé le collaborateur de M. Bush.
China
forces underground pastor from Beijing
(Reuters) Sun Jul 20, 2008 12:04am EDT
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese police have removed a
prominent Beijing-based pastor and his wife from the capital as it steps up
efforts to control dissidents in the run-up to the Olympics, the South China
Morning Post reported on Sunday.
Zhang Mingxuan, president of the Chinese House
Church Alliance, told the Hong Kong newspaper he and his ailing wife, Xie
Fenglan, had been whisked off to neighboring Hebei province on Friday night
after a week of harassment.
Police told the church figure, who has often met
foreign officials visiting China, that they do not want him in Beijing during
next month's Olympics to prevent him from meeting foreigners, the article
quoted Zhang as saying. Beijing police, reached by Reuters by telephone,
declined to comment.
China's ruling Communist Party is wary of religious
and other groups that could challenge its grip, including unregistered
Christian "house churches", and regularly detains pastors and
priests.
China has about 40 million active Christians, with
their numbers evenly divided between state-run and underground churches,
according to expert estimates.
The newspaper quoted Zhang as saying around seven
plainclothes officers on Friday raided a guesthouse they had been staying in
and told them to leave.
Zhang and his wife had rejected repeated demands
during the week by police from various districts to leave Beijing, it said,
adding that the couple had to move from guesthouse to guesthouse six times
during the week.
The newspaper said Zhang was placed under house
arrest after meeting U.S. congressmen Frank Wolf and Christopher Smith last
month, and was also detained for 31 hours last month while he and his
interpreter were on their way to meet Bastiaan Belder, of the European
Parliament's foreign affairs committee.
(Reporting by Jeffrey Hodgson)
Christian
Groups Step Delicately in Sichuan
(WSJ) Relief Missions Cope With Beijing's Rules
Against Proselytizing By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER May 30, 2008
CHENGDU, China -- After the May 12 earthquake that
devastated China's Sichuan province, Jonathan Bright, a 30-year-old American
teacher at a Christian school in South Korea, gathered disaster supplies and
headed to the quake zone to help. He never made it.
Before his flight got under way from Beijing to
Chengdu, Sichuan's capital, Mr. Bright dropped a card with references to
scripture and details about a Christian radio station in the airplane's
restroom, drawing the attention of the crew. Chinese police boarded the plane
and questioned him about his intentions before releasing him to take another
flight to the quake zone if he wished. Mr. Bright decided to return home.
"They cared only because they thought I was trying to make new Christians,"
he says.
In the wake of the disaster, China has opened its
doors to outside aid in the form of money, supplies and volunteers. One caveat
on the more than 160 million yuan ($23 million) that the government says has
come in from religious groups, from inside and outside China: no missionary
work. Mr. Bright's experience reflects the tensions and suspicions kindled by
Christian aid to Chinese who are suffering in the quake's aftermath. Communist
Party leaders and evangelicals, long at odds over religious freedom, are now
feeling out new terrain. Within the evangelical community itself, the unusual
situation has raised questions about how closely to hew to Beijing's
strictures.
Franklin Graham, president and chief executive of
the aid organization Samaritan's Purse and son of evangelical pioneer Billy
Graham, says he has no qualms about holding back on religious activity if it
enables him to deliver aid to the quake victims.
"When people are dying, you demonstrate the
love of God by just being there with them and responding," he says.
"This isn't the time that you want to preach. There are opportunities for
that later."
When the quake struck, Mr. Graham was in China on
an official visit with government religious-affairs officials and
Chinese-sanctioned churches. He immediately promised $300,000 for the
officially registered churches and used his access to begin negotiating with
authorities for a much larger airlift of supplies. Mr. Graham says his was the
first U.S. nongovernmental organization to land supplies in Chengdu. Officials
never explicitly told Mr. Graham that his organization couldn't engage in
evangelism, he says, but he "knew the ground rules" going in.
"We never asked to preach in Sichuan," he says. "We just said we
are Christians."
China's State Administration for Religious Affairs
says foreigners pursuing religious activities in China must abide by a set of
rules, which include bans on religious brochures and proselytizing without
permission, among other activities.
When Samaritan's Purse launched a 747 filled with
supplies from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Chengdu on May 23, the group was
joined at a news conference by a representative of the Chinese embassy. The
supplies, which included more than $1 million in tents and water-filtration
systems, were distributed through the Chinese government and military after
training sessions in how to use the equipment by Samaritan's Purse staff.
Another large Christian charity organization
working in Sichuan, Operation Blessing, says it never proselytizes anywhere in
the world and has a longstanding relationship with the Chinese government.
Christian organizations that are distributing aid
to quake victims through less official channels say they appreciate the efforts
of the groups going the official route but that their work comes with fewer
strings attached. Bob Fu, president of the U.S.-based China Aid Association,
says his group sent volunteers into China on Monday with 20 family-size tents.
They plan to personally deliver the tents to the needy through their contacts
at nonsanctioned Chinese churches in the area.
"We give out the tents and say, 'Jesus loves
you,'" says Mr. Fu. "We want to pray for them, comfort their hearts
and give them counseling. What these victims need is holistic, not just
physical needs of water and food." That can put his volunteers, and those
from other unofficial Chinese churches, in danger. He says he has already heard
reports of three Chinese Christian volunteers being detained by police for
praying while delivering aid. The Sichuan religious-affairs bureau didn't
respond to questions on the matter.
Carl Moeller, the Los Angeles-based president of
religious-freedom group Open Doors, says he thinks religion should transcend
any political concerns.
"When Jesus said go out to the world and
preach the gospel, he didn't say just go to those places where you can get a
visa," he says. "To do evangelism in its purest sense is not about
politics."
Mr. Bright, the teacher who was taken off his
flight to Chengdu, says that before he left China a friendly taxi driver in
Beijing took him to a government agency collecting donations, where he dropped
off his supplies. "It seemed to be a direct answer to prayer," he
says.
--Juliet Ye contributed to this article.
Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at
geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com
In China,
Ethnic Tension Expands
(WSJ) Muslim Group Draws Attention; More Angst in
Tibet By GORDON FAIRCLOUGH April 8, 2008
SHANGHAI -- Chinese paramilitary police sealed off
a market town in central China last month and detained dozens of ethnic
Uighurs, said local residents and a government official.
The arrests, which occurred in late March in Henan
province but weren't reported at the time, appear to be part of an expanding
Chinese government effort to prevent dissatisfaction among Turkic Uighurs from
exploding into the kind of unrest that has swept Tibetan areas of the country.
Witnesses said hundreds of armed police descended
on the Henan town of Shifosi, where there is a significant population of Uighur
jade traders. "About 50 Uighurs were arrested," said a local
government official.
Unrest in Tibetan areas has continued. On Sunday,
police attempted to prevent a group of Tibetans from joining a religious
procession with Buddhist monks in Sichuan province, sparking a confrontation,
according to a local Tibetan resident.
Tibetans threw stones at the police, who responded
by firing nonlethal antiriot rounds at the crowd, injuring several, the
resident said. Calls to the police station in the town where the incident
occurred went unanswered on Monday.
Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) are predominantly
Muslim and are the largest ethnic group in the northwest border region of
Xinjiang, which covers about a sixth of China's territory and is rich in oil
and other resources. Uighurs' grievances with the government are similar to
those voiced by Tibetans. Many complain of restrictions on civil liberties and
religious practices and say that they also face economic discrimination by
China's majority Han Chinese. On March 23, before the police arrived in
Shifosi, Uighurs in the southern Xinjiang city of Hotan raised banners and
passed out leaflets calling on fellow Uighurs to join an independence movement.
Those demonstrators were quickly arrested, the government says. Hotan is the
source of some of China's most prized jade.
The Hotan government says the protests involved a
"small number" of people, but Uighur exile groups say the actual
number may have been in the hundreds.
Uighur activists say that once unrest started in Tibetan
areas in early April, Chinese authorities began rounding up suspected Uighur
dissidents in an effort to forestall similar protests in Xinjiang during the
run-up to the Beijing Olympics in August.
Xinjiang "has so many natural resources, so
the Chinese government has been extremely ruthless when it comes to cracking
down on Uighurs," said Rebiya Kadeer, president of the Uyghur American
Association in Washington.
Ms. Kadeer, a Uighur human-rights campaigner who
was imprisoned in China for more than five years, said China is intent on
creating a "very stable situation" to avoid disruptions to the
Olympic torch relay, which is scheduled to pass through Xinjiang in late June.
"Every day, Uighurs are being detained or
arrested. Uighurs are paying a tremendous price for the Olympic torch
relay," Ms. Kadeer said.
International Olympic Committee President Jacques
Rogge, who was in Beijing for meetings Monday, said the committee "has
expressed its serious concern" about the situation in Tibet and
"calls for a rapid peaceful resolution" there.
Write to Gordon Fairclough at
gordon.fairclough@wsj.com
China's Ethnic Tension Isn't Limited to Tibet
(WSJ) Tension in Xinjiang Remains High Between
Local Turkic Uighurs and Han Settlers By GORDON FAIRCLOUGH April 5, 2008
This outpost of the Xinjiang Production and
Construction Corps is home to nearly 20,000 ethnic Han Chinese, transplanted
from China's eastern heartland to this arid border territory -- which is home
to a large Turkic Muslim population.
Such settlements, combined with large
infrastructure investments and, at times, heavy-handed measures to silence
dissent, were supposed to cement government authority in Xinjiang. But a new
protest by Turkic Uighurs and continued unrest in Tibetan areas illustrate the
limitations of Beijing's approach to dealing with minorities.
Roughly 2.3 million Han Chinese, China's dominant
ethnic group, now live in settlements set up by the Xinjiang Production and
Construction Corps, an outgrowth of the People's Liberation Army forces that
occupied Xinjiang in 1949. The Corps has built highways, railroads, power
plants and universities.
Coupled with this drive for economic advancement is
a second function: security. The Corps says its plays "an irreplaceable,
special role" in "cracking down" on separatists. Members can
function as an armed militia to work side-by-side with the army and police
forces.
"The battle against ethnic separatism and
invasion has never stopped," Zhao Guangyong, the Corps' vice secretary
general, said in an interview. The Corps plays a "very important role in
promoting national unity."
The Corps' dual duties reflect the central
government's general approach toward ethnic-minority groups: Try to win them
over with economic growth, while stamping out opposition to Beijing. In
Xinjiang, that has meant restricting both religious freedoms and civil rights.
"It's a very volatile situation," says
Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based
advocacy group. "People feel their cultural identity is being
threatened." As China this past week sought to contain unrest in Tibetan
areas following violent riots in Lhasa on March 14, it acknowledged for the
first time that a protest had also taken place in Xinjiang. On March 23
demonstrators in a market in the southern Xinjiang city of Hotan unfurled
banners and handed out fliers urging their fellow Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers)
to join an independence movement, the government there says. Police moved
quickly to silence what authorities described in a statement issued Tuesday as
"a small group" of Uighurs trying to "trick the masses into an
uprising."
Fu Chao, an official with the Hotan district
administration, said the Uighur protesters had been inspired by events in Tibet
and that they were calling for the creation of an independent Islamic state in
Xinjiang. Security in Xinjiang has been stepped up. Uighur activists say that
as soon as protests started in Tibet, China began detaining suspected Uighur
dissidents in an effort to prevent unrest from spreading to Xinjiang, which
shares a long border with Tibet. Tensions had already been building. Chinese
officials say they arrested a Uighur woman last month who was part of a failed
Muslim separatist plot to hijack a Chinese jetliner. In February, Chinese
police also raided what they said was a meeting of Islamic terrorists and shot
and killed two men and arrested 15 others near Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi.
China's state-controlled Xinhua News Agency
reported Friday that fresh protests occured Thursday night in a Tibetan area of
the southwestern province of Sichuan. Xinhua said one government official was
injured in the unrest.
The International Campaign for Tibet on Friday
released its own account of the incident, saying at least eight people were
killed on Thursday in western Sichuan province after armed police fired on a
crowd of several hundred monks and local residents. The protests took place
outside the Tongkor monastery 60 kilometers from Ganzi town, the pro-Tibet organization
said in a statement.
Chine: un
nouvel évêque pour le diocèse de Canton, avec l'accord du Vatican
(in Le Monde) AFP 04.12.07 | 11h58
Le nouvel évêque de Canton, dans le sud de la
Chine, a été ordonné mardi par l'Eglise catholique officielle chinoise,
apparemment avec le soutien du Vatican, a-t-on appris de source officielle.
La cérémonie d'ordination de Joseph Gan Junqiu, 42
ans, s'est déroulée dans la cathédrale du Sacré-Coeur de Canton mardi matin, a
indiqué à l'AFP le porte-parole de l'Eglise catholique officielle, Liu Bainian.
Gan Junqiu remplace Lin Bingliang, décédé en 2001,
a précisé M. Liu.
Sa désignation intervient après celle, intervenue
vendredi, de Francis Lu Shouwang, 41 ans, comme nouvel évêque de Yichang, dans
la province du Hubei (centre), ont indiqué les autorités religieuses chinoises.
Selon l'agence spécialisée dans l'information
religieuse Asianews, la nomination de Gan est intervenue en novembre 2006, puis
approuvée par le pape, mais la cérémonie a été longtemps retardée, car le
prêtre avait fait publiquement allégeance au pape.
Tout comme celle de l'évêque de Canton, celle de
Francis Lu Shouwang a reçu le feu vert du Vatican, a affirmé l'agence.
Le porte-parole de l'Eglise officielle chinoise a
refusé de se prononcer à ce sujet, indiquant seulement que de telles
informations étaient un signe encourageant.
"Si ces informations sont vraies, c'est de bon
augure pour les relations entre la Chine et le Vatican", a-t-il dit.
Il a également précisé que durant la cérémonie, Mgr
Gan s'était engagé à respecter "les lois de l'Etat, à sauvegarder l'unité
sociale et la stabilité sociale et à contribuer à l'édification d'une société
socialiste harmonieuse".
Tous les responsables de l'Eglise officielle sont
tenus à de tels engagements, a précisé M. Liu.
Asianews souligne que le nouvel évêque de Canton
"a de bonnes relations avec le gouvernement, qui a participé à la
restauration de la cathédrale de Canton, dédiée au Sacré-coeur et rouverte au
public en février".
La Chine a rompu ses relations diplomatiques en
1951 avec le Vatican, qui venait de reconnaître Taiwan. La rupture est devenue
définitive en juillet 1957 avec la création d'une Eglise officielle contrôlée
par le régime communiste.
Il y a, selon le Vatican, entre 8 et 12 millions de
fidèles catholiques qui sont restés fidèles au Saint Siège et font partie de
l'Eglise "clandestine".
China's
Official Catholic Church To Ordain New Bishop (WSJ)
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
December 3, 2007 7:45 p.m.
GUANGZHOU (AP)--China's
official Catholic church planned Tuesday to appoint a new bishop who has
publicly declared his loyalty to the Vatican, religious officials said.
The Rev. Joseph Gan Junqiu's appointment will be
held at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in the booming southern city of Guangzhou,
once known as Canton, said Lu Guocun, a vice chairman of the state-backed
Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
Appointing bishops has been a major sore point
between Beijing and the Vatican. China forced its Roman Catholics to cut ties
with the Vatican in 1951, shortly after the officially atheist Communist Party
took power.
Chinese authorities have repeatedly refused to
consult with the Holy See when choosing new bishops, saying the pope should not
meddle in the country's internal affairs. But there has been growing
consultation between the official church and Rome on appointments. Many bishops
named by China have later sought - and received - the Vatican's blessings.
Lu told The Associated Press he did not know
whether the Vatican supported Gan's ordination.
"Our Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association
really doesn't concern itself with such things," Lu said.
In Rome, however, a Vatican official who requested
anonymity due to the issue's sensitivity told the AP that Gan, 43, has the Holy
See's approval because he has publicly declared his fidelity to Pope Benedict
XVI. The pope requested the loyalty of Chinese bishops in his letter to the
faithful earlier this year.
AsiaNews, a Vatican-affiliated missionary news
agency, has also reported that Gan had publicly declared his loyalty and that
the Vatican thus approved his appointment.
The Chinese Catholic Web site
http://www.cncatholic.org said that Gan was a native of the southern province
of Guangdong and had studied in Belgium, France and Hong Kong.
Olympics
Bible ban 'blatant lie' (SCMP)
Bocog slams religious censorship reports
Peter Simpson in Beijing
Updated on Nov 08, 2007
Beijing Olympic organisers have accused European
newspapers and religious global news agencies of "blatantly lying"
after claims that Bibles are to be banned from the Games next year.
The Catholic News Agency published a report drawn
from the popular Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport and the
Spanish daily La Razon, which said Bibles and other personal religious items
carried by athletes, coaches and managers were banned at Olympic venues.
The allegations were also circulated on the
Christian Broadcasting Network.
"This is not true. There has been a
misunderstanding," said Wang Hui , executive
deputy director of Bocog. "Athletes and other individuals can bring with
them their own Bibles. But no one can bring in multiple copies for public
distribution."
Earlier, another official from the Beijing
Organising Committee for the Olympic Games gave an angrier response to an
inquiry by the South China Morning Post.
"These reports are nothing but blatant
lies," the official said. "Bibles and religious scriptures of the
major faiths brought by athletes into the Olympic village are allowed, as are
places of worship within the Olympic Village. This is the same as in all other
Olympiads."
La Razon said the Bible-ban "rule" was
"one of a number of signs of censure and intolerance towards religious
objects, particularly those used by Christians in China".
The reports appeared to contradict policies
released at an Olympic world press briefing last month, during which Bocog
revised its religious promotion policy paper for the purpose of clarity. It
stated that individual Bibles and other religious items would be allowed, while
promotional material, banners and mass copies of religious literature meant for
distribution would be banned.
While the policy is clearly aimed at Falun Gong
members threatening activism, groups advocating Tibetan independence and the
like, the reports - which have been widely circulated among the world's 1.1
billion Catholics - have angered Bocog.
Such claims are likely to put further strain on the
already tense ties between the Vatican and Beijing.
"Currently in China, five bishops and 15
priests are in prison for opposing the official church," the Catholic News
Agency said in its version of the report.
An International Olympic Commission spokeswoman
said Article 61 of the Olympic Charter prohibited religious, political and
commercial propaganda but allowed faiths to be worshipped by individuals.
She blamed a misunderstanding, "maybe from the
translation service", for the "incorrect reports".
"We have been in contact with the journalists
who originally wrote these stories and clarified the policy. Athletes will be
allowed personal religious items in Beijing."
Beijing does not have diplomatic ties with the
Vatican and has clashed frequently with it over the right to appoint bishops on
the mainland.
