In May 2006, after several years of warming relations between the Vatican and Beijing, two Catholic bishops were illicitly ordained in Wuhu and Kunming. That is to say, they were ordained without the approval of the Pope, but with the approval of certain instruments of the Chinese government, including the Chinese Catholic Bishops Conference. Five…
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The Pope’s China Letter: First Tangible Results?
UCAN is reporting that the Guizhou Catholic diocese will celebrate the first ordination of a Chinese bishop since the Pope’s letter to China’s Catholics was released on June 30. Father Paul Xiao Zejiang was elected the co-adjutor bishop (with right of succession when the current bishop dies or retires) in October, and the election was…
The Pope’s Letter – More Reflections and Some Links [Heyndrickx v. Zen Edition!]
Recently I’ve received inquiries from individuals wondering why there hasn’t been a more pronounced reaction to the Pope’s June 30 letter to China’s Catholics. This is understandable: the letter is the most significant attempt to reconcile the Vatican with Beijing in over fifty years, and it’s only natural to expect a deeper or more dramatic…
Mixed Signals?
On July 25, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association [CCPA] celebrated it 50th anniversary with an event at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. It was a significant occasion for the government agency charged with overseeing China’s Catholics, and it was well-attended by a coteries of high-ranking government officials. Among them was Jia Qinglin,…
First Things First, Pt. 2
Last month, Richard John Neuhaus of First Things took a slap at me for (supposedly) taking a slap at Cardinal Joseph Zen, the Archbishop of Hong Kong, in my profile of Shanghai’s Bishop Jin Luxian in the current issue of the Atlantic (Neuhaus was wrong about this, a point that I make here). In the…
Company Men
Posted on Author AdamPosted in Appreciations and Recommendations, Business and Trade, Catholicism2 Replies
Over the weekend I read most of Liam Brockey’s superb “Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724.” Brockey’s book is not only a fast-paced account of one of the greatest adventures ever undertaken by a group of organized Europeans, it is – consciously and unconsciously – one of the better accounts that…
“Your Buddhist and Catholic Thing”
My friend Fr. William Skudlarek, OSB, is a member of the Benedictine community at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, and the Executive Director of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue [MID] – a fascinating program designed to foster dialogue and cooperation between members of monastic communities from different religious traditions. I’ve had the chance to discuss…
Up From the Underground?
The Pope’s Letter to Chinese Catholics, released on June 30, received a brief flurry of media and blog coverage (at Shanghai Scrap, too!), and then receded into shadows cast by more immediate and (for some people) controversial Papal communications. Yet the lack of coverage – both in China and abroad – should not be taken…
In the Vernacular.
Over the last two weeks Pope Benedict XVI has issued what are likely to be viewed as two of the most consequential documents of his Papacy. On June 30, he issued his landmark letter to China’s Catholics; and on July 7 he issued his Motu Proprio de-restricting the use of the pre-concilliar traditional Latin liturgy…
The Pope’s Letter – More Reflections and Some Links [Special UCAN Edition!]
The letter has been out a week, and the more reflective responses are beginning to appear (… I’ll just pretend that I didn’t blog on the text within hours of the release …). Before I get to those, though, I’d like to point out a passage – actually, a sentence – that I only noticed…