|
kung
|
Posted -
2007/3/1 上午 02:18:41
|
|
|
Bishop Peter Joseph Fan, Confessor and a Clean Martyr
An Answer to the Catholic Problem in China
Father Matthias Lu,
September 23, 1992
Web Edition, October 20, 2001
Supplemented, December 29, 2003
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
1. The year 1992 marks the death of a bishop and a birth of a martyr. In this year, Catholic Bishop Peter Joseph Fan is dead under Chinese Communist detention. He died a clean martyr: he was made a martyr without shedding his blood.
2 In China today, many Christians have experienced spiritual pains often worse than physical death. Their life and death have a value equal to that of bloodstained martyrs, according to the Roman Martyrology, (Martyrologium Romanum), Theology of Martyrdom and a Book of Martyrs. Clean martyrs are those, whose martyrdom is bloodless: "martyrium incruentum". Many clean martyrs died incognito, or in hiding. They may be the holy hermits, anchorites, recluses: like the desert Fathers. They are praised in the Litany of Saints. Their wisdom, holiness and power are superhuman. They are God-like eminently.
3. Remaining unknown to us on earth, they are known to God and to His Court in Heaven. Their virtue and intercessory power before God in many cases are higher than that of other martyrs and saints. The latter may owe their holiness to the merits and intercession of the former. Let the story of Bishop Fan revive in us the understanding of the communion of saints, which, besides the unknown martyrs and saints, includes the clean martyrs. Many clean martyrs are unknown martyrs and saints.
4. Understanding martyrdom is important for the Church in China where the persecution has been longstanding. Afflictions are unprecedented. Methods used have been very complex and often very subtle. The meaning and the norms of holy martyrdom, which is a gift and a mystery, are often not properly understood nor fulfilled. On account of this, many martyrs are self-sacrificing heroes, but not sanctified as holy. This can be remedied by learning from the example of Christ and from that of Bishop Fan. To say it metaphorically, learn from the little lamb of the Apocalypse. This is the Lamb of God slain on the Altar and adored by angels and saints in Heavenly Jerusalem.
Circumstances of his Martyrdom
5. The following focuses on the life and death of Bishop Fan. It will help understand martyrdom and the problem of the Church in China today. It will indicate direction for dealing with the problem toward reconciliation and peace. Many circumstances surrounding Bishop Fan's life and death are unknown to us and will probably remain so forever. This fact is an aspect of the unusual persecution, which has deprived the Church of channels of communication with her Bishops.
Perseverance Supernatural Miraculous
6. Bishop Fan remained constantly loyal to the Church. His fidelity and perseverance are supernatural, heroic and holy. Being a fruit of divine assistance, it deserves to be recognized as a miracle in itself, needing no further documentation. He is recognized as a Martyr and a Saint by popular consensus and proclamation in China and around the World, before the Church formally canonizes him.
7. Concerning the date of his death, a Government official announced to the press that the Bishop died of illness on April 13. Contradicting to this announcement, other Government sources told his relatives that he died on April 16th in Paoting, (Baoding). The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and other papers publicized the reports from the Associated Press in Peking. They could not determine the date and the place of his death. Nor did they mention any one of his relatives as eyewitness to his death.
8. Another government source said his younger brother and one cousin were present at the moment of his death. The Government had a video and a cassette tape recording his last words and medical treatment in the hospital. His body was not returned to Siao-Wang-ting until April 17. The burial took place on April 24. Some of his relatives did see his body and paid respect to it in Paoting and in Siao-Wang-ting. Therefore they believed as they were told that he died on April 16th probably in Paoting itself. Government agents put his body in a plastic bag; and, at night, accompanied by a numerous cohort of armed policemen, a security officer brought it from Paoting to his younger brother at his ancestral home in Siao-Wang-ting. (Alias: Xiao Wang-ting).
9. An Italian Catholic Action newspaper reported that his legs were tied by white cloth very tight, hard to untie. The police for reasons undeclared did not permit the untying of it. His front head and one cheek were swollen as if injured. He was condemned to hard manual labor like young people shortly before his death. A Government source added that severe illness of pneumonia and colitis with diarrhea reached the terminal stage, and that he died in a hospital in the city of Chengteh about 200 miles northeast of Peking.