La mort suspecte
d'un évêque chinois clandestin suscite l'inquiétude du Vatican (le Monde)
Article publié le 12 Octobre 2007 Par Henri Tincq
Source : LE MONDE Taille de l'article : 388 mots
Extrait : DANS un commentaire critique de
L'Osservatore romano daté du 9 octobre, le Vatican a exprimé son étonnement et
son inquiétude après la mort et l'incinération, jugées suspectes, de Mgr Jean
Han Dingxiang, évêque « clandestin » du diocèse de Yongnian (Hebei), décédé le
9 septembre à l'âge de 68 ans dans un hôpital de Shijiazhuang, capitale de la
province. Le Vatican aura mis un mois à réagir, sans doute pour des besoins de
vérification de l'information venue de la Fondation dite du « cardinal Kung »,
siégeant aux Etats-Unis. Selon cette source, Mgr Han s'est éteint sans avoir
reçu les derniers sacrements.
Activists
arrested and beaten in 'worst crackdown in five years' (SCMP)
Didi Kirsten Tatlow in Beijing Oct 12, 2007
The weeks before a major political meeting on the
mainland are traditionally tense, but activists say the run-up to the Communist
Party's 17th National Congress, which opens on Monday, has been marked by the
severest wave of repression in years.
Dozens of arrests, detentions, beatings and
abductions have taken place since August, peaking during the week-long holiday
following National Day on October 1, activists say.
Targets have included Christians, lawyers,
petitioners, Olympics critics, writers and democracy activists.
"My husband Hu Jia says that this year's
National Day, which we normally call guoqingjie [national celebration day], has
been a guoshangjie [national mourning day]", said 24-year-old Zeng Jinyan,
eight months' pregnant with the couple's first child. Mr Hu and Ms Zeng,
well-known campaigners on a range of issues including Aids, the environment and
free speech, are finalists for the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov
Prize for Freedom of Thought, to be announced at the end of the month.
Mr Hu has been under house arrest since May. On
October 5, police permitted him to accompany his wife for a regular pre-natal
checkup - along with 12 plainclothes policemen. Since October 7 he has been
confined to home again.
"I don't know what will happen when she gives
birth, if I am allowed to go to hospital, or what if I need to go out and fetch
something for her when she's in hospital?" Mr Hu said.
Ms Zeng said: "The police always say, `if you
take the opportunity of going out to do anything else or meet anyone else,
don't be surprised if we turn nasty'."
Christian activist Hua Huiqi, who was beaten by
police yesterday, had suffered weeks of harassment beforehand, his family said.
Their troubles began on October 1, when a dozen
policemen surrounded their Beijing home, trapping Mr Hua, his wife Wei Jumei
and their 11-year-old child inside. Last week police smashed windows in their
home and turned away Mr Hua's brother, who tried to deliver badly needed food
supplies.
"We're down to eating garlic," Ms Wei
said on the telephone. Then the line went dead.
Nicholas Becquelin of Human Rights Watch said it
was the most severe crackdown in years. "This crackdown came very
gradually, very systematically. They are proceeding layer by layer," he
said. "Earlier this year they tightened up the media, then universities
were told what meetings and workshops they could not hold. Then they took out
the petitioners and the thuggish tactics we are seeing now are the last
wave."
Mr Hu said it was "the worst I've seen in five
years".
"Things are always tight before, say, a
National People's Congress meeting," he said. "But this time it's
worse, because it's the party congress, and power in China resides with the
Communist Party, and they are determined to hold on to complete power."
Nor are the authorities seemingly reined in by
considerations of their image a year ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Mr Hu said
they were rushing to get rid of people they considered trouble-makers before
the world focused on China next year. "They are doing 80 per cent of the
work now in order to only have to do 20 per cent next year."
Mainland authorities generally justify such sweeps
in the name of maintaining social stability and harmony. Beijing police refused
to comment.
Other high-profile victims include Christian and
rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Gao's family say he disappeared on September 22.
Also missing is Yao Lifa, a well-known election
activist from Qianjiang in Hubei province, whose son, Yao Yao
, says he has been unable to contact his father since Sunday.
Olympics-related eviction protester Ye Guozhu, his brother, Ye Guoqiang and son
Ye Mingjun, have been arrested or unofficially detained, family sources said.
Lawyer Li Heping, an advocate for people he says
are victims of miscarriages of justice, says he was abducted and beaten for
four hours on September 29. Mr Li believes the attack was linked to moves to
build a case against the use of laojiao, or re-education through labour, a form
of extra-judicial punishment.
Major targets of the laojiao system are
petitioners, tens of thousands of whom travel to the capital every year to seek
justice for abuses of power by local officials.
"Locking up petitioners in laojiao camps is
illegal and against our constitution", said Mr Li, who says he began
gathering evidence against the widespread practice in June. Currently,
thousands of petitioners are on the run in Beijing, the hostels they normally
stay in closed or knocked down. Petitioners are a major target of the
pre-congress sweep, with the government fearing they may stage demonstrations.
Still others who have disappeared include Huang
Yan, 36, reportedly kidnapped on September 22. Mr Hu says he received a
panicked phone call from her during which she said she had been beaten in
police custody for three days before being taken back to her native Jinzhou, in
Hubei, on September 26. There she slipped out of custody while her captors
played mahjong but was recaptured soon afterwards.
Similarly, Zheng Dajing, a Beijing resident and
native of Yunxi county in Hubei who is active in the defence of petitioners,
was reportedly abducted at the end of August and has not been heard of since.
Pastor Liu Fenggang, reached by telephone at his
home in Beijing's Haidian district, said he, his wife and eight-year-old son
were allowed out only after lengthy negotiations with police.
"I have to tell them where I'm going, who
with, to do what, and promise I won't meet other people," said Mr Liu, who
was released in February after a three-year jail term related to his Christian
activism.
"Since I got out it's been like this all the
time. They lock me up for National Day, when there are foreign dignitaries in
town. The other day there was an Olympics cycle race and they locked me up for
that. It's endless."
While Mr Liu's case is known to international
rights activists, other, less well-known people have also disappeared, such as
50-something Beijinger and internet democracy activist Zhang Wenhe, last seen
by his family on September 29. Mr Zhang's family believes he is being held in a
psychiatric hospital. Other high-profile arrests include Hangzhou writer Lu
Gengsong and land activist Yang Chunlin, who collected signatures for a
petition calling for "Human rights, not Olympics". Mr Yang's sister
said he had been tortured in jail in Heilongjiang province.
Outspoken internet commentator Zhang Zuhua was
asked to leave Beijing during the congress, sources said.
Activist
beaten as rival police clash in melee (SCMP)
Campaigner knocked unconscious Didi Kirsten Tatlow
in Beijing
Oct 12, 2007
Dozens of police from rival city districts in
Beijing fought a pitched battle yesterday over Christian activist Hua Huiqi,
who was knocked unconscious during the melee and admitted to hospital.
Four factions took part in the battle that saw
Chongwen district police and security guards, whom witnesses said worked for
New World China Land (SEHK: 0917) - a subsidiary of Hong Kong's New World
Development - squaring off against police from Fengtai district and
plain-clothes national security officers, who had been monitoring Mr Hua for
weeks.
"You killed my brother!" Hua's sister,
Hua Yaping , screamed at men in street clothes
believed to be officers from Mr Hua's local police station who had beaten him.
Mr Hua lay immobile on a gurney in Tiantan Hospital
for an hour, eyes shut, before being treated. His trousers were wet from urine
and dirty from the beating, according to another sister, Hua Huilin
.
A woman answering the telephone at the district
police station declined to comment, adding the officers were all in a meeting.
She also declined to take questions.
Attempts to contact New World in Hong Kong and its
office in Beijing for comments were not successful because office staff said
the managers responsible were not available.
The incident, a complex one involving police and
private security forces representing both political and economic interests,
illustrates what human rights activists say is a growing trend on the mainland
- attacks by private security guards, often representing companies involved in
property deals with local governments, are on the rise.
Mr Hua, under scrutiny by the authorities due to
his long history of underground church activism, also has a history of opposing
home evictions in the capital.
He has been detained repeatedly in recent years for
leading a house church, as well as for his rights defence efforts on other
issues.
Recently, Mr Hua began helping petitioners from the
provinces who travel to Beijing seeking justice. He was released from jail in
July after serving six months for "obstructing justice".
Under heavy police guard, Mr Hua moved out of his
Chongwen district home on Monday and was taken to Fengtai district, in the
southwest of the city.
But Fengtai police did not want him in their
jurisdiction, and yesterday he returned to Chongwen with a dozen Fengtai
policemen.
He was greeted by Chongwen policemen and the
developer's security guards, according to witnesses.
Both those groups were equally intent on not
letting him return to his home, which is slated for demolition.
Late yesterday Mr Hua was still in hospital. Family
members said doctors were refusing to discuss his condition, and the family was
being watched by police.
Christian group: Businesses closed in western China
for 'religious infiltration' (IHT)
The Associated Press Wednesday, October 10, 2007
BEIJING: China has closed two businesses whose owners allegedly sought
Christian converts in traditionally Muslim western China, and revoked the visa
of an American citizen for illegal proselytizing, a rights monitoring group
said Wednesday.
The companies' business licenses were pulled last
month by authorities in the Xinjiang region after they were accused of
distributing religious material, converting Muslims and conducting
"infiltration activities," the U.S.-based China Aid Association said
in a news release.
The group did not identity the American, citing
ongoing legal issues within China. It wasn't immediately clear whether the
individual had been deported.
The report follows word this summer that China had
kicked out more than 100 suspected foreign missionaries, including many in
Xinjiang, in a campaign to prevent proselytizing ahead of next year's Beijing
Summer Olympics.
Christian mission groups from around the world say
they plan to quietly defy the Chinese ban on foreign missionaries and send
thousands of volunteer evangelists to Beijing next year.
Evangelicals worked the crowds at the Olympics in
Athens, Sydney and Atlanta but the groups say the Beijing Games offer an
opening like no other, in a communist country that conservative Christians have
long reviled.
China bans open proselytizing and worship outside
the Communist Party-controlled official church. However, foreign faithful who
live in China are often able to evangelize privately while working as English
teachers, humanitarian workers or in business.
Efforts to contact the companies cited by the
association on Wednesday were unsuccessful.
At one, a branch of Xinjiang Pacific Agricultural
Resources Development Company, Ltd., no one answered the phone. The other
company, Xinjiang Jiaerhao Foodstuff Company Limited reportedly owned by a
Muslim convert, had no listed number.
A woman who answered the phone at the regional
government's religious affairs bureau said she had no information about the
companies or the accused American.
L'ordination
d'un nouvel évêque à Pékin marque un dégel des relations avec le Vatican (Le
Monde)
LE MONDE | 22.09.07 | 15h38 « Mis à jour le
22.09.07 | 15h38
PÉKIN CORRESPONDANT
L'ordination, vendredi 21 septembre, du nouvel
évêque de Pékin, Mgr Joseph Li Shan, 42 ans, est sans doute le signe d'un
réchauffement des relations entre la Chine et le Vatican. Membre de
l'Association des catholiques patriotiques de Chine - l'Eglise
"officielle" -, Joseph Li Shan avait été élu le 16 juillet par un
collège de prêtres, religieux et laïcs du diocèse, pour succéder à Mgr Michael
Fu Tieshan, décédé en avril.
Cette élection n'est pas conforme au mode de
désignation des évêques qui est le seul privilège du pape. Mais l'Osservatore
Romano, organe officiel du Saint-Siège, a déclaré, vendredi, que Benoît XVI
avait " concédé la communion" à ce nouvel évêque de Pékin, considéré
comme un homme de foi et un vrai pasteur, ainsi qu'à Mgr Xiao Zejiang, ordonné
évêque coadjuteur de Guiyang le 8 septembre.
C'est un geste de "bonne volonté", dit-on
à Rome, vis-à-vis du fonctionnement de la partie officielle de l'Eglise
chinoise qui compterait, au total, 12 millions de fidèles, clandestins et
officiels. Cette double approbation par le pape d'un évêque dans la capitale et
à Guiyang démontre le souci de Rome de poursuivre un processus menant au
rétablissement des relations diplomatiques interrompues depuis 1951.
En 2006, trois évêques avaient été nommés autoritairement
par le régime, sans consultation de Rome. Le pape avait réagi à cette "
provocation". La lettre envoyée en juin 2007 à tous les catholiques
chinois par Benoît XVI, dans laquelle il appelle de ses voeux la libre
nomination des évêques et la réunification des deux Eglises avait été
accueillie avec réserves par les autorités de Pékin.
Le Vatican laisse régulièrement entendre qu'il est
prêt à rompre ses relations diplomatiques avec Taïwan afin de reconnaître la
République populaire. Mais l'un des points d'achoppement reste cette épineuse
question de la nomination des évêques, dont le Saint-Siège veut faire son
domaine réservé. Pékin ne peut se résoudre à cette issue et met en avant le
concept de "non-interférence" dans ses affaires intérieures. Le
régime veut continuer à contrôler le choix de ses cadres catholiques.
Une nouvelle génération se lève d'évêques
"officiels" nommés par Pékin, avec la fiction d'une élection par la
base, mais ayant reçu a posteriori l'approbation du pape. Les élus cherchent
même à recueillir la bénédiction du pape avant leur ordination, mais ils le
font discrètement de peur de provoquer l'Eglise officielle. Le pouvoir sait que
le rétablissement de liens diplomatiques avec le Vatican contribuerait à
rehausser le prestige de la Chine à l'étranger, mais les responsables de
l'Association patriotique redoutent qu'une telle perspective ne les dépouille
de leurs prérogatives.
Bruno Philip
Article paru dans l'édition du 23.09.07
Beijing's
Catholics tread carefully in installing a bishop (FT)
By Mure Dickie and Tom Mitchell
Published: September 21 2007 03:00 | Last updated:
September 21 2007 03:00
Acolytes at Beijing's Cathedral of the Immaculate
Conception have been practising hard for today's planned ordination of a new bishop,even if the man about to lead China's highest-profile
diocese has remained out of the public eye. "Father Li is on a retreat. We
don't know where he is," one member of the cathedral staff offered during
a visit this week.
Li Shan's retreat has not taken him out of the
spotlight, however. His planned enthronement puts him at the heart of one of
the most sensitive issues in ties between communist Beijing and the Vatican: a
battle for the loyalties of a new generation of Chinese bishops.
If all goes to plan and he reappears for his
ordination today, Father Li will be the seventh bishop installed since April
last year, when the elevation of a cleric approved by the Chinese government -
and not Pope Benedict XVI - ruptured a fragile truce. He will also be the
latest 40-something bishop to replace octogenarians and nonagenarians who have
been dying at the rate of about one a month.
China and Rome have for two years been discussing
the possible restoration of diplomatic relationssevered in 1951 and Chinese Catholics
make clear they want to see an end to hostilities.
"We all hope the government and the Vatican
can resolve their differences," said one Beijing parishioner who asked to
be identified only as "Maria". "As Catholics we will of course
obey the Pope, but as Chinese we also have to listen to the Chinese
government."
The appointment of a bishop of Kunming, in
south-western Yunnan province, was the first of three installations last year
without Pope Benedict's approval. Three other recent appointees have enjoyed
both Beijing's and Rome's blessing, illustrating the complex relationship
between China's state-sanctioned church, overseen by the Chinese Catholic
Patriotic Association, and an "underground" church loyal to Rome.
The Vatican has remained silent on Fr Li's status.
Liu Bainian, CCPA vice-chairman, told the Financial Times he did not know
whether Rome's ap-proval had been secured "because there is no official
communication channel be-tween China and the Vatican".
However, one person fam-iliar with the situation
says Fr Li is in possession of a papal bull, drafted in Latin, confirming the
Pope's approval. "He has been approved and he has been informed," the
person said. "It is a good augur for the future. The Holy See didn't want
another Bishop Fu."
Fu Tieshan, the capital's last Catholic bishop,
died in April. Never approved by the Vatican, Bishop Fu held a senior
government position - vice-chairman of the Nat-ional People's Congress, China's
rubber-stamp parliament - and was buried with full state honours.
The former bishop of Beijing was 76 when he died -
young compared with some. One bishop, Meng Ziwen, died in January at the age of
104.
The huge generation gap between China's elderly
bishops and their 40-something successors arises from decades of church
persecution under Mao. But it has also ensured that Fr Li, who is 42, and his
peers will lead the church in China for decades to come. About eight new
appointments, all expected to be acceptable to the Vatican and in their 40s,
are expected in the next six months.
While the schism between China's official and
underground church often appears stark, the relationship is in fact more
complex.
"It's no good talking about two churches -
they are so intertwined," says Audrey Donnithorne, a retired scho-lar and
expert on China's underground church, who estimates that more than80 per cent
of bishops in the country are recognised by both the CCPA and Rome.
For bishops who refuse to have anything to do with
the CCPA, however, the consequences remain severe. The US-based Cardinal Kung
Foundation says: "Every one of the approximately 45 bishops of the
underground Roman Catholic Church is either in jail, under house arrest, under
strict surveillance or in hiding."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Freedom
to worship a fundamental right, says Beijing (SCMP)
Reuters
Sep 21, 2007
Beijing yesterday denounced as groundless a US
report that accused it of curbing religious freedoms, calling it interference
in its internal affairs.
In an annual report, the US State Department last
week accused Beijing of persecuting Tibetan Buddhists, Uygur Muslims and
Christians outside state-sanctioned churches.
"During the period covered by this report,
officials continued to scrutinise and, in some cases, harass unregistered
religious and spiritual groups," the State Department said.
Beijing expressed "strong
dissatisfaction" with and "firm opposition" to the report,
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said yesterday.
"Respecting and protecting citizens' right to
worship freely is a long-standing, fundamental policy of the Chinese
government. It is a fact that cannot be denied," Ms Jiang said.
"We demand the US side stop interfering in
China's internal affairs and do more things that help boost mutual understanding
and trust."
While the US report listed cases of abuse, it also
noted some "improvements" in Beijing's respect for religious freedom
as the government emphasised the role of religion in promoting a
"harmonious society".
Vatican
approval for new bishop (SCMP)
Ambrose Leung
Sep 20, 2007
The Vatican has given its approval for the
ordination of Father Joseph Li Shan as bishop of Beijing, after a last-minute
effort to ensure the mainland's selected priest gained recognition by the Holy
See.
The approval came as Catholics in the capital
prepared for a Mass tomorrow at which Father Li will become the first mutually
recognised bishop in Beijing in almost 50 years.
Last night, church sources confirmed that the
Vatican had given its approval, although officials from the Holy See have made
no announcement of the decision.
It has brought relief to church members, who had
been concerned that the ordination could be considered "illicit" by
the Vatican - as were three cases last year - if papal approval could not be
granted in time.
Father Li, who is known as a down-to-earth priest
with strong pastoral experience in the diocese, was named bishop-elect by
Beijing in July. However, the Vatican had difficulty contacting him, which was
a condition for the approval process to proceed.
Last night, Anthony Liu Bainian ,
a vice-chairman of the state-backed Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association,
which controls the mainland's church, said he had heard about the Vatican's
decision. But he stressed that there had been no official contact between
Beijing and the Holy See due to a lack of diplomatic relations. He added that
the Holy See's recognition of Father Li's status was a gesture of goodwill.
"I am sure this will be beneficial to
improving Sino-Vatican relations," Mr Liu added.
The Union of Catholic Asian News agency reported
that several mainland bishops were invited to participate in the ordination
Mass, with Bishop Fang Xingyao of Linyi as principal celebrant.
The episcopal see of Beijing is considered important
and politically sensitive. The position was left vacant after the death of
Michael Fu Tieshan earlier this year, a cleric who was unilaterally ordained by
Beijing in 1979 without Vatican approval.
Vatican
to pursue Beijing ties (FT)
By Guy Dinmore in Rome
Published: September 12 2007 03:00 | Last updated:
September 12 2007 03:00
The death in Chinese custody, and hurried secular
funeral, of a Roman Catholic bishop who was operating "underground"
in the country have cast a shadow over efforts by Pope Benedict XVI to
normalise relations between the Vatican and China.
However, observers said that in spite of the crude
treatment of Bishop Han Dingxiang at the hands of the Chinese authorities, the
trend towards closer ties between the Vatican and China - one of the pope's
diplomatic priorities - appears set to continue.
Bishop Han Dingxiang of Yongnian in Hebei province,
who spent a total of 35 years in prison, died on Sunday, aged 71, a Vatican
source confirmed. He had been ill with lung cancer and had spent the last eight
years in custody.
However, in a further sign of rapprochement between
China's officially recognised Catholic church and the Vatican, a new bishop was
ordained on Saturday in Guiyang in southern China by the state organisation
with the approval of the Vatican.
AsiaNews, which is affiliated to the Vatican,
reported that bishops and priests from the underground church, knowing of the
Vatican's approval, decided to participate with the official church in the
ordination of Paolo Xiao Zejiang. This was possibly the first joint celebration
and marked an important step in reconciliation as requested by the pope in his
landmark letter of June 30 to the Chinese people, AsiaNews said. The letter
urged the underground faithful and followers of the state-run church to
overcome decades of animosity and distrust.
The Vatican's insistence on its right to appoint
bishops is one of the most significant obstacles preventing restoration of the
relations severed by the Chinese Communist party in 1951.
The US-based Cardinal Kung Foundation, which has
close ties to China's "underground" Roman Catholic movement, said
Chinese authorities hurriedly summoned a few close relatives to Bishop Han's
bedside in the hours before his death.
He was cremated and his ashes buried within six
hours of his death in a public cemetery with no priests present. The Foundation
says four underground bishops remain in prison.
Liu Bainian, the conservative head of the Chinese
Catholic Patriotic Association which risks losing authority and wealth through
reconciliation, last week accused the Vatican of wanting to impose
anti-communist bishops. He said China should accelerate the appointment of new
bishops to meet a serious shortage in the country.
China
Says Vatican Trying To Appoint Anti-Communist Bishops (WSJ)
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
September 5, 2007 11:32 p.m.
BEIJING (AP)--The Vatican
is pushing to get anti-communist bishops appointed on the mainland, a senior
official in China's state-sanctioned Catholic Church said in comments published
Thursday.
Pope Benedict XVI has been reaching out to Beijing,
eager to bring China's estimated 12 million Catholics under Rome's wing. But
the two sides have been at loggerheads over the Vatican's insistence on naming
bishops.
"While Chinese Catholics want to select those
(bishops) with good religious knowledge and love toward the country and the
people, the Vatican wants those who oppose the Communist Party (of
China)," Liu Bainian was quoted as saying by the China Daily newspaper.
No specific examples of Vatican bishop choices were
mentioned. The two sides have no formal ties but are believed to quietly confer
on some bishop choices.
Liu told the paper the dispute over the bishop
selection process remained the key obstacle to improving Sino-Vatican
relations.
China wants to speed up the bishop selection and
ordination process because many of the country's current bishops are elderly
and 40 of the country's 97 official Catholic diocese have no bishop, Liu said.
"We are in dire need of bishops," Liu was
quoted as saying.
China forced its Roman Catholics to cut ties with
the Vatican in 1951, shortly after the officially atheist Communist Party took
power. Worship is allowed only in government-controlled churches, which
recognize the Pope as a spiritual leader but appoint their own priests and
bishops.
Millions of Chinese belong to unofficial
congregations that are not registered with the authorities.
China has said before it also wants the Vatican to
cut ties with Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing considers part of its
territory.
Bishop Of
Underground Chinese Catholic Church Detained (WSJ)DOW JONES NEWSWIRESAugust 23, 2007 4:02 a.m.
BEIJING (AP)--An elderly
bishop in China's underground Catholic church has been detained by police for
the second time this year, a U.S.-based monitoring group said Thursday.
Bishop Jia Zhiguo, 73, was taken away Thursday by
security agents in Zhengding, a city in northern Hebei province, the Cardinal
Kung Foundation said in a statement.
It wasn't immediately clear why he was detained,
the group said.
A woman from Zhengding Public Security Bureau, who
refused to give her name, said she wasn't aware of the case. The phone of
Zhengding Religious Affairs Bureau rang unanswered.
China broke ties with the Vatican in 1951 and
demands that Catholics worship only in government-controlled churches, which
recognize the pope as a spiritual leader but appoint their own priests and
bishops.
Millions remain loyal to the pope and worship in
secret, but priests and members of their congregations are frequently detained
and harassed.
In June, Pope Benedict XVI made his most
significant attempt to unite China's Catholics, issuing a letter urging the
underground faithful and followers of the state-run church to overcome decades
of animosity and distrust.
The foundation said that since the release of the
letter, Jia was told several times by the religious affairs bureau that he
wasn't allowed to publicly support and promulgate the letter.
It said more police had been watching Jia in the
last five days and that anyone visiting him was questioned.
The statement said the action "by the Chinese
government is not only contrary to the spirit of the China letter issued by the
Pope almost two months ago, but also contrary to the generally accepted
principles of human rights and to the spirits of the Olympic games."
Jia, who was ordained in 1980, has been detained at
least 11 times since January 2004, according to the Kung Foundation. The most
recent time was in June, but it isn't known for how long he was detained.
Jia's Zhengding diocese, 240 kilometers southwest
of Beijing in Hebei, is a traditional stronghold of Catholic sentiment in
northern China.
The rights group said a priest, Father Wen Daoxiu,
of Qingyuan County in Hebei, was also detained on Aug. 15 for unknown reasons.
It said Wen, in his mid-50s, was in poor health.
A man named Li who answered the phone at the
Qingyuan Public Security Bureau and another official surnamed Zhao from the
Qingyuan Religious Bureau said they weren't aware of Wen's case. Both refused
to give their full names.
The Cardinal Kung Foundation is named for the late
Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pinmei of Shanghai, who spent 30 years in Chinese
prisons and died in the U.S. in 2000 at age 98.
Report:Bishop
Of Underground Chinese Catholic Church Detained (WSJ)
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
August 23, 2007 4:02 a.m.
BEIJING (AP)--An elderly
bishop in China's underground Catholic church has been detained by police for
the second time this year, a U.S.-based monitoring group said Thursday.
Bishop Jia Zhiguo, 73, was taken away Thursday by
security agents in Zhengding, a city in northern Hebei province, the Cardinal
Kung Foundation said in a statement.
It wasn't immediately clear why he was detained,
the group said.
A woman from Zhengding Public Security Bureau, who
refused to give her name, said she wasn't aware of the case. The phone of
Zhengding Religious Affairs Bureau rang unanswered.
China broke ties with the Vatican in 1951 and
demands that Catholics worship only in government-controlled churches, which
recognize the pope as a spiritual leader but appoint their own priests and
bishops.
Millions remain loyal to the pope and worship in
secret, but priests and members of their congregations are frequently detained
and harassed.
In June, Pope Benedict XVI made his most
significant attempt to unite China's Catholics, issuing a letter urging the
underground faithful and followers of the state-run church to overcome decades
of animosity and distrust.
The foundation said that since the release of the
letter, Jia was told several times by the religious affairs bureau that he
wasn't allowed to publicly support and promulgate the letter.
It said more police had been watching Jia in the
last five days and that anyone visiting him was questioned.
The statement said the action "by the Chinese
government is not only contrary to the spirit of the China letter issued by the
Pope almost two months ago, but also contrary to the generally accepted
principles of human rights and to the spirits of the Olympic games."
Jia, who was ordained in 1980, has been detained at
least 11 times since January 2004, according to the Kung Foundation. The most
recent time was in June, but it isn't known for how long he was detained.
Jia's Zhengding diocese, 240 kilometers southwest
of Beijing in Hebei, is a traditional stronghold of Catholic sentiment in
northern China.
The rights group said a priest, Father Wen Daoxiu,
of Qingyuan County in Hebei, was also detained on Aug. 15 for unknown reasons.
It said Wen, in his mid-50s, was in poor health.
A man named Li who answered the phone at the
Qingyuan Public Security Bureau and another official surnamed Zhao from the
Qingyuan Religious Bureau said they weren't aware of Wen's case. Both refused
to give their full names.
The Cardinal Kung Foundation is named for the late
Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pinmei of Shanghai, who spent 30 years in Chinese
prisons and died in the U.S. in 2000 at age 98.
China and
its Catholics
Cardinal principles (The Economist)
Jul 5th 2007 | BEIJING AND HONG KONG
From The Economist print edition
An historic chance of reconciliation with
Catholics, if not democrats
IF THEY were seeking to justify their deep
suspicion of Catholics, Chinese officials would have felt vindicated. On July
1st tens of thousands of Hong Kong citizens chose to mark their first decade
under Chinese rule by marching through the streets to demand more democracy.
Among them was Hong Kong's top Catholic, Cardinal Joseph Zen. But once easily riled,
China is learning to swallow its anger.
So too are some of its critics. Pope Benedict,
whose church has long upbraided China for its suppression of religious freedom,
is now trying to make friends. In a rare and lengthy letter to Catholics in
China last week the pope wrote in conciliatory terms about China's
state-controlled Catholic church and bishops in it who have been appointed
without the Vatican's approval. He also stressed that the church in China had
no mission to change the country politically.
Ten years ago, when the British left Hong Kong,
many Chinese officials expressed fears that pro-democracy politicians would
plunge the territory into turmoil. They worried that they would also step up
pressure on the Communist Party to change its dictatorial ways. But much has
changed. After ten years of rapid economic growth, and with little social
unrest, the party today seems less plagued by thoughts of its possible sudden
demise.
There were far fewer pro-democracy marchers this
year than in 2003, when hundreds of thousands took to the streets on July 1st
in what has since become an annual ritual. The Hong Kong Transition Project, an
academic group studying the impact of China's takeover, believes China's image
has improved. In a survey in April it found nearly 70% of 800 respondents were
satisfied with China's management of Hong Kong's affairs. Just before the
British withdrawal, only 45% thought China was handling things well.
The demonstration was part of a well- oiled series
of events marking the ten-year anniversary that day. As dragon-dancers and
marching bands wound up their street celebrations, the democrats began their
protest. They stuck to an authorised route finishing outside the Hong Kong
government's headquarters. Few in Hong Kong believe the local authorities have
much say in the territory's political development. But mainstream democrats
diplomatically refrain from protesting outside the central government's local
offices.
Such restraint allowed China's president, Hu
Jintao, three days in Hong Kong largely untroubled by signs of dissent-he left
just before the march. Mr Hu's duties included swearing in Donald Tsang,
knighted by the British and a devout Catholic, for another five years as Hong
Kong's chief executive. Also sworn in, as the new financial secretary, was John
Tsang (no relation), a former private secretary to Hong Kong's last British
governor, Chris Patten. Ten years ago China was nervous about giving top jobs
to those with colonial links. Now it is far less concerned. Among those
deployed to marshal the demonstration was a sprinkling of British officers.
Cardinal Zen's participation was condemned by a
senior official from China's state-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic
Association. The official, Liu Bainian, was quoted by Hong Kong's South China
Morning Post as asking how the Vatican could win China's trust if it appointed
people like the cardinal.
China's response to the pope's letter has been
muted, which Cardinal Zen sees as a good sign. In fact, China may well be
quietly pleased. One of the letter's aims was to discourage Catholics in China
from shunning the state-sponsored church. This was established in 1957, six
years after China severed ties with the Vatican and expelled foreign priests.
Many local priests were imprisoned. Several are still in jail because of their
opposition to the government church. China says it now has about 5m Catholics,
but there are believed to be many millions more who worship in
"underground" churches with priests not recognised by the state. The
pope's letter said Catholics could worship in state churches, even if their
priests had no links with the pope, if finding Vatican-approved clergy caused
"grave inconvenience".
One of the main obstacles to improved relations between
China and the Vatican has been the Vatican's insistence that it appoint
bishops. China objects, fearful of losing control of the church. But there are
signs of a possible compromise. In recent years it has often allowed names to
be submitted to the pope in advance for his secret approval before its
"official" ordination takes place. Last year, however, China made
three appointments without Vatican clearance. Many believed this was partly
prompted by Pope Benedict's decision to make Joseph Zen a cardinal in February
2006. Cardinal Zen, who dismisses any link with his appointment, described the
ordinations as "acts of war".
The pope's letter was more tactful. It said some
bishops who had been ordained under pressure without the Vatican's approval had
subsequently asked for the pope's acknowledgement. He said he had granted this,
taking into account "the sincerity of their sentiments and the complexity
of the situation". The letter said the "very small number" of
bishops who had not asked for or received the pope's blessing were
"illegitimate". But they were still considered "validly
ordained" as long as it was by validly ordained bishops.
Taiwan vaut bien une messe
China has strong motives to work out a deal. A
rapprochement with the Vatican would do a lot to improve its human-rights image
in the West. It would also deal a huge diplomatic blow to Taiwan. Last month
Costa Rica switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, leaving
Taiwan with just 24 states that still officially recognise it. The Vatican is
by far the most influential of them.
For all Cardinal Zen's misgivings, China is not in
a pugnacious mood. As it prepares to host the Olympic Games in Beijing next
year, it is anxious to project a softer image. In Hong Kong Mr Hu, normally stiff
and uncharismatic, briefly played table-tennis with a 13-year-old in front of
television cameras.
China has railed against a proposal by Taiwan's
president, Chen Shui-bian, to hold a referendum next year on whether Taiwan
should apply to join the UN under the name Taiwan instead of the island's
official title, the Republic of China. (To China, this sounds too much like a
cutting of links with the mainland.) But so, in more diplomatic terms, have the
Americans, who have much to lose if the Chinese get truly angry. For now, they
are not.
Vatican
Letter Tries to Bridge Chinese Divide (WSJ)
By ANDREW BATSON
July 2, 2007BEIJING -- Pope Benedict XVI published
an open letter to Chinese Catholics that seeks to resolve decades of rancorous
division among the nation's believers and to speed the restoration of official
ties between the Vatican and Beijing.
In his most significant statement on China since
becoming the head of the Roman Catholic Church in 2005, Pope Benedict reached
out to Chinese officials long suspicious of Catholicism. He said the church
doesn't aim to challenge the Chinese government's authority, and he praised
China's ancient civilization and recent progress. While calling for greater
religious freedom, he said the Vatican is open to negotiations and believes an
agreement for restoring relations with China is possible.
"This situation of misunderstandings and
incomprehension weighs heavily, serving the interests of neither the Chinese
authorities nor the Catholic Church in China," Pope Benedict wrote in the
letter, dated May 27 and made public Saturday.
The letter marks the culmination of Vatican efforts
in recent years to heal a decades-old rift that has hindered the growth of
Catholicism in China. The Vatican and China haven't had formal ties since the
1950s, when the officially atheist Communist Party expelled foreign priests and
placed Catholics under the direction of a state-sponsored organization. That
official repression has led China's estimated 12 million Catholics into an
often-bitter split between those who accept government supervision and those
who reject it. Many Catholics worry that those internal divisions, and the
uncertainty over relations with the Vatican, have handicapped the church's
ability respond to a growing interest in religion in China.
Catholics are heavily outnumbered in China by
various Protestant denominations, which have expanded rapidly. Pope Benedict
seemed to share that assessment, calling such splits "a weakness in the
church that causes concern."
A spokesman for China's foreign ministry said
officials were aware of the letter, but didn't comment on its contents. China
is "willing to continue frank and constructive dialogue with the Vatican
in order to seek a solution to the two sides' differences," the spokesman,
Qin Gang, said in a statement.
The pope's letter, addressed to individual
believers and clergy, urged Chinese Catholics to put aside past grievances and
focus on their shared faith. He praised adherents of underground churches, who
have often been harassed and imprisoned in China.
Pope to
mend relations with Beijing (FT)
By Robin Kwong in Hong Kong
Published: July 1 2007 16:22 | Last updated: July 1
2007 16:22
Pope Benedict XVI has expressed confidence that the
Vatican and China can resolve their differences over bishop appointments, one
of the long-standing barriers to normalisation of relations between the two.
The Pope extended the olive branch in a letter
issued at the weekend. In the first official papal letter addressed to all
Chinese Catholics in 49 years, he also renewed calls for "respectful and
constructive" dialogue between the Holy See and Beijing, which have not
had official diplomatic relations since 1951.
China's 11m Catholics are courted by both
"underground" churches loyal to Rome and state churches operating
under the auspices of the Catholic Patriotic Association. Unilateral bishop
appointments, which China resumed in 2006 after a six-year hiatus, exacerbated
tensions between the world's most populous nation and the Vatican, which claims
a global following of 1.1bn Catholics.
According to an informal arrangement dating back to
2000, the Holy See was given time to review and tacitly endorse bishopric
candidates before their anointment by the CPA. But that truce was broken last
year when Beijing ordained two of its own bishops. China appeared to be
reacting to Pope Benedict's elevation of Hong Kong bishop Joseph Zen, an
outspoken advocate for democracy and religious freedom, to cardinal.
In his letter, Pope Benedict maintained that the
right to appoint bishops was "a constitutive element of the full exercise
of the right to religious freedom", but hoped an agreement could be
reached regarding choice of candidates, the publication of bishop appointments
and the government's recognition of new bishops.
He gave individual bishops in China's underground
churches the right to decide whether they should seek formal recognition from
Beijing ? provided church principles were observed.
The Pope also issued new directives allowing
Catholics to attend mass celebrated by "illegitimate", or
state-appointed, bishops.
China's foreign ministry reiterated that diplomatic
ties cannot be resumed unless the Vatican ceases its recognition of Taiwan and
forswears "interference" in China's internal affairs.
Liu Bainan, the hardline vice-chairman of the CPA,
said the official church would continue unilaterally appointing bishops until
Sino-Vatican relationships were normalised.
Benoît
XVI défend ses ouailles en Chine (Libération)
Pékin critique les accusations portées par le pape
sur la liberté de culte. Par P.N. (avec AFP, Reuters)
QUOTIDIEN : lundi 2 juillet 2007
La Chine est un pays officiellement athée, et le
Vatican n'a pas à s'immiscer dans ses affaires intérieures au nom de la
religion, rappellent les autorités de Pékin à Benoît XVI. Dans une longue
lettre envoyée samedi aux catholiques chinois, le pape a critiqué les
restrictions exercées par le pouvoir chinois sur la liberté de culte, qui
«étouffent l'activité pastorale» et sèment la division parmi les fidèles,
réclamant «une authentique liberté religieuse».
«Réaliste». «S'il est prêt à améliorer les
relations avec la Chine, le Vatican doit agir plutôt que de créer de nouveaux
obstacles», a répliqué dans un communiqué très court le ministère des Affaires
étrangères, rappelant son leitmotiv : «Le Vatican doit interrompre ses
prétendues relations diplomatiques avec Taiwan et reconnaître que la République
populaire de Chine est le seul gouvernement». Une attitude «réaliste», selon
Pékin. Benoît XVI, qui souhaite «une normalisation», a pourtant mis les formes,
dans sa lettre publiée en mandarin sur le site du Vatican et surtout destinée
aux 8 à 12 millions de pratiquants chinois : «Il est vrai que, ces dernières
années, l'Eglise jouit en regard du passé d'une plus grande liberté», «le
Saint-Siège demeure ouvert aux négociations qui sont nécessaires pour dépasser
le difficile moment présent», ajoute-t-il, «mais on ne peut nier que demeurent
de graves limitations qui touchent le cÏur de la foi». «Je suis conscient que
la normalisation demande du temps et qu'elle présuppose la bonne volonté des
deux parties», dit aussi Benoît XVI, qui a raison sur ce point.
Durcissement. L'histoire est déjà longue entre les
deux Etats. En 1951, le Vatican a reconnu Taiwan, où s'était enfui le nonce
apostolique. Le gouvernement de Pékin, obsédé par le retour de l'île rebelle
dans la «mère patrie», a alors obligé les -catholiques à couper tout lien avec
le Saint-Siège, et a cessé ses relations diplomatiques. Depuis 1957, les
fidèles ne sont autorisés à pratiquer qu'au sein de l'Association -catholique
patriotique de Chine, entièrement contrôlée par l'Etat communiste. Persécutés
-durant la Révolution culturelle, ils ont profité des -années 80 pour se réorganiser,
certains dans le giron de l'Eglise -patriotique. Les autres, 30 à 40 % selon le
-Vatican, ont créé des Eglises -clandestines, qui sont plus ou moins tolérées
aujourd'hui en Chine.
Il y aurait 130 diocèses, 80 évêques officiels en
Chine, dont 90 % sont reconnus par -Rome, selon les spécialistes. Le principal
écueil, pour des -relations normalisées, reste la nomination des évêques, dont
Pékin veut garder la prérogative. En 2006, l'ordination de trois évêques de
l'Eglise -patriotique sans l'accord du Vatican a provoqué un durcissement très
net. Après deux millénaires européens et américains fastes pour les
catholiques, le pape espère que le troisième sera asiatique : « Une grande
moisson de foi sera recueillie dans le vaste et vivant continent asiatique»,
écrit-il dans sa lettre aux Chinois. Cela ne semble pas entrer dans les projets
immédiats de -Pékin.
http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/monde/264649.FR.php
© Libération
Guiding
China's Catholics (WSJ)
July 3, 2007
The Vatican released a pastoral letter from Pope
Benedict XVI to China's Catholics on Saturday, and its major theme was, as
expected, reconciliation. Most commentators will focus on what that means for
diplomatic relations between the Vatican and China. But the Pope's more
important advice is aimed squarely inside the Chinese Church itself.
Since the Party expelled the Vatican's
representative in 1951, many Catholics in China have worshipped in underground
churches. They had good reason to do so; as it did to other religious groups,
the Party unleashed waves of terror onto the Catholic community that exists to
this day. The Communists then set up their own, state-run churches -- no small
irony for a godless ideology.
The situation created a conundrum for the Catholic
faithful: Should they worship underground, at personal risk, or above ground,
at a church not recognized by the Vatican? Many parishioners view the state-run
churches as heretical; others didn't believe underground bishops who claimed to
be recognized by the Vatican -- as most are. The Vatican further confused
matters by maintaining that Beijing-ordained priests could give communion in
some circumstances.
Enter Pope Benedict. China's bishops, he writes,
can pursue reconciliation with the state-run church so long as it's safe to do
so and they can maintain their devotion to the Vatican. "The clandestine
condition," he writes, "is not a normal feature of the Church's
life." And, "especially where there is little room for freedom . . .
to evaluate the morality of an act it is necessary to devote particular care to
establishing the real intentions of the persons concerned."
Benedict's letter may upset Chinese Catholics who
have suffered at the hand of the Party. It might also distress those in the
Vatican who would prefer to take a harder line, insisting that China ease
religious curbs before the Vatican strikes a softer note. In any event, the
Pope is stepping out on a limb, as his advice to underground bishops to come
out in the open may encourage the Party to crack down harder on those who
remain in hiding.
Still, the Pope's broader message carries a nugget
of advice for China's Communist policy makers, too. After all, how moral are
the Party's intentions toward its faithful? And how will those policy makers be
judged?
Le ton monte entre le pape et la Chine (le Figaro)
L.S. (lefigaro.fr) avec AFP.
Publié le 30 juin 2007
Actualisé le 30 juin 2007 : 14h58
Pékin oppose une fin de non-recevoir aux demandes
de Benoît XVI sur la liberté religieuse.
« Il faudra du temps et de la bonne volonté des
deux parties pour parvenir à la normalisation des relations avec la République
populaire de Chine », avait prévenu Benoît XVI, en adressant une lettre à la
Chine et aux Chinois. Le pape ne se trompait pas, mais Pékin ne semble pas disposé,
à l'heure actuelle, à afficher sa « bonne volonté ». En guise de réponse, la
Chine a en effet a appelé le Vatican à adopter une « attitude réaliste », à ne
pas créer de « nouveaux obstacles » à l'amélioration des relations bilatérales,
et à « ne pas s'ingérer dans les affaires intérieures de la Chine au nom du
catholicisme », selon un communiqué du ministère chinois des Affaires
étrangères.
Dans sa lettre rendue publique samedi, le pape
demandait à la Chine « le respect d'une authentique liberté religieuse » et
rejetait l'idée d'une Eglise soumise aux autorités chinoises et indépendante du
Vatican.
Le Saint-Siège et la Chine n'entretiennent plus de
relations diplomatiques depuis 1951 et la reconnaissance de Taïwan par le
Vatican. La Chine a rappelé dans son communiqué les deux conditions du
rétablissement de ces relations : la rupture des relations diplomatiques entre
le Vatican et Taïwan, que la Chine considère comme une province, ainsi que le
pouvoir de nommer les membres du clergé. Le souverain pontife indique de son
côté ne reconnaître aucune légitimité au collège des évêques catholiques de
Chine constitué sous l'autorité du pouvoir politique, ni à « l'association
patriotique » qui contrôle l'Eglise officielle, et réclame de pouvoir nommer
seul les évêques chinois
Le pape
veut renouer le dialogue avec la Chine, mais exige la liberté totale des catholiques(le Monde)
LE MONDE | 02.07.07 | 14h50 ¥ Mis à jour le
02.07.07 | 14h51
Renouer le dialogue avec la Chine est l'une des
grandes ambitions de Benoît XVI. Depuis la rupture de 1951, un pape a publié
pour la première fois, samedi 30 juin, un document complet, précis, sans langue
de bois, pour signifier à la Chine sa volonté de dialogue, en maintenant toutes
ses exigences. Les catholiques de Chine sont un "petit troupeau" (8 à
12 millions), exemplaire par sa "fidélité", témoin d'une foi
"persécutée", écrit le pape, mais sa "normalisation" serait
un pas de géant pour les libertés.
Indépendance par rapport à l'Etat, unité des
fidèles et du clergé dans une seule Eglise, liberté de nomination des évêques :
tels sont les trois messages que le pape a adressés à Pékin.
Concernant l'indépendance, l'Eglise en Chine ne
réclame "aucun privilège". Elle n'a d'autre ambition qu'un "service
humble et désintéressé" de toute la population. Les catholiques se
conduisent comme "de bons citoyens, des collaborateurs respectueux et
actifs du bien commun". En contrepartie, ils exigent un exercice
totalement libre de leur religion.
Le pape admet qu'"au regard du passé, l'Eglise
de Chine jouit d'une plus grande liberté". Mais il ajoute que "de
graves limitations touchent le coeur de la foi" et "étouffent"
encore l'activité des croyants. Il ne veut plus de la situation de
"conflit permanent", sans pour autant tomber dans la
"complaisance". Jamais un pape n'avait établi aussi fermement
l'agenda de reprise d'un dialogue.
Le deuxième message est celui de la réunification
d'une Eglise coupée en deux depuis la Révolution chinoise : d'une part, les
catholiques "officiels", dépendant de l'Association patriotique créée
il y a cinquante ans - organisme étatique de direction et de surveillance du
clergé et des fidèles - ; d'autre part, les catholiques
"clandestins". Benoît XVI dénonce "la prétention de ces organismes
imposés, voulus par l'Etat, de se placer au-dessus des évêques et de vouloir
guider la vie de l'Eglise". Pour lui, l'Association patriotique est une
anomalie, de même que le "Collège des évêques catholiques de Chine",
qui ne peut pas se prévaloir du statut d'une Conférence épiscopale.
DES ÉVÊQUES LIBREMENT NOMMÉS
Le pape lance donc un appel à l'unité des fidèles
et du clergé chinois au sein d'une seule Eglise indépendante de l'Etat, libre
de sa direction et de ses relations avec l'Eglise universelle, symbolisée par
le pape à Rome. "La clandestinité ne rentre pas dans la normalité de la
vie de l'Eglise", insiste-t-il. Les actuels prêtres et évêques clandestins
doivent être reconnus sans tarder par les autorités civiles.
Reste l'irritante question de la nomination des
évêques, soit le contrôle à la base des communautés, prétexte à des démêlés
réguliers. La plupart des évêques "officiels" sont nommés par les
autorités et leur situation est régularisée a posteriori par Rome au cas par
cas. Pékin n'entend pas renoncer à cette prérogative qui, pour le pape, est
intolérable. C'est à lui qu'il appartient de nommer les évêques (4 500 dans le
monde), afin de garantir l'unité de direction de son Eglise. Tout contrevenant
s'expose à des sanctions.
Pékin accuse le Vatican d'ingérence dans les
affaires chinoises. Benoît XVI répond qu'il n'a aucune intention de "léser
la souveraineté" de la Chine. Des nominations d'évêque ont pu se faire
récemment d'un commun accord entre Pékin et la diplomatie vaticane. Mais l'ordination
de trois d'entre eux en 2006, sans l'accord préalable de Rome, a provoqué un
rude conflit. Le pape rêve d'une "liberté totale" de nomination des
évêques chinois, d'un accord définitif pour résoudre les contentieux liés au
choix des candidats, à la publication de leur nom, à leur reconnaissance. Il y
a urgence. La Chine compte 148 diocèses : 49 évêques sont morts depuis 2000 et
les deux tiers ont plus de 80 ans !
Cette lettre de Benoît XVI avait été d'abord
soumise aux dirigeants chinois. La première réaction du ministère des affaires
étrangères n'augure pas d'un changement d'attitude. Elle rappelle les deux
conditions que pose Pékin à tout rétablissement des relations : la rupture du
Vatican avec Taïwan (Pékin sait que le Vatican n'y fait plus obstacle) et sa
souveraineté sur les nominations. Un an avant les Jeux olympiques, le ton
ouvert de cette lettre est pourtant une chance inespérée de reprise d'un
dialogue.
Henri Tincq Article paru dans l'édition du 03.07.07
Benoît
XVI demande à Pékin de garantir aux citoyens catholiques le plein exercice de
leur foi (le Monde)
LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 30.06.07 | 14h12 ¥ Mis à jour
le 30.06.07 | 14h17
Dans une lettre au clergé et aux catholiques de
Chine publiée samedi 30 juin, le pape Benoît XVI demande à Pékin "le
respect d'une authentique liberté religieuse" et rejette l'idée d'une
Eglise soumise aux autorités chinoises et indépendante du Vatican.
Cette lettre du pape était attendue depuis le 20
janvier, quand s'était tenue au Vatican une réunion sur la situation de
l'Eglise en Chine, où vivent 8 à 14 millions de catholiques. Le Saint-Siège et
la Chine n'entretiennent plus de relations diplomatiques depuis 1951 et la
reconnaissance de Taïwan par le Vatican. La rupture entre les deux Etats s'est
encore aggravée en juillet 1957 avec la création sur le continent d'une Eglise
catholique patriotique ("Association catholique patriotique de
Chine"). Les persécutions de la Révolution culturelle visant tous les
croyants aggraveront encore la situation. Avec les années 1980, et début de
l'ouverture et des réformes économiques, les catholiques de l'Eglise
clandestine se renforcent et un début de normalisation des rapports entre les
deux églises prend forme.
"DU TEMPS ET DE LA BONNE VOLONTÉ"
Dans sa lettre, le pape adresse des signes de bonne
volonté au pouvoir chinois, demandant aux fidèles d'être "de bons
citoyens, des collaborateurs respectueux et actifs en faveur du bien commun de
leur pays". En contrepartie, il appelle l'Etat chinois à "garantir à
ces mêmes citoyens catholiques le plein exercice de leur foi, dans le respect
d'une authentique liberté religieuse". Benoît XVI demande ainsi à Pékin la
liberté de nommer les évêques et souligne que l'idée "d'une Eglise
indépendante" du Vatican "est incompatible avec la doctrine
catholique".
En ce sens, Benoît XVI ne reconnaît aucune
légitimité au collège des évêques catholiques de Chine constitué sous
l'autorité du pouvoir politique, ni à "l'association patriotique" qui
contrôle l'Eglise officielle. "La prétention de certains organismes,
voulus par l'Etat et étrangers à la structure de l'Eglise, de se placer
au-dessus des évêques et de guider la vie de la communauté, ne correspond pas à
la doctrine de l'Eglise", répète-t-il.
"Ouvert aux négociations", le pape
souhaite cependant "que l'on trouve un accord avec le gouvernement pour
résoudre certaines questions concernant soit le choix des candidats à
l'épiscopat". Réaliste, le souverain pontife souligne cependant qu'il
faudra "du temps et de la bonne volonté des deux parties" pour
parvenir à "la normalisation des relations avec la République populaire de
Chine".
Wednesday, 27 June 2007 (11 hours ago)
BosNewsLife News Center
NEWS
ALERT: China Detains Eight House Church Leaders in Shandong and Shaanxi
Provinces (in the Economist)
BEIJING, CHINA (BosNewsLife)--
Eight Chinese 'house church' leaders from China's Shaanxi and Shandong
provinces remained detained and faced the prospect of serving time in labor
camps Wednesday, June 27, after a police crackdown on Bible distribution and
worship services, rights watchers and fellow Christians said.
Shanghai
Bishop Hopeful For Vatican-China Progress (WSJ)
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
June 11, 2007 9:29 p.m.
ROME (AP)--The government-backed Catholic bishop of
Shanghai says he hopes the Vatican and China can restore ties, but warns that
reconciling believers from the official and underground churches won't be easy.
In an interview with the Italian religious affairs
magazine 30 Days, Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian said the faithful from China's official
church were eagerly awaiting an upcoming letter from Pope Benedict XVI on the
state of the Catholic church in China.
But the faithful in the underground church were
worried, he was quoted as saying.
"They underground faithful cannot help but have
some concerns, or the fear of being repudiated," he said, according to the
magazine.
China forced its Roman Catholics to cut ties with
the Vatican in 1951, shortly after the officially atheist Communist Party took
power. Worship is allowed only in government-controlled churches, which
recognize the pope as a spiritual leader but appoint their own priests and
bishops.
Millions of Chinese, however, belong to unofficial
congregations loyal to Rome. Many unofficial congregations hold services
openly, but in some regions they are routinely harassed and their priests and
bishops arrested.
Benedict has been reaching out to Beijing, eager to
bring China's estimated 12 million Catholics under Rome's wing. But the two
sides have been at loggerheads over the Vatican's insistence on naming bishops.
In a landmark move, the Vatican and the Chinese
government agreed on the nomination of Jin's auxiliary bishop, Joseph Xing
Wenzhi, who was consecrated in 2005. But not even that nomination has gone over
smoothly with the underground faithful, Jin said.
"We had at first hoped that the underground
faithful would recognize him, because he was nominated by Rome. But reality
isn't so simple," Jin was quoted as saying.
Many Catholics in Shanghai reject the authority of
Jin and others in the official Church. They regard another elderly priest in
the underground church, Joseph Fan Zhongliang, as Shanghai's true bishop.
"Reconciliation and the return of unity of the
registered and non-registered community will find great difficulties," Jin
reportedly said.
Jin, 91, said he was hoping Rome would name Xing
coadjutor bishop of Shanghai and make him his successor. "I truly hope
that his consecration becomes a model," he said, according to the magazine
Jin said he hoped the Beijing government would
understand the Vatican's insistence on naming bishops, and said the pending
nomination of Beijing's new bishop would be something to watch.
Beijing Bishop Fu Tieshan of the official church
died April 20.
"I hope that the Holy See and the Chinese
government will develop good contacts to avoid unnecessary problems" in
naming Fu's successor, Jin was quoted as saying.
Jin acknowledged that some officials of the
official Patriotic Association were opposed to any restarting of ties between
the official church and the Vatican.
"But I personally believe that the Patriotic
Association cannot intervene in China's political decisions. All we need is
some high-level political official to decide to relauch relations with the
Vatican, and the Patriotic Association won't have the ability to create
obstacles," he was quoted as saying.
Chinese
priests in property dispute return home
The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/12/26/chinese_priests_in_property_dispute_return_home/
By Ben Blanchard and Chris Buckley | December 26,
2005
BEIJING (Reuters) - A group of Chinese Catholic
priests and nuns locked in a property dispute with a city government went home
over the weekend, but another group of nuns remain holed up in a historic
chapel demanding that its ownership be returned to the Church.
Nuns belonging to the Sisters of Charity have
occupied the abandoned chapel in the northern port city of Tianjin since
August, demanding the building be returned to their hands, one of the nuns, who
gave her surname as Liu, said on Monday.
It is the second land dispute in Tianjin between
the city government and the Catholic Church, highlighting the tensions between
religion and government control in China, even as Beijing courts diplomatic
ties with the Vatican.
The priests and nuns are all members of China's
official Catholic Church, which respects the Pope as a spiritual leader but
rejects his administrative authority.
Liu said the chapel has "historic
significance" for her order. In 1870, the building, an adjoining orphanage
and nunnery, as well as other Tianjin churches were burned down in anti-Western
riots, and 10 nuns were killed.
In 1903 the chapel was rebuilt and it remained in Church
hands until after the Communist takeover in 1949. In later decades the chapel
disappeared behind new buildings and the nuns, who regrouped in 1980, assumed
it was destroyed.
But in 2003 the demolition of a handkerchief
factory revealed the chapel had survived, and the nuns have since been
demanding its return, Liu said.
About 10 nuns have occupied the chapel day and
night since August, when developers moved to demolish it.
"If we didn't move in, they would have taken
it away from us," said another nun, who asked not to be named. "The
place means a lot to us, but officials have just ignored our requests for its
return."
HEADING HOME
The other religious property protest in Tianjin
petered out over the weekend when the last of a group that originally numbered
almost 50 returned to their home province of Shanxi.
The mayor promised that if the remaining 13
priests, nuns and seminarians went home, he would deal with the dispute, one of
the priests said.
"We've not given up our demand," the
priest said by telephone from Shanxi. "But we had to give the mayor face.
He said the deadlock could not go on as it would make the situation even harder
to solve."
The low-rise, colonial-style building in the former
Italian concession in Tianjin, southeast of Beijing, was owned by the Shanxi
Catholics before the 1949 Communist revolution.
The building was then seized by the government and
has never been handed back despite a 1993 promise to
do so, the priest said.
"We believe that if the Tianjin government has
given their word, it will be solved soon. We still want them to give the
building back so we can manage it," he said, before the line was abruptly
cut. He could not be reached again.
The Tianjin city government declined comment, but
sent a fax of an article from the official Xinhua news agency dated December 23
on the dispute.
"The Tianjin government has a firm and clear
policy on religious properties and the protection of the legal rights of
religious groups," it quoted a spokesman from the State Bureau of
Religious Affairs as saying.
Chinese police regularly harass members of the
underground Roman Catholic Church, but generally leave religious services
alone.
Beijing has had no ties with the Vatican since 1951
and insists relations cannot be resumed unless the Holy See severs links with
self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own.
Since China restored officially controlled religion
in the 1980s, it has selectively returned confiscated land to Catholic
churches. But in many places land remains in dispute.
Chrétiens
en ombres chinoises (le Monde)
LE MONDE | 23.05.07 | 14h45 ¥ Mis à jour le
23.05.07 | 14h45
ENVOYÉ SPÉCIAL À FENGXIANG ET DANS LA PROVINCE DU
HEBEI
Mgr Li Jinfeng est un drôle de paroissien :
l'évêque de Fengxiang, gros bourg poussiéreux de la province du Shaanxi, fait
partie de la mouvance catholique de l'Eglise clandestine chinoise et exerce
illégalement son ministère tout en s'étant assuré du soutien bienveillant des
responsables locaux du Parti communiste... Une situation singulière mais plus
si inédite dans la Chine d'aujourd'hui : les rapports évoluent entre l'Etat et
certains "résistants" d'une communauté de catholiques pour lesquels
seule comptait autrefois l'autorité du Vatican.
L'évêque vit dans le petit presbytère situé
derrière une église de style pour le moins baroque, sorte de monumentale
pâtisserie architecturale que personne ne pourrait qualifier de clandestine.
Elle domine de sa vingtaine de mètres une grande cour ouverte sur l'une des
grandes rues de la ville. Plantée au coeur de Fengxiang, mais dépourvue de
toute existence légale, l'église symbolise ces "zones grises" qui, en
Chine, bousculent les lignes séparant l'interdit, l'autorisé et le toléré.
Les relations qu'entretient l'évêque avec les
autorités sont le signe de changements intervenus entre les deux Eglises :
l'officielle, dépendante du régime, non reconnue par Rome, et la souterraine,
qui obéit au Vatican et résiste depuis des lustres au pouvoir chinois. Quatre
millions de fidèles appartiennent à la première, entre cinq et neuf millions à
la seconde. Monseigneur est un petit homme de 87 ans, bon pied, bon oeil malin
derrière une grosse paire de lunettes. Il parle et lit le latin, a appris des
rudiments d'italien et même de français en solitaire.
Son passé résume à lui seul les vies brisées des
catholiques de Chine populaire. Arrêté en 1958, sept ans après la rupture des
liens entre le Vatican et Pékin et alors que la répression s'était durcie
contre les croyants de toutes religions, il sera, jusqu'à la fin de sa peine,
en 1973, ballotté de prisons en camps de travail. Puis il est forcé d'intégrer
une unité pour anciens détenus. Il devient mineur.
"J'ai réussi, grâce à Dieu, à traverser toutes
ces épreuves sans trop de mal, observe-t-il aujourd'hui, assis dans son petit
bureau croulant sous les livres. A la mine, j'étais gardien et l'on ne
m'obligeait pas à descendre au fond du trou, même si je le faisais parfois pour
gagner un peu d'argent supplémentaire."
Mgr Li retrouve la liberté en 1979. Son prédécesseur,
malade, très âgé, lui demande de prendre la succession. Le 25 avril 1980, il
est nommé évêque, dans la clandestinité absolue. "La bulle du pape en peau
d'agneau annonçant ma nomination a été envoyée à Hongkong, car je ne pouvais
directement la recevoir ici..."
Le prélat n'a jamais accepté d'adhérer à
l'Association patriotique des catholiques, créée en 1982. Celle-ci rassemble
les catholiques d'une Eglise aux ordres du pouvoir, qui nomme elle-même ses
évêques le plus souvent au mépris du Saint-Siège. "Les envoyés de
l'Association, qui connaissaient évidemment mon existence, m'ont demandé de les
rejoindre à plusieurs reprises. J'ai toujours refusé, estimant qu'il ne m'était
pas possible de devenir membre d'une organisation ne reconnaissant pas le Saint-Père..."
Mais, malgré sa résistance au
"formatage", l'évêque a forgé "une très bonne relation avec les
cadres locaux", selon son expression. Un modus vivendi qui lui permet de
garantir la sécurité de ses 20 000 fidèles, de ses 40 prêtres - dont 10 étudient
à l'étranger, l'un d'eux en France - et de ses 39 moines et religieuses.
"Cette situation est un cas assez unique", admet-il.
Un jour, des cadres communistes sont venus le voir
pour lui demander de coopérer avec le gouvernement. Après moult discussions et
négociations, on a fini de part et d'autre par choisir le compromis, le refus
d'une confrontation stérile. Après tout, Mgr Li est aussi le garant pour le
pouvoir de la bonne conduite de ses fidèles... Des catholiques de l'Eglise
souterraine sont venus le voir il y a quelque temps. Ils n'arrivaient pas à
croire qu'il était encore membre de leur mouvance. "Je ne menace pas le
pouvoir en portant la mitre et la crosse, dit-il avec malice. A l'exception des
questions religieuses, je suis tout à fait d'accord avec les autorités !"
Quel contraste pour le vieil évêque ! En novembre 2001, des policiers avaient
fait irruption au presbytère, lui enjoignant "de prendre beaucoup de
vêtements", l'arrêtant pour plusieurs semaines avant de lui conseiller
vertement de suivre des "sessions de rééducation" !
La situation de Mgr Li est "inédite".
Mais il n'est plus le seul à avoir choisi la voie du compromis, comme le
prouvent plusieurs exemples de "collaboration" avec les autorités de
la part de prélats autrefois clandestins. Ce nouveau type de relations a
contribué à détendre l'atmosphère dans tout le district. Il suffit de sortir de
Fengxiang pour s'en convaincre. Non loin de la ville, à environ une demi-heure
de piste à travers les hauts plants de maïs, une église à deux clochers,
construite en 1995, rompt la monotonie du paysage. Au bout, c'est le village de
Wa Yaoutou, 400 âmes dont 300 catholiques.
"Nous n'avons aucun problème avec les
autorités", explique M. Wang, un paysan dont le père et le grand-père étaient
catholiques. Assis dans le minuscule salon de sa maison bâtie dans l'unique
rue, au pied de l'église, il se félicite qu'en "cas d'éventuelles
difficultés il suffit d'aller en parler à l'évêque". A quelques centaines
de mètres de là, les religieuses "clandestines" d'un couvent tiennent
un discours semblable. La Mère supérieure se souvient qu'"il y a trois ans
des gens du gouvernement local sont venus nous demander de ne pas habiter
ensemble. Ils venaient de découvrir qu'ici c'est un couvent ! Mais depuis deux
ans, tout va bien. Des cadres du parti viennent même discuter tranquillement
avec nous." A quelques dizaines de kilomètres de là, plus loin dans la
campagne, dans un autre couvent de moines franciscains, les Frères admettent
que leur situation de "clandestins" s'est considérablement améliorée.
Le couvent s'organise autour d'un ensemble assez vaste de bâtiments, une grande
chapelle, un réfectoire, une cuisine, des cellules monastiques, des salles de
travail, un potager... tout ce qu'il faut pour garantir à la dizaine de reclus
un certain degré d'autarcie.
1 | 2 | suivant
Bruno Philip
Article paru dans l'édition du 24.05.07.
Une
explosion des religions sous étroite surveillance (le Monde)
LE MONDE | 23.05.07 | 14h45
Garantie par la Constitution depuis 1980, après la
fin des années du maoïsme athée radical, la liberté de croyance en Chine
suscite un grossissement continu des rangs de presque toutes les grandes
religions.
Sous l'oeil sourcilleux d'un pouvoir qui a relâché
son contrôle sur l'individu mais reste très attentif à l'émergence du fait
religieux, le désir spirituel renaît. Mais le régime est autant soucieux
d'instrumentaliser les religions à son bénéfice quand il exalte les
"valeurs morales" que de se prémunir contre l'émergence incontrôlable
de groupes religieux pouvant menacer le monopole du parti. Les chiffres
officiels concernant le nombre de fidèles, toutes religions confondues, sont
très inférieurs à la réalité. Un sondage récent, réalisé par l'Université
normale de Shanghaï, fait état d'un total de 300 millions de croyants en
République populaire, soit trois fois plus que les chiffres du régime...
De source officielle, il y aurait ainsi 5 millions
de catholiques. En fait, si l'on y ajoute le nombre des croyants appartenant à
l'Eglise clandestine, 11, voire 14 millions de Chinois seraient catholiques.
Même chose pour les protestants. Officiellement, ils sont 16 millions. En
réalité, les différentes sectes pentecôtistes, évangélistes, anglicanes ou luthériennes
ont le vent en poupe et pourraient totaliser une quarantaine de millions de
fidèles. Ici comme ailleurs dans d'autres régions du monde, le protestantisme
séduit de plus en plus, notamment parce qu'il fait miroiter à l'individu les
avantages d'une religion plus personnelle, déconnectée des commandements
temporels d'une "superstructure" autoritaire comme le Vatican.
Le nombre de musulmans, que cela soit les Huis,
descendants de commerçants arabo-persans, ou les Ouïgours, turcophones de la
province occidentale du Xinjiang, est estimé à une vingtaine de millions de
personnes. Les Ouïgours, souvent hostiles à la colonisation des Chinois hans
sur leur territoire et dont une minorité est tiraillée par des velléités
d'indépendance, suscitent la méfiance de Pékin, qui réprime sans pitié
religieux et militants séparatistes dans ces lointaines marches de l'empire.
Les Huis, dispersés dans tout le pays, ne sont en revanche pas perçus comme une
menace politique, même si un nombre croissant de jeunes musulmans partis faire
des études coraniques en Arabie saoudite ou dans d'autres pays arabes
reviennent en Chine ragaillardis par les préceptes d'un islam plus rigoureux,
voire plus intégriste sur le plan des valeurs morales.
La liste serait incomplète si elle ne mentionnait
pas des religions plus... chinoises qui, elles aussi, redeviennent de plus en
plus populaires. Les bouddhistes sont les plus nombreux en Chine, leurs fidèles
étant estimés à 8 % de la population, soit plus de 100 millions de personnes,
par un rapport du service des libertés religieuses du département d'Etat
américain. Officiellement, les statistiques sont inexistantes. Mais un nombre
croissant de Chinois hans se rendent au Tibet, pas seulement pour des motifs
commerciaux liés aux opportunités offertes par le Grand Ouest chinois, mais
aussi pour des raisons liées à la fascination exercée par le bouddhisme
lamaïque...
Quant au taoïsme, qui est autant une religion
qu'une philosophie, il ferait continuellement de nouveaux adeptes sans que les
fidèles des préceptes de Lao Tseu puissent être répertoriés.
Article paru dans l'édition du 24.05.07.
Top Law
Firm for Human Rights Suspended After Filing Parole Papers for Jailed Beijing
Church Leader
To: National & International Desks
Contact: Bob Fu, China Aid Association,
267-205-5210, 432-689-6985, bobfu@ChinaAid.org
MIDLAND, Texas, Nov. 4 /Christian Wire Service/
--China Aid Association learned that November 4, 2005, a top law firm in
Beijing known for defending human rights was ordered closed for one year by the
Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice.
According to reliable reports, Mr. Gao Zhisheng,
the director of Beijing Shengzhi Law Firm, received a formal government notice
that all of his law firm operations are suspended for one year. Hours before
receiving the closure notice, Mr. Gao filed parole documents with the Beijing
People's Court of Haidian District for Ms. Xiao Yunfei, the wife of jailed
house church leader Pastor Cai Zhuohua. He is one of the defense lawyers for
Pastor Cai, his wife Ms. Xiao Yunfei and two other family members who were
arrested last September. The Chinese government accused them of "illegal
business practices" for printing and distributing hundreds of thousands of
copies of the Bible and other Christian literature. They are being held
following their trial and awaiting a verdict.
In an interview with Bob Fu, president of CAA the
morning of November 4 following the parole paper filing he stated that the
arrests of Pastor Cai and other family members and the more than one year continuous
detention following a trial without a verdict is illegal according to Chinese
law.
It's widely believed that the retributive actions
taken against Mr. Gao and his law firm by the Chinese government is due to his
active role in defending human rights and religious freedom cases like Pastor
Cai's case. He also defended several other high profile cases including
persecuted Falun Gong practitioners. After days of intensive investigations and
interviews with numerous victims, he issued an open letter to both Chinese
President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao a few weeks ago demanding that they
stop persecuting peaceful Falun Gong practitioners.
"It is a very dark day and a devastating blow
to the rule of law in China," said Bob Fu, President of CA. "Instead
of holding the human rights and religious freedom violators accountable, the
Chinese government chooses to suppress these conscientious defenders of human
rights."
People of conscience around the world are urged to
pray for and protest against the barbaric actions by these related government
agencies.
Emails and phone calls of encouragement can be sent
at the following address:
Mr. Gao Zhisheng +86-10-81990759 Email:
gaozhisheng@263.net
Issued by China Aid Association, Inc. November 4,
2005
Two Chinese
priests detained
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_Vatican_China_Priests_Detained.html
Sunday, October 30, 2005 · Last updated 5:52 p.m.
PT, Associated Press
ROME -- Two priests from China's underground Catholic
Church have been detained, a Vatican-affiliated missionary news agency
reported. The two had reportedly just given a rare
interview to a foreign journalist.
The AsiaNews missionary agency said Friday that the
Revs. Shao Zhumin and Paul Jiang Sunian, from the underground church in Wenzhou
on China's southeast coast, were detained Thursday after celebrating Mass.
The report said the detentions were unusual because
the situation of underground priests in Wenzhou had been "calm" for
some time.
On Friday, however, the Italian newsweekly Espresso
published a two-page article in which it said it had interviewed the two
priests, as well as a third, and that they had "risked arrest" by
speaking to a foreign journalist.
The article said that two days after the interview
was conducted, Chinese police followed the reporter and took her interpreter to
the police station.
In the interview, the priests spoke of previous
detentions, with Shao saying he had been asked after his Sept. 7, 1999,
detention to make a declaration "to evaluate whether I had become
patriotic."
China allows worship in government-controlled
churches and appoints its own priests and bishops. Chinese Catholics who meet
outside the sanctioned churches are frequently harassed by authorities.
Pope Benedict XVI has been reaching out to the
Beijing government in hopes of restoring diplomatic relations and bringing all
of China's estimated 12 million Catholics under Rome's wing.
China releases Protestant church activist
By CHRISTOPHER BODEENASSOCIATED PRESS WRITERSEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Wednesday, September 28, 2005 · Lastupdated 6:08 a.m. PT
SHANGHAI, China -- A prominent activist in China's
underground Protestant church has been released from a labor camp after serving
a two-year sentence, a U.S.-based monitoring group reported Wednesday.
Zhang Yinan, 47, left a camp near the central China
city of Zhengzhou on Sunday, according to the China Aid Association,
headquartered in Midland, Texas.
China's officially atheistic Communist authorities
allow worship only in tightly controlled state churches, and those who meet
outside - often in members' homes - are routinely harassed and fined, and
sometimes sent to labor camps.
While underground church organizers can receive
sentences of several years in prison, China Aid Association President Bob Fu
said international attention given to Zhang's case had persuaded China to give
him a relatively light punishment.
"We urge the Chinese government to release all
the prisoners of conscience like Mr. Zhang," Fu said in an e-mailed
statement.
After Zhang's release, police confiscated his
identification card - needed to check into hotels and board planes - apparently
to restrict his travel, the group said.
Officers who answered phones at Zhengzhou's two
labor camps for men said they were not authorized to release any information
about prisoners.
Zhang was sentenced in 2003 without trial as
permitted by Chinese regulations on the charge of attempting to subvert China's
government and political system.
Zhang had been active in documenting the history of
the underground church movement and advocating unity among its various sects,
which often compete for converts and bicker over religious dogma.
Up to 50 million Chinese are believed to worship in
unofficial Protestant congregations, far more than the 10 million followers
claimed by the official Protestant church, which is called the "Three-Self
Patriotic Movement."
Xinjiang:
Apparent Tolerance of religious belief, but with tight state controls
April 4th 2005 - China (PRC)
Religious believers in Ghulja (Yining in Chinese),
a Xinjiang provincial town with Muslim, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox
communities, do not on first glance currently appear to experience difficulties
from the Chinese state. Authorised Christian and Muslim places of worship are
frequently built at state expense, Forum 18 News Service has found. But the
state tries to keep all religious organisations under complete control, and
also, so Forum 18 has been told, limits the size of Catholic and Muslim places
of worship, as well as restricting the number of mosques. "I have land and
the money to build a mosque, but the authorities think it inexpedient to open a
religious building in the new housing districts," Abdu Raheman, Muslim
owner of Ghulja's largest honey-producing company, complained to Forum 18.
Unregistered Chinese and Uighur Protestant communities do exist, but they
mainly have to operate in secret. Although Jehovah's Witnesses have been in
Ghulja, as far as Forum 18 has been able to establish they have not set up a
religious community.
Law and Religion News,
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=537
SEOUL -
U.S. President George W.Bush said on Wednesday he would raise religious freedom
in China on the last leg of his three-nation tour of Asia.
[LatelineNews: 2002-2-19]
The issue has been a major sticking point in U.S.
ties with Beijing's atheist leadership.
Speaking after talks with South Korean President
Kim Dae-jung, Bush told a news conference he would continue a discussion he had
with Chinese President Jiang Zemin on religion in Shanghai last year and urge
Beijing to hold talks with the Vatican.
"In my last visit with President Jiang, I
shared with him my faith. I talked to him in very personal terms about my Christian
beliefs."
He said he told Jiang last October: "I would
hope that he, as a president of a great nation, would understand the important
role of religion in an individual's life."
"I will do so again. I will bring up ... that
I would hope the government would honour the request of the Papal Nuncio to at
least have dialogue about the bishops
that are interned there."
China and the Holy See have no diplomatic relations
and China does not recognise the Pope. China's crackdown on religious groups
not under state control has ensnared many clergy among millions of Chinese
Catholics who profess loyalty to the Pope.
Asked by a reporter
whether he would meet Chinese political dissidents, Bush said he was uncertain
about his itinerary. Reuters
Bible
smuggler back in Hong Kong
Sunday, 10 February, 2002, 15:56 GMT
A Hong Kong businessman who was sentenced to two
years in prison for smuggling thousands of bibles into China has been allowed
to return to Hong Kong.
Li Guangqiang, was released from prison on Saturday.
The official Chinese news agency Xinhua said that
the decision to release him was made on health grounds ?
Mr Li is suffering from hepatitis B - and that he
would remain under the surveillance of the authorities.
Mr Li was arrested last May and accused of
spreading an evil cult, a charge which can carry the death penalty in
China.
But last month, the charges were downgraded to
carrying out illegal business activities.
US President Bush, who is to visit China later this
month, had expressed concern about Mr Li's case.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
China
accused of crackdown on Christians
By Joe McDonald
Feb. 11, 2002 | BEIJING (AP) --
Chinese authorities have killed 129 people and
arrested nearly 24,000 in a crackdown on Christian churches that operate
outside government control, a group of Chinese religious activists said Monday.
In a report released in New York, the Committee for
Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China published what it said were
official documents outlining a campaign that includes torture to stamp out
independent worship.
The report accused senior Chinese leaders of
approving the violence.
The accusations come at a sensitive time for China,
a week before President Bush makes his first official visit to Beijing. A Hong
Kong businessman imprisoned for smuggling Bibles to a banned Church was
released this weekend after Bush expressed concern about him.
China's communist government allows only
state-monitored
worship. It is struggling to rein in new religious
movements that have attracted millions of followers in recent years.
The most prominent target has been the Falun Gong
spirituel movement, banned in 1999 as a threat to public safety and communist
rule. But other targeted groups span the spectrum from Roman Catholics to
Buddhists to newer organizations with unorthodox views.
"The level of persecution aimed against
unregistered Christians in China is high," said the report. "The
persecution against underground Christians has escalated and originates at the
highest central levels of the Chinese government."
The committee is run by Chinese Christians living
abroad. Robin Munro, a British human rights researcher who has no connection to
the committee, said he reviewed the documents that it gathered and believed
they were genuine. He said it was the biggest quantity of internal Chinese
government documents that he had seen assembled by one group.
"It paints a pretty frightening picture of the
Chinese security authorities' attempt to suppress a wide range of spiritual
groups," Munro said by telephone from London.
Calls seeking comment from China's Foreign
Ministry, Ministry of Public Security and the official Roman Catholic and
Protestant organizations weren't answered Monday. Most government offices were
closed on the eve of the Chinese New Year.
Estimates by foreign religious scholars of the
number of
underground, or house, church members run as high as 60
million.The official Christian churches have about 15 million followers.
The 141-page report released Monday cites documents
that it said were supplied by activists in China and officials who oppose the
crackdown.
They include a report that says the United States
and Taiwan are using Falun Gong and other religious groups to undermine China's
stability.
In addition, researchers investigated house
churches in 20 provinces and found that 129 people had been killed, 23,686
arrested and 4,014 sentenced to re-education, according to the report. It
didn't say how most of the deaths were alleged to have taken place or how the
research was carried out.
The report accused Chinese authorities of using
criminal charges against religious leaders to avoid criticism about damaging
freedom of worship.
It noted the case of Gong Shengliang, founder of
the banned South China Church. Gong was sentenced to death in December on
charges of rape and using a cult to undermine the law, according to members of
his church and human rights monitors.
According to the report, 63 other South China
Church leaders have been detained and some sentenced to up to seven years in
prison. It said one was missing and may have been killed.
The report cited statements by followers of other
groups who said they suffered rape, beatings, electric shocks and other abuse.
The group claimed to have obtained documents
showing that the harsh tactics were approved by senior leaders including Vice
President Hu Jintao, who is expected to succeed President Jiang Zemin as
China's next leader.
China
Detains 47 Christians As Bush Urges Freedom of Worship
BEIJING, Feb 22, 2002 -- (dpa) China detained 47
Christians at a church meeting in suburban Beijing on Thursday, a Hong Kong
rigottes group said on Friday, as U.S. President George W. Bush ended his visit
to China with a call for freedom of worship in China.
Some 70 police raided the meeting of Christians
from from five areas of northern China, the Information Center for Human Rights
and Democracy said.
Police charged the group with holding an illegal
gathering, but released 55 of them with a caution on Friday, the center said.
Changping district police body-searched the
Christians, confiscatoire their Bibles, and did not allow them to drink or go
to the toilet, it said.
One 70-year-old man needed emergency treatment
after suffering a recurrence of heart problems while in detention.
Bush urged China to allow freer worship and promote
democratic reform, as he addressed students at one of the country's top
universities on Friday.
"My prayer is that all persecution will end,
so that all in China are free to gather and worship as they wish," he
said.
"Regardless of where or how these believers
worship, they are no threat to public order; in fact they make good
citizens."
On Thursday, at a joint press conference after
talks with Bush, Chinese President Jiang Zemin defended China's religious
freedom and said that anyone imprisoned must have broken the law.
"Whatever religion people believe in, they
have to uphold the law," he said.
Bush urged Jiang to hold dialogue with the Dalai
Lama and the Vatican.
China only allows state-supervised religious
groups.
Earlier this month Amnesty International
highlighted the case of five leaders of the banned South China Church, who face
execution after they were sentenced to death for crimes including subversion,
rape and causing serious injury. All five denied the charges.
Scholars
Discuss Evils of Canonized Missionaries in Beijing
BEIJING, Oct 5, 2000 -- (BBC Monitoring) Xinhua
(New China News Agency)
Over 20 Chinese experts on history and religions held
a
symposium here today, exposing the crimes committed by
recently canonized foreign missionaries and their
followers.
Scholars listed a number of facts to illustrate
that in
modern history Catholic missionaries' activities were
closely
linked with foreign forces' invasion of China.
Prof Dai Yi said, "lots of foreign
missionaries followed the
warships of foreign aggressors to China in and after the
Opium War [1840-1842], and actually foreign
aggression and
missionaries' activities are combined into one. That is,
missionaries' activities were an integral part of invasion,
missionaries acted as guides and tools for foreign aggressors
and in return, aggressors paved the way for the
missionaries'
activities."
Some participants elaborated on the historic
background and
inner causes of "religious cases" in history,
stressing that
it is the foreign missionaries that should answer for
the
consequences because their monstrous evils exasperated the
Chinese people and eventually fused the outburst of
the
Yihetuan (known as Boxers) Movement [referring to
the Boxer
Rebellion (1899-1901), an anti-foreign uprising,
when the
Boxers killed Western missionaries, their families
and
Chinese converts].
Participants pointed out that foreign missionaries
executed
in certain "religious cases", such as
Auguste Chapdelaine,
Franciscus de Capillas and Albericus Crescitelli,
had only
themselves to blame for still being hated by people today,
because they had stopped no evil.
The Holy See, disregarding the strong opposition
from the
Chinese people, "canonized" these
infamous missionaries,
which reveals the Vatican's vicious intention to
intervene in
China's internal affairs through religious
activities, the
scholars said, pointing out that the canonization tramples
on
the sovereignty of the Chinese Catholic Church, as
well as a
severe provocation to the 1.2 billion Chinese people.
The scholars all voiced their protest over the
perverse and
vicious deeds of the Vatican, saying that the present
China
is strong enough to protect its national security and
national dignity and any attempt to distort history and
humiliate the Chinese people is doomed to failure.
According to the sponsors of the symposium, the
participants
are professors and researchers from the People's
University
of China, the Beijing University, the Beijing Normal
University, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
and other
academic institutes, who specialize in history or religion.
China Asks Hong Kong Church to Keep Low Profile
over
Canonizations
HONG KONG, Oct 4, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse)
China has
told the Hong Kong Catholic Church to avoid huge
celebrations
to mark the Vatican's canonization of 120 Chinese missionary
martyrs, a report said Wednesday.
But the request from the Beijing officials here to
keep a low
profile over the canonizations has left the leaders of the
territory's Catholic Church baffled, Bishop Joseph Zen Zekiun
said quoted by the independent Chinese-language Ming
Pao.
"How do you measure 'high' and 'low"
profile? I think we have
no political motive in celebrating what is an
important
religious affair," said Zen, deputy to Cardinal John
Baptist
Wu Cheng-chung.
The request was made by the official from Beijing's
liaison
office in the territory at a meeting on September 18 with
the
Hong Kong diocese which was not attended by Bishop
Zen.
"We don't have to listen to him ... There is
no problem of
religious freedom in Hong Kong," he said, adding that
"from
Hong Kong's point of view, he was seemingly trying
to
interfere, which may be serious."
Bishop Zen said the mainland authorities did not
like the
Hong Kong diocese to have contact with their mainland
counterparts and the slightest communication would attract a
warning from the liaison office.
The church in mainland China however is strictly
controlled,
and Beijing broke off ties with the Holy See in 1958.
The
official Catholic Church in China does not recognize the
pope
and has about four million followers.
China Meddles with Hong Kong Catholic Church,
Cleric Says
HONG KONG, Oct 4, 2000 -- (Reuters) A leader of
Hong Kong's
Catholic Church has accused Beijing of meddling with
religious freedoms in the territory, one of the most serious
accusations against China since it took back the former
British colony in 1997.
Bishop Joseph Zen, in an article he contributed to
Hong
Kong's Ming Pao daily newspaper, said Beijing had
tried to
interfere with local church celebrations of the Vatican's
recent canonization of 120 Roman Catholic martyrs.
"The Liaison Office urged the Hong Kong
diocese to handle the
canonization in a low-key manner," wrote Zen, who is
deputy
to local Catholic leader Cardinal John Baptist Wu.
The celebrations went ahead in Hong Kong churches
over the
weekend.
Religious freedom is widely seen as a key indicator
of
Beijing's promise to leave Hong Kong's internal affairs
untouched for 50 years following the 1997 handover from
Britain.
The Chinese government has been vitriolic in its
condemnation
of the Vatican for canonizing 87 Chinese and 33
missionaries
on Sunday, saying the act glorified a century of
Western
imperialism in China.
Beijing has also taken offence at the timing of the
canonizations, which coincided with the 51st anniversary of
the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Zen hit out at what he termed Beijing's
"violent suppression"
of both the overt and underground churches on
mainland China
recently.
"What hurts the feelings of countless Chinese
citizens and
peace-loving people all over the world is the violent
suppression by central authorities of churches in the
country," he wrote.
"It leads one to recall some of the campaigns
in the early
years of the People's Republic of China, even the
Cultural
Revolution," Zen said, referring to Mao
Zedong's campaign of
political persecution from 1966 to 1976.
Zen said the Liaison Office had tried to dissuade
him from
communicating with his counterparts across the border in
China after he spoke briefly with a Catholic leader
on the mainland.
Pope Apologizes
To China Over Missionary Errors
VATICAN CITY, Oct 3, 2000 -- (Reuters) Pope John
Paul has
extended an olive branch to China, which is angry at the
canonization of martyrs it calls "evil-doing
sinners", by
apologizing for any errors committed by Western missionaries
in colonial times.
At an audience on Monday for pilgrims who came to
Rome for
Sunday's 120 canonizations, the Pope said the
Church was not
passing a positive judgment on colonial times nor on the
behavior of some governments towards China in the past.
He said criticism of missionary activity in
colonial times
was often the result of "a partial and
non-objective reading
of history which sees only limitations and
errors..."
He added: "If there were any (errors) - and is
man ever free
of defects? - we ask forgiveness."
The Pope offered his apology as an irate Beijing
kept up
attacks. The Chinese government exploded in anger at the
weekend when the Pope made saints of 87 Chinese Roman
Catholics and 33 missionaries who were killed in
China
between 1648 and 1930.
The canonizations were even harder for Beijing to
swallow
because the ceremony took place on the 51st anniversary of
the founding of the People's Republic of China.
The Vatican said the ceremony was held on October 1
because
it was the feast of St Teresa of Lisieux, patroness
of
missions.
In his homily on Sunday the Pope said the
canonizations were
an attempt to honor all Chinese people.
On Sunday night Beijing fired the latest salvo in
its war of
words by providing what it said were details about two
of the
new saints.
A spokesman for China's State Administration of
Religious
Affairs cited examples of "monstrous
crimes" committed by two
of the new saints against the Chinese people,
including one
who he said slept with all the brides of his
followers.
Alberto Crescitelli, an Italian missionary killed
in 1900,
"was notorious for
taking the 'right to the first night' of
each bride under his diocese", Xinhua news agency
quoted the
spokesman as saying.
A second missionary, Auguste Chapdelaine of France,
who was
executed in 1856, instigated the second Opium War and the
burning of the imperial Summer Palace in 1860 after he was
punished for felonies, the spokesman said.
"Did they represent God's 'true love' to the
Chinese people
like the Vatican said?" asked the spokesman.
The Vatican says the martyrs were killed because
they were
loyal to their Christian faith.
China says most were traitors executed for breaking
laws when
colonial forces invaded China during the 1839-42 Opium War,
and during the 1898-1900 Boxer Uprising.
Cabinet d'avocats
CADRE REGLEMENTAIRE AFFERANT A LA
RELIGION
Decree No 426, State Council, November 30, 2004, announcing
the Regulations on Religious Affairs
Règlement afférant à la gestion des lieux pour les
activités religieuses des étrangers - Décret du State Council de la République
Populaire de Chine N° 144, 31 janvier 1994
Constitution de la Chinese Bishops'
Conference
Constitution de la Chinese
Catholic Patriotic Association
(1980 telle qu'amendée en 1986 et 1992)
Règlement afférant au contrôle des activités
religieuses - Décret du State Council de la République Populaire de Chine N°
145, 31 janvier 1994
POLITIQUES
DU PARTI COMMUNISTE CHINOIS CONCERNANT LA RELIGION - CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY
POLICY
Document No. 19, The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on
the Religious Question during Our Country's Socialist Period, Central Committee
Of the Communist Party of China, 31 March 1982
Investigative Report on Realizing the Party's
Religious Policy and Related Questions, Chinese Communist Party Investigation
Department, 29 December, 1985
Document No. 6, Circular Issued by the Central
Committee of the Communist Party and the State Council on Some Problems
Concerning Further Improving Work on Religion, February 5, 1991
RELIGIOUS
AFFAIRS BUREAU OF THE STATE COUNCIL
Method for the Annual Inspection of Places of
Religious Activity, State Council, Religious Affairs Bureau, 30 July 1996
Notice on Ideas and Issues on Dealing with
Relocating Chapels, Temples, and Houses Amid Urban Construction, January 20,
1993
Règlement afférant à la gestion des lieux pour les activités
religieuses
Décret
du State Council de la République Populaire de Chine
N° 145, 31 janvier 1994
Voir aussi
Registration Procedures for Venues for Religious
Activities, formulated in accordance with Article 2 of the "Regulation
Governing Venues for Religious Activities, 1 May, 1994
Est édicté ci-dessous le règlement afférant à la
gestion des lieux pour les activités religieuses. Il entre en vigueur à sa
signature.
Signé Le Premier Ministre Li Peng, 31 janvier 1994.
1. - Afin de protéger les activités religieuses
normales et pour sauvegarder les droits légaux des lieux d'activités
religieuses, il est opportun en conformité avec la Constitution, de rédiger ces
règlements afférant à la gestion des lieux d'activités religieuses.
2. - Les lieux auxquels référence est faite au sein
de ces règlements sont les temples, mosquées, églises et autres lieux
permanents où les activités religieuses sont tenues.
Pour établir un lieu d'activités religieuses, il
faut accomplir un processus d'enregistrement. Les modalités d'enregistrement
sont définies par les organes des affaires religieuses du State Council.
3. - La gestion des lieux d'activités religieuses
relève de la compétence du comité de gestion de ce lieu. Les droits légaux et
les activités religieuses normales sur ce site sont protégés par la loi. Aucune
autre organisation ni aucun individu ne peut y porter atteinte à ou y
interférer.
4. Les lieux d'activités religieuses doivent
établir un système de gestion. Lors des activités religieuses, le lieu
d'activités religieuses doit se conformer à la loi et respecter les règlements
pertinents.
Personne ne doit utiliser les lieux d'activités
religieuses pour entreprendre des activités qui détruisent l'unité de la
nation, l'unité parmi les minorités ethniques, la stabilité sociale, ou qui
causent tout préjudice physique aux citoyens ou qui créent toute obstruction au
système d'éducation national.
5. - Les lieux d'activités religieuses ne seront
pas soumis à la domination d'organisations ou d'individus étrangers. Les
résidents temporaires et permanents des lieux d'activités religieuses doivent
respecter les règlements nationaux afférant à l'enregistrement des logements.
6. - Les lieux d'activités religieuses ont la
faculté d'accepter les dons, les offrandes et les subsides des fidèles.
7. - Sur les lieux d'activités religieuses, le
comité de direction en conformité avec les règlements nationaux a la faculté de
vendre des articles religieux, des Ïuvres d'art religieux et des livres
religieux.
8. - Les biens et les revenus des lieux d'activités
religieuses seront gérés et exploités par le comité de direction du lieu.
Aucune autre entité ni aucun individu ne peut en prendre possession ou le céder
sans contrepartie.
9. - La fermeture ou la fusion de lieux d'activités
religieuses seront notifiés aux bureaux auprès desquels les lieux ont été
enregistrés originellement et la disposition de leurs biens seront opérées en
conformité avec les règlements nationaux pertinents.
10. - Le comité de direction ou organisation
religieuse subordonnée en conformité avec les règlements nationaux concernés,
solliciteront la délivrance d'un certificat pour gérer et utiliser les terres,
les forêts, les collines et les maisons du lieu d'activités religieuses.
Les réquisitions par l'Etat de terres, forêts,
collines ou maisons gérés et exploités par le lieu d'activités religieuses
seront traités en conformité avec la Land Administration Act de la République
Populaire de Chine et les fautes décrets nationaux pertinents.
11. - Les unités et les individus concernés qui
entendent reconstruire une maison ou construire un nouvel édifice, établir un
commerce ou centre d'activités sociales, organiser une exposition ou une
exhibition, réaliser un film cinématographique ou vidéo dans la zone sous la
gestion du lieu d'activités religieuses, doit d'abord obtenir l'accord du
comité de direction du lieu d'activités religieuses et du Religious Affairs
Bureau au niveau du comté ou au niveau supérieur avant de se présenter au
département concerné pour achever les procédures.
12. - Les reliques et les environs des lieux
d'activités religieuses qui figurent sur les liste des reliques historiques ou
qui sont situées dans des zones de paysage de grande beauté doivent être gérés
et protégés en conformité avec les lois et les règlements. Ils sont également
soumis à l'initiative et au contrôle des départements concernés.
13. - Les Religious Affairs Bureau au niveau du
coté ou au niveau supérieur doivent prendre des initiatives et contrôler la
mise en Ïuvre de ces règlements.
14. - Au cas où un lieu d'activités religieuses
enfreindrait ces règlements, le Religious Affairs Bureau au niveau du comté ou
au niveau supérieur, en proportion à la gravité de l'affaire, a la faculté de
dispenser la sanction comme un avertissement, la cessation de l'activité ou l'annulation
de l'enregistrement.Si le cas est particulièrement sérieux, il sera soumis au
niveau comparable du gouvernement pour obtenir que l'activité soit bannie en
conformité avec la loi.
15. - Au cas où la violation de ces règlements
constituerait une infraction aux règles afférant à l'ordre public, les
départements de Sécurité Publique imposeront des sanctions en conformité avec
les règlements afférant à la sanction des infractions contre l'ordre public de
la République Populaire de Chine. Au cas où la violation constituerait un
crime, les organes judiciaires en rechercheront le responsable.
16. - Au cas où toute personne ne serait pas
satisfaite d'une décision administrative, elle peut solliciter en application
des lois et règlements concernés une nouvelle étude de la décision ou elle peut
initier des procédures judiciaires.
17. - Toute personne enfreignant les règlements ou
les droits légaux de tout lieu d'activités religieuses, le Religious Affairs
Bureau au niveau du comté ou au niveau supérieur sollicitera un arrêté du
Gouvernement local au même niveau exigeant la cessation des activités
enfreignantes. Au cas où un préjudice économique aurait été causé, la
réparation de la perte serait effectuée en conformité avec la loi.
18. - Sur le fondement de ces règlements, les
gouvernements des provinces, des régions autonomes et des municipalités sous
administration directe par le Gouvernement Central ont la faculté de formuler
des mesures pour la mise en oeuvre de ces règlements au vu des conditions locales
réelles.
19. - La responsabilité pour l'interprétation de
ces règlements est attribuée au Religious Affairs Bureau du State Council.
20. - Ces règlements entreront en vigueur à la date
de leur promulgation.
Cabinet d'avocats
Constitution de la Chinese
Catholic Patriotic Association
(1980 telle qu'amendée en 1986, 1992 et 2004)
Article premier
L'organisation sera désignée la Chinese Catholic
Patriotic Association
Article 2
Cette organisation est une organisation de masse
formée par le clergé chinois et les laïcs chinois pour promouvoir l'amour de la
patrie et de l'église. Ses objets sont : sous la direction du Parti Communiste
Chinois et du Gouvernement du Peuple d'unifier le clergé et les Catholiques, de
manifester un esprit patriotique, d'observer les lois et les politiques du
gouvernement, de participer activement au programme de modernisation de la mère
patrie socialiste, de promouvoir les relations cordiales avec les catholiques
sur le plan international d'opposer l'impérialisme et l'hégémonisme, de
sauvegarder la paix mondiale et de coopérer avec le gouvernement pour la mise
en Ïuvre de la politique de liberté religieuse.
Article 3
La structure dotée de la plus haute autorité au
sein de l'organisation est la Representative Assembly. Elle est dotée du
pouvoir de rédiger et d'amender la constitution de l'organisation, de contrôler
les travaux du comité, et d'élire les membres du comité.
Article 4
À la clôture de la Representative Assembly de la
Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, le comité de l'Association sera chargé
de l'exécution des délibérations adoptées par la Representative Assembly et de
la promotion des activités de l'Association.
Article 5
L'Association établira un comité permanent élu par
les membres du bureau. À la clôture de l'assemblée des membres, le comité
permanent prendre en charge la mise en Ïuvre des décision
de l'assemblée et la gestion des activités de l'Association.
Article 6
L'Association désignera un Président et des
vice-présidents pour assumer des fonctions de direction. Elle se dotera aussi
d'un secrétaire et de secrétaires assistants pour aider le président et les
vice-présidents pour l'exercice de leurs fonctions quotidiennes. Le président,
les vice-présidents et les secrétaires seront élus par les membres du bureau.
Article 7
En cas de besoin, le bureau de l'association peut
établir touts structures nécessaires.
Article 8
La Representative Assembly de la Chinese Catholic
Patriotic Association se réunira en assemblée tous les quatre ans. En cas de
besoin, cette assemblée peut être avancée ou reportée.
Article 9
Les réunions du bureau de l'Association se
tiendront tous les deux ans, et le comité permanent se réunira annuellement.
Les réunions seront convoquées par le président et les vice-présidents. Encas
de besoin, les réunions pourront être avancées ou reportées.
Article 10
Le comité Permanent sera responsable pour la
collecte de fonds pour couvrir les dépenses de l'Association.
Article 11
L'adresse de l'Association sera à Beijing.
Article 12
S'il devenait nécessaire de mettre un terme aux
activités de l'Association la décision serait prise par la Representative
Assembly de la Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
Article 13
Cette constitution entrera en vigueur lors de son
adoption la Representative Assembly de la Chinese Catholic Patriotic
Association.
Cabinet d'avocats
Constitution
de la Chinese Bishops' Conference
Article 1
La désignation officielle est Bishops' Conference
of the Catholic Church in China.
Article 2
La Conference est la structure de l'organisation
dotée de la plus haute autorité pour les affaires de la Chinese Catholic
Church. En conformité avec la Bible et fondée sur l'esprit traditionnel de
l'Eglise unique, sainte, catholique et apostolique, ses objets sont:
- l'étude et l'explication des doctrines de la foi
et des règles à observer au sein de l'Eglise,
- l'examen et l'approbation des élections et des
ordinations d'évêques diocésains;
- établir les grandes lignes des activités
pastorales;
- l'organisation et l'unification de tout le clergé
et des laïques dans le respect de la Constitution; des lois et règlements et
des politiques du pays;
- la mise en Ïuvre des principes d'indépendance,
d'autonomie et en conformité avec la situation en Chine;
- la représentation de la Chinese Catholic Church à
l'extérieur de la Chine.
Article 3
La Conference comprendra les ordinaires de diocèse,
ainsi que les évêques auxiliaires et les évêques conseillers ; La Conference se
dotera d'un président, d'un vice-président, d'un secrétaire général, d'un
comité permanent comprenant un certain nombre d'évêques et deux évêques
conseillers.
Article 4
La Conference rendra compte au Chinese Catholic
Representatives Congress. Ce Congrès sera convoqué tous les 5 ans mais, en cas
de besoin, ces dates peuvent être avancées ou reportées. Les fonctions et les
pouvoirs du Representatives Congress sont :
La formulation et la révision de la Constitution de
la Chinese Bishops' Conference :
- l'évaluation des rapports sur les travaux de la
Conference;
- la discussion et l'adoption des décisions et
délibérations importantes,
- l'élection du président, du vice-président, du
secrétaire général et du comité permanent de la Bishops' Conference.
Les Representative Assemblies, les quorum et les
modalités de désignation des délégués seront décidées d'un commun accord entre
les comités permanents de la Bishops' Conference et de la Chinese Catholic
Patriotic Association.
Article 5
La Chinese Bishops' Conference sera dotée d'un
comité permanent, d'un vice-président, d'un secrétaire général et des membres
du comité permanent.Il sera chargé de la mise en Ïuvre des décision de la
Catholic Representatives Congress, pour le développement et la promotion des
activités de lEglise et pour la gestion des affaires y afférant.
Le président, le vice-président ,
le secrétaire général, les membres du comité permanent et les conseillers
exerceront leurs fonctions jusqu'à la prochain Catholic Representatives
Congress. Les élus sont rééligibles.
Article 6
Le président sera chargé des travaux du comité
permanent. Le vice-président, le secrétaire général assisteront le président
pour la gestion des affaires courantes.
Les assemblées générales de la Bishops' Conference
seront tenues tous les deux ans. Le comité permanent de la Bishops' Conference
se tiendra tous les ans. En cas de besoin, les dates des réunions pourront être
avancées ou reportées.
Article 7
Au cas où le président et plus de la moitié des
membres du comité permanent considéreraient qu'il serait opportun de convenir
de convoquer un comité permanent élargi ou une Bishops' Conference élargie, ils
pourront convoquer des administrateurs diocésains (clergé), des supérieurs de
séminaires ou de couvents, des responsables d'affaires de l'Eglise au niveau
provincial, des prêtres, sÏurs et représentants catholiques à participer. Mais
ces personnes ne pourront que conseiller et n'auront pas de droit de vote.
Article 8
S'agissant des questions d'une importance majeure,
le président, le vice-président et le secrétaire général doivent se concerter
avec le président, le vice-président et le secrétaire général de la Chinese
Catholic Patriotic Association.
Article 9
Le Church Affairs Committe de chaque province,
région autonome, municipalité sous administration directe du Gouvernement
Central et de chaque diocèse ont le devoir d'obéissance et d'exécution des
résolutions et des décisions de cette Conférence.
Article 10
Lorsque le comité permanent observe certains
besoins, il peut établir des comités spéciaux ou des groupes de travail pour
les traiter. Les personnes responsables seront désignées para le président, le
vice-président et le secrétaire général et la durée de leurs fonctions
coïncidera avec celle des membres du comité permanent de la Conférence.
Article 11
Le comité permanent sera chargé de la gestion
financière de la Bishops' Conference.
Article 12
La Bishops' Conference aura son siège à Beijing.
Article 13
S'il devenait nécessaire de mettre un terme à la
Bishops' Conference, la décision serait discutée et adoptée par la Chinese
Catholic Representatives' Congress.
Article 14
Cette Constitution a été approuvée par la Chinese
Catholic Representatives Congress et entre vigueur immédiatement.
Règlement afférant au
contrôle des activités religieuses des étrangers en Chine.
Cabinet d'avocats
Décret du State Council
afférant
à la gestion des lieux pour les activités religieuses des étrangers
N° 144, 31 janvier 1994
Voir aussi:
Rules for the Implementation of the Provisions on
the Administration of Religious Activities of Aliens within the Territory of
the People's Republic of China formulated in accordance with the Provisions on
the Administration of Religious Activities of Aliens within the Territory of
the People's Republic of China, September 27, 2000
Est édicté ci-dessous le règlement afférant au
contrôle des activités religieuses des étrangers en Chine. Il entre en vigueur
à sa signature.
Signé Le Premier Ministre Li Peng, 31 janvier 1994.
1. - Afin de sauvegarder la liberté de religion des
étrangers à l'intérieur des frontières de la République Populaire de Chine et
l'intérêt public de la société, ce règlement a été formulé sur le fondement de
la Constitution.
2. - La République Populaire de Chine respecte la
liberté de religion des étrangers résidant sur le territoire chinois, et elle
protège les échanges cordiaux et culturels entretenus entre les étrangers et
les personnalités religieuses chinoises.
3. - Les étrangers ont la faculté de participer à
des activités religieuses tenues dans les temples chinois, les mosquées et les
églises. Sur invitation des organisations religieuses au niveau provincial ou
supérieur, des régions autonomes et des municipalités sous administration
directe par le Gouvernement central, les étrangers ont la faculté de faire des
enseignements et de prêcher sur les lieux réservés en chine aux activités
religieuses.
4. - Les étrangers ont la faculté d'entreprendre
des activités religieuses pour d'autres étrangers dans les lieux approuvés pour
les activités religieuses par le Religious Affairs Bureau au niveau du comté ou
au niveau supérieur.
5. - À l'intérieur des frontières chinoises, les
étrangers ont la faculté d'inviter des membres du clergé chinois pour les
baptêmes, les mariages, et les funérailles ainsi que pratiquer les rites
taoïstes ou bouddhistes.
6. - Lors de leur entrée en chine, les étrangers
ont la faculté d'apporter avec eux des documents religieux imprimés, des bandes
sonores ou vidéo et d'autres équipements religieux pour leur propre
utilisation. Lorsqu'un apporte avec lui des documents religieux imprimés, des
bandes sonores ou vidéo et d'autres équipements religieux au-delà sa propre
utilisation, le cas sera traité en application du règlement applicable du
service des Douanes chinoises compétent.
Il est interdit d'introduire sur le territoire des
documents religieux imprimés ou des bandes sonores ou vidéo et autres
équipements religieux qui portent atteinte aux intérêts sociaux et publics de
la Chine.
7. - Les cas d'étrangers sollicitant des personnes
en Chine pour aller à l'étranger pour formation en tant que religieux
professionnels, ou les cas d'étrangers viennent en chine en tant qu'étudiants
ou enseignants dans des académies religieuses sont soumis aux règlements
pertinents.
8. - Les étrangers entreprenant des activités
religieuses en Chine doivent respecter les lois et règlements chinois.Sur le
territoire chinois, ils ne doivent pas établir des organisations religieuses,
des bureaux d'organisations religieuses, ouvrir des lieux de pratique
d'activités religieuses ni ouvrir des académies religieuses. Ils ne doivent pas
rechercher des adhérents parmi le peuple chinois et ne doivent pas désigner des
religieux professionnels ou entreprendre toutes activités missionnaires.
9. - Le Religious Affairs Bureau et les autres
départements du gouvernement concernés au niveau du comté ou au niveau
supérieur restreindront et dissuaderont les étrangers enfreignant ces
règlements en relation avec les activités religieuses.Si le comportement
constitue une violation des règlements sur l'immigration ou des règles
régissant l'ordre public, la sanction sera appliquée par les organes de la
Sécurité Publique en conformité avec la loi. Lorsqu'un crime est commis, les
départements judiciaires devront rechercher le responsable en conformité avec
la loi.
10. - Ces règlements sont applicables aux activités
religieuses des organisations étrangères à l'intérieur des frontières de la
République Populaire de Chine.
11. - Les activités religieuses des ressortissants
chinois résidant à l'étranger pendant qu'ils sont en Chine, de ceux de Taiwan
alors qu'ils sont sur le continent, de ceux de Hong Kong et de Macao pendant
qu'ils sont à l'intérieur sont également soumises à ces règlements.
12. - Le Religious Affairs Bureau du State Council
est responsable pour l'explication et l'interprétation de ces règlements.
13. - Ces règlements entrent en vigueur le jour de
leur promulgation.
Cabinet d'avocats
New religious regulations: Decree of the State Council of the People's
Republic of China No. 426
Regulations
on Religious Affairs, adopted at the 57th Executive Meeting of the State
Council on July 7, 2004, are hereby promulgated and shall become effective as
of March 1, 2005.
Premier Wen Jiabao
November 30, 2004
Regulations on Religious Affairs
Chapter I General Provisions
Article 1
These regulations are formulated in accordance with
the Constitution and relevant laws for the purposes of ensuring citizens'
religious belief, maintaining harmony among and between religions, preserving
social concord and regulating the administration of religious affairs.
Article 2
Citizens enjoy freedom of religious belief.
No organization or individual may compel citizens
to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate
against citizens who believe in any religion (hereinafter referred to as
religious citizens) or citizens who do not believe in any religion (hereinafter
referred to as non-religious citizens).
Religious citizens and non-religious citizens shall
respect each other and co-exist in harmony, and so shall citizens who believe
in different religions.
Article 3
The State, in accordance with the law, protects
normal religious activities, and safeguards the lawful rights and interests of
religious bodies, sites for religious activities and religious citizens.
Religious bodies, sites for religious activities
and religious citizens shall abide by the Constitution, laws, regulations and
rules, and safeguard unification of the country, unity of all nationalities and
stability of society.
No organization or individual may make use of
religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair health of
citizens or interfere with the educational system of the State, or in other
activities that harm State or public interests, or citizens' lawful rights and
interests.
Article 4
All religions shall adhere to the principle of
independence and self-governance. Religious bodies, sites for religious
activities and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination.
Religious bodies, sites for religious activities
and religious personnel may develop external exchange on the basis of
friendship and equality; all other organizations or individuals shall not
accept any religious conditions in external cooperation or exchange in
economic, cultural or other fields.
Article 5
The religious affairs department of the people's
government at or above the county level shall, in accordance with the law,
exercise administration of religious affairs that involve State or public
interests, and the other departments of the people's government at or above the
county level shall, in accordance with the law, be responsible for the
administration of relevant affairs within the limits of their respective
functions and duties.
People's governments at various levels shall
solicit the views of religious bodies, sites for religious activities and
religious citizens, and coordinate the administration of religious affairs.
Chapter II Religious Bodies
Article 6
The establishment, alteration, or cancellation of
registration, of a religious body shall be registered in accordance with the
provisions of the Regulations on Registration Administration of Associations.
The articles of association of a religious body
shall comply with the relevant provisions of the Regulations on Registration
Administration of Associations.
The activities carried out by a religious body in
accordance with its articles of association are protected by law.
Article 7
A religious body may, in accordance with the
relevant provisions of the States, compile and publish reference publications
to be circulated within religious circles. Religious publications for public
distribution shall be published in accordance with the relevant provisions of
the State on publication administration.
Publications involving religious contents should
comply with the provisions of the Regulations on Publication Administration,
and shall not contain the contents:
1) which jeopardize the harmonious co-existence
between religious and non-religious citizens;
2) which jeopardize the harmony between different
religious or with in a religion;
3) which discriminate against or insult religious
or non-religious citizens
4) which propagate religious extremism; or
5) which contravene the principle of independence
and self-governance in respect of religions.
Article 8
For the establishment of an institute for religious
education, an application shall be made by the national religious body to the
religious affairs department of the State Council, or made by the religious
body of the province, autonomous region or municipality directly under the
Central Government to the religious affairs department of the people's
government of the province, autonomous region or municipality directly under
the Central Government of the place where such institute is to be located. The
religious affairs department of the people's government of the province,
autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central Government shall,
within 30 days from the date of the receipt of the application, put forward its
views, and, if it agrees to the establishment, make a report to the religious
affairs department of the State Council for examination and approval.
The religious affairs department of the State
Council shall, within 60 days from the date of receipt of the application made
by the national religious body or the report made by the religious affairs
department of the people's government of the province, autonomous region or
municipality directly under the Central Government on the establishment of the
institute for religious education, make a decision of approval or disapproval.
Article 9
An institute of religious education to be
established shall meet the following conditions:
1) having clear and definite training objectives, a
charter for school-running and a curriculum;
2) having the source of students who meet the
training requirements;
3) having the necessary funds for school-running
and stable financial sources;
4) having the sites, facilities and equipment of
teaching that are necessary for its tasks or teaching and school-running scale;
5) having full-time leading member, qualified
full-time teaches and an internal management organization; and
6) being rationally distributed
Article 10
In light of the need of the religion concerned, a
national religious body may, in accordance with the relevant provisions, select
and send people for religious studies abroad, or accept foreigners for religious
studies in China.
Article 11
The making of hajj abroad by Chinese citizens who
believe in Islam shall be organized by the national religious body of Islam.
Chapter III Sites for Religious Activities
Article 12
Collective religious activities of religious
citizens shall, in general, be held at registered sites for religious
activities (i.e., Buddhist monasteries, Taoist temples, mosques, churches and
other fixed premises for religious activities), organized by the sites for
religious activities or religious bodies, and presided over by religious
personnel or other persons who are qualified under the prescriptions of the
religion concerned, and the process of such activities shall be in compliance
with religious doctrines and canons.
Article 13
For the preparation for establishing a site for
religious activities, an application shall be made by a religious body to the
religious affairs department of the people's government at the county level of
the place where such site is to be located. The religious affairs department of
the people's government at the county level shall, within 30 days from the date
of receipt of the application, make a report to the religious affairs
department of the people's government at the level of a city divided into districts
for examination and approval if it agrees to the establishment.
Within 30 days from the date of receipt of the
report made by the religious affairs department of the people's government at
the county level, the religious affairs department of the people's government
at the level of a city divided into districts shall, if it agrees to the
establishment of a Buddhist monastery, Taoist temple, mosque or church, put
forward its views upon examination and verification and make a report to the
religious affairs department of the people's government of the province,
autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central government for
examination and approval; and for the establishment of other fixed premises for
religious activities, it shall make a decision of approval or disapproval.
A religious body may begin the preparatory work for
establishing a site for religious activity only after the application for such
establishment is approved.
Article 14
A site for religious activities to be established shall
meet the following conditions:
1) it is established for a purpose not in
contravention of the provisions of Article 3 and 4 of these Regulations;
2) local religious citizens have a need to
frequently carry out collective religious activities;
3) there are religious personnel or other persons
who are qualified under the prescriptions of the religion concerned to preside
over the religious activities;
4) there are the necessary funds; and
5) it is rationally located without interfering
with the normal production and livelihood of the neighboring units and
residents.
Article 15
Upon approval of preparation for the establishment
of a site for religious activities and completion of construction, an
application shall be made for registration with the religious affairs
department of the people's government at the county level of the place where
such site is located. The religious affairs department of the people's
government at the county level shall, within 30 days from the date of receipt
of the application, examine the management organization, formulation of
internal rules, and other aspects of such site, and, if the site meets the
conditions of registration, register it and issue the Registration Certificate
of the Site for Religious Activities.
Article 16
Where a site for religious activities merges with
another one, divides itself, terminates, ore changes any item registered, the
formalities for alteration registration shall be gone through with the original
registration administration department.
Article 17
A site for religious activities shall set up a
management organization and exercise democratic management. Members of the
management organization of the site for religious activities shall be
recommended or elected upon democratic consultation, and then be reported to
the registration administration department of such site for the record.
Article 18
A site for religious activities shall strengthen
internal management, and, in accordance with the provisions of the relevant
laws, regulations and rules, establish and improve the management systems for
personnel, finance, accounting, security, fire control, cultural relics
protection, sanitation and epidemic prevention, etc., and accept the guidance,
supervision and inspection by the relevant departments of the local people's
government.
Article 19
The religious affairs department shall supervise
and inspect the sites for religious activities in terms of their compliance
with laws, regulations and rules, the development and implementation of
management systems, the alteration of registered items, the conduction of
religious activities and activities that involve foreign affairs. The sites for
religious activities shall accept the supervision and inspection by the
religious affairs department.
Article 20
A site for religious activities may accept
donations from citizens in accordance with religious customs, but no means of
compulsion or apportionment may be adopted.
No non-religious bodies or sites not for religious
activities may organize or hold religious activities, nor accept religious
donations.
Article 21
Religious articles, artworks and publications may
be sold in the sites for religious activities.
A Buddhist monastery, Taoist temple, mosque or
church that is registered as a site for religious activities (hereinafter
referred to as a monastery, temple, mosque or church) may, in accordance with
the relevant provisions of the State, compile and publish reference publications
to be circulated within religious circles.
Article 22
Where a large-scale religious activity, in which
different provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the
Central Government are involved and which is beyond the accommodation capacity
of a site for religious activities, is to be held, or where a large-scale
religious activity is to be held outside a site for religious activities, the
religious body, monastery, temple, mosque or church that sponsors such activity
shall, 30 days before the activity is held, make an application to the
religious affairs department of the people's government of the province,
autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central Government of the
place where such large-scale religious activity is to be held. The religious
affairs department of the people's government of the province, autonomous
region or municipality directly under the Central Government shall, within 15
days from the date of receipt of the application, make a decision of approval
or disapproval.
A large-scale religious activity shall, as required
in the written notification of approval, proceed in accordance with religious
rites and rituals, without violating the relevant provisions of Articles 3 and
4 of these Regulations. The religious body, monastery, temple, mosque or church
that sponsors such large-scale religious activity shall adopt effective
measures to prevent against any accidents. The people's government of the
township or town and the relevant departments of the local people's government
at or above the county level of the place where such large-scale religious
activity is to be held shall, within the limits of their respective functions
and duties, exercise the necessary administration in order to ensure the safe and
orderly progress of the large-scale religious activity.
Article 23
A site for religious activities shall prevent
against the occurrence, within the site, of any major accident or event, such
as breaking of religious taboos, which hurts religious feelings of citizens,
disrupts the unity of all nationalities or impairs social stability.
When an accident or event mentioned in the
preceding paragraph occurs, the site for religious activities in question
shall, without delay, make a report to the religious affairs department of the
people's government at the county level of the place where it is located.
Article 24
Where a religious body, monastery, temple, mosque
or church intends to build a large-size outdoor religious statue outside the
site for religious activities, the relevant religious body of the province,
autonomous region or municipality directly under the Central Government shall
make an application to the religious affairs department of the people's
government of the province, autonomous region or municipality directly under
the Central Government, which shall, within 30 days from the date of receipt of
the application, put forward its view, and , if it aggress to the building of
the statue, make a report to the religious affairs department of the State
Council for examination and approval.
The religious affairs department of the State
Council shall, within 60 days from the date of receipt of the report on
building a large-size outdoor religious statue outside the site for religious
activities, make a decision of approval or disapproval.
No organizations or individuals other than
religious bodies, monasteries, temples, mosques and churches may build
large-size outdoor religious statues.
Article 25
Where a unit or individual intends to alter or
construct buildings, set up commercial service centers, hold displays or
exhibitions, or make films or television programs in a site for religious
activities, it shall obtain in advance the consent of the site for religious
activities in question and that of the religious affairs department of the
local people's government at or above the county level of the place where such
site is located.
Article 26
For a scenic spot or historic zone where a site for
religious activities therein constitutes the main tourist attraction, the local
people's government at or above the county level of the place where such spot
or zone is located shall coordinate and deal with the interrelated interests
between the site for religious activities and the park, relics, and tourism,
and safeguard the rights and interests of the site for religious activities.
The planning and construction of a scenic spot or
historic zone where a site for religious activities constitutes the main
tourist attraction shall be in harmony with the style and surroundings of such
site.
Chapter IV Religious Personnel
Article 27
Religious personnel who are determined qualified as
such by a religious body and reported for the record to the religious affairs
department of the people's government at or above the county level may engage
in professional religious activities.
The succession of living Buddhas in Tibetan
Buddhism shall be conducted under the guidance of Buddhism bodies and in
accordance with the religious rites and rituals and historical conventions, and
be reported for approval to the religious affairs department of the people's
government at or above the level of a city divided into districts, or to the
people's government at or above the level of a city divided into districts.
With respect to Catholic bishops, the matter shall be reported for the record
by the national religious body of the Catholic Church to the religious affairs
department of the State Council.
Article 28
Where religious personnel are to assume or leave
the chief religious posts of a site for religious activities, the matter shall,
upon consent by the religious body of the religion concerned, be reported to
the religious affairs department of the people's government at or above the
county level for the record.
Article 29
The presiding of religious activities, conduction
of religious ceremonies, sorting out of religious scriptures and pursuit of
religious and cultural research by religious personnel are protected by law.
Chapter V Religious Property
Article 30
The land legally used by a religious body or a site
for religious activities, the houses, structures and facilities legally owned
or used by such body or site, and its other legal property and proceeds thereof,
are protected by law.
No organization or individual may encroach upon,
loot, privately divide up, damage, destroy, or, illegally set up, impound,
freeze, confiscate or dispose of the legal property of a religious body or a
site for religious activities, nor damage or destroy relics possessed or used
by a religious body or a site for religious activities.
Article 31
The houses owned and the land used by a religious
body or a site for religious activities shall, according to law, be registered
with the real estate department and the land administration department of the
local people' government at or above the county level, and be granted the
certificate of ownership and the certificate of right of use; where the
property right is altered, the formalities of alteration of registration shall
be gone through without delay.
The land administration shall, when determining and
altering the land-use right of a religious body or a site for religious
activities, solicit the views of the religious affairs department of the
people's government at the same level.
Article 32
Where the houses or structures of a religious body
or a site for religious activities need to be demolished or relocated because
of city planning or construction of key projects, the demolisher shall consult
with the religious body or the site for religious activity concerned, and
solicit the views of the relevant religious affairs department. If, after
consultation, all the parties concerned agree to the demolition, the demolisher
shall rebuild the houses or structures demolished, or, in accordance with the
relevant provisions of the State, make compensation on the basis of the
appraised market price of the houses or structures demolished.
Article 34
A religious body or a site for religious activities
may operate public undertakings according to the law, and the proceeds and
other lawful income there from shall be subject be subject to financial and
accounting management, and be used for the activities that are commensurate
with the purposes of the religious body or the site for religious activities,
or for public undertakings.
Article 35
A religious body or a site for religious activities
may, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the State, accept donations
from organizations and individuals at home or abroad, which shall be used for
the activities that are commensurate with the purposes of the religious body or
the site for religious activities.
Article 36
A religious body or a site for religious activities
shall implement the systems of the State for administration of financial and
accounting affairs and taxation, and may enjoy the preferential treatment in
terms of tax reduction or exemption in accordance with the relevant provisions
of the State on taxation.
A religious body or a site for religious activities
shall report to the religious affairs department of the people's government at
or above the county level of the place where it is located on its income and
expenditure, and on the acceptance and use of donations as well, and, in an
appropriate way, make such information public to religious citizens.
Article 37
In case of cancellation of registration or
termination of a religious body or a site for religious activities, the
property thereof shall be liquidated and the property remaining after
liquidation shall be used for the undertakings that are commensurate with the
purpose of the religious body or the site for religious activities.
Chapter VI Legal Liability
Article 38
Where any State functionary, in administration of
religious affairs, abuses his power, neglects his duty or commits illegalities
for personal gain or by fraudulent means, and a crime is thus constituted, he
shall be investigated for criminal liability according to the law; if no crime is
constituted, he shall be given administrative sanction according to the law.
Article 39
Where anyone compels citizens to believe in, or not
to believe in, any religion, or interferes with the normal religious activities
conducted by a religious body or a site for religious activities, the religious
affairs department shall order it to make corrections; if such act constitutes
a violation of public security administration, it shall be given an
administrative penalty for public security according to law.
Where anybody infringes upon the lawful rights and
interests of a religious, a site for religious activities or a religious
citizen, it shall assume civil liability according to law; if a crime is
constituted, it shall be investigated for criminal liability according to law.
Article 40
Where anyone makes use of religion to engage in
such illegal activities as endanger State or public security, infringe upon
citizens' right of the person and democratic rights, obstruct the
administration of public order, or encroach upon public or private property,
and a crime is thus constituted, it shall be investigated for criminal
liability according to law; if no crime is constituted, the relevant competent
department shall give it an administrative penalty according to law; if any
loss is caused to a citizen, legal person or any other organization, it shall
assume civil liability according to law.
Where, in the course of a large-scale religious
activity, there occurs any event endangering public security or seriously disrupting
public order, the matter shall be handled on the spot and penalties shall be
imposed in accordance with the laws and administrative regulations on assembly,
procession and demonstration; if the religious body, monastery, temple, mosque
or church that sponsors such large-scale religious activity is responsible
therefore, the registration administration department shall cancel its
registration.
Where anyone organizes a large-scale religious
activity without approval, the religious affairs department shall order it to
discontinue such activities and shall confiscate the illegal gains, if any; and
it may concurrently impose thereupon a fine of not less than one time but not
more than three times the illegal gains. In addition, if the large-scale religious
activity is organized by a religious body or a site for religious activities
without approval, the registration administration department may order the
religious body or site for religious activities to dismiss and replace the
person-in-charge who is directly responsible therefore.
Article 41
Where a religious body or a site for religious
activities commits any of the following acts, the religious affairs department
shall order it to make corrections; if the circumstances are relatively
serious, the registration administration department shall order the religious
body or the site for religious activities to dismiss and replace the
person-in-charge who is directly responsible therefore; if the circumstances
are serious, the registration administration department shall cancel the
registration of such religious body or site for religious activities and
confiscate the unlawful property or things of value, if any:
1) failure to go through the formalities of
alteration registration or submission of record in accordance with relevant
provisions;
2) in the case of a site for religious activities,
in violation of Article 18 of these Regulations, failing to formulate relevant
management systems, or failing to have the management systems meet these
requirements;
3) failing to report, without delay, on the
occurrence of any major accident or event in a site for religious activities,
thus causing serious consequences;
4) contravening the principle of independence and
self-governance in violation of the provisions of Article 4 of these
Regulations;
5) accepting donations from home or abroad in
violation of these provisions of the State; or
6) refusing to accept supervision and
administration conducted by the registration administration department
according to law.
Article 42
Where any publications involving religious contents
contain the contents prohibited by the second paragraph of Article 7 of these
Regulations, the relevant competent department shall impose administrative
penalties upon the relevant responsible units and persons according to the law.
If a crime is constituted, criminal liability shall be investigated according
to law.
Article 43
Where a site for religious activity is established
without approval, or a site originally for religious activities continues to
carry out religious activities after its registration as such has been
cancelled, or an institute for religious education is established without
approval, the religious affairs department shall ban such site or institute and
confiscate the illegal gain; the illegal houses or structures, if any, shall be
disposed of by the competent construction department according to law. If any
act in violation of public security administration is committed, an
administrative penalty for public security shall be imposed according to law.
Where a non-religious body or a site not for
religious activities organizes or holds religious activities or accepts
religious donations, the religious affairs department shall order it to
discontinue such activities and confiscate the illegal gains, if any; if the
circumstances are serious, a fine of not less than one time but no more than
three times the illegal gains may be imposed concurrently.
Where anyone organizes the making of hajj abroad
for religious citizens without authorization, the religious affairs department
shall order it to discontinue such activities and shall confiscate the illegal
gains, if any; and it may concurrently impost a fine of not less than one time
but no more than three times the illegal gains.
Article 44
Where, in violation of the provisions of these
Regulations, anyone builds a large outdoor religious statue, the religious
affairs department shall order it to discontinue the construction and to
demolish the statue in a specified time limit; the illegal gains, if any, shall
be confiscated.
Article 45
Where any religious personnel violate laws,
regulations or rules in professional religious activities, the religious
affairs department shall, in addition to having the legal liability investigated
according to law, make a proposal to the religious body concerned to disqualify
them as religious personnel.
Where anyone engages in professional religious
activities by impersonating religious personnel, the religious affairs
department shall order it to discontinue such activities and shall confiscate
the illegal gains, if any; if a crime is constituted, criminal liability shall
be investigated according to the law.
Article 46
Where anyone refuses to accept a specific administrative
act taken by the religious affairs department, it may apply for administrative
reconsideration according to law; if it refuses to accept the decision of the
administrative reconsideration, it may institute an administrative lawsuit
according to law.
Chapter VII Supplementary Provisions
Article 47
The religious exchange between the Mainland and the
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Macao Administrative Region and
Taiwan region shall be developed in accordance with laws, administrative
regulation and the relevant provisions of the State.
Article 48
These Regulations shall become effective as of
March 1, 2005. The Regulations on Administration of Sites for Religious Activities
promulgated by the State Council on January 31, 1994 shall be repealed
simultaneously.
Cabinet d'avocats