10. From the marks on his legs, it is suspected that the Communists broke his legs. They did it probably both to force him to reveal secrets and to hasten his death. The black color of his legs could be an indication of long torture by hard pressure, and burning heat. His emaciated body showed the ribs through skin that could have been caused by malnutrition. Starvation combined with torture can induce a semi-conscious victim to answer suggestive questions. These reasonable suspicions will be worth remembering in the future re-examination of the circumstances and consequences of his death.
11. About the date of his death, a Shanghai Catholic religious communication relayed a report from the north stating that the Bishop passed away already some day in March. This could cast doubt about the reports that the body was returned to Paoting on April 16. This suggests that the later dating belongs to a story that the Communists made up to present the Bishop as having died of a natural illness in a hospital under good care probably in Paoting itself. Through this story, they might have wanted to cover up the probably true story that they had him put to death by torture. However, they defeated their own efforts by incoherence in asserting the dates and location.
12. For a moment of digression, note the discrepancy of these dates and their coincidence with the following sacred days: Fatima Apparition Day April 13, Holy Thursday April 17-24, and the month of Saint Joseph, respectively. The Catholics in that part of China hold these dates dear for popular devotion. By coincidence, they happen to be the fatal and memorial days of the Bishop's life. This coincidence is taken by popular pious sentiment to signify that the Bishop's was a holy life, and that the Providence had guided it step by step according to a time schedule in the mind of God.
Unsolvable Puzzles
13. Presuming the first date given by the Government were the true one, that is, the Bishop died on April 13 of an illness. He still could have died in some place of detention. Then, they moved his dead or dying body to a hospital in the city of Cheng-teh. This city is a recreation resort near the coast in the northeast of Peking. The distance from Cheng-teh by railway through Peking to Paoting is about 350 miles. They needed two or three days to move the body to Paoting and announce his death there on April 16. It was more face-saving and less provocative to say that he died of illness in Bishop's house in his home city than saying that he died in prison or under detention. Then, they should not have said in Peking that he died in Cheng-teh on April 13. Some one either told a lie or made a mistake by not keeping a secret. Many puzzles remain unsolvable by the mass media.
14. Nevertheless, it is unusual for Communist authorities to keep a man over 80 in a place of detention. They did this to Bishop Fan and to other elderly Bishops presumably for special national security reason and for interrogation probably with torture. He might have died earlier than the Communists desired it. Otherwise, they could have made arrangements for him to die quietly in a home of his relatives.
15. Under these circumstances, no one can be sure about the date, place, cause and circumstances of his death, except the Communist agents who guarded him. They had kept him under strict surveillance for 41 years. They arrested him, imprisoned him, kept him under custody, and have been moving him recently from place to place around several provinces. Their plan of moving him around was to remove his influence in one area and through his presence uncover hidden Catholics in another.
Brainwashing and Temptation
16. Countering the Catholics having no church at all, numerous Patriotic churches have recently mushroomed in many provinces. The news media counted over 5000. Seminaries, novitiates, and Learned Societies are established. The number kept growing. They can exert a powerful effect by brainwashing and temptation. Through it, they tried to convert Bishop Fan to the cause of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA). We know now that they failed in it. Bishop Fan did not give in to temptation, as some others did. Under pressure, the latter persuaded and brainwashed themselves to embrace the ideology of the self-styled "Chinese Catholic Patriots." They surrendered themselves to join their Association, the CCPA.
17. They have committed themselves to the principles and statutes of the CCPA. By doing this, they have made themselves statutory Communist and atheist agents of the Communist United Front, national and international. They have deserted the Church, given up the Faith and abandoned themselves to the Marxist and Leninist Eschatology. They evidenced it by external behavior. Their name sounds holy, the CCPA. Their commitment is not holy: to seek the Socialist goals of the Front, and reduce the Church to a Front agency. They play an assigned role according to the purposes of the Front. By its statutory nature, the CCPA is not so holy as its name is concocted to convey. The contrary is true. As a Front agency, it is Anti-Catholic, Anti-Church, Anti-Vatican, Anti-Pope, Anti- Christ, and Anti-God, and the like, as we see later. "Coming clothed as sheep, they are wolves." They are the "False Prophets," mentioned by Christ in Matthew, 7, 15-16.
18. Hidden under the banner of God they carry, they fight against God and His people. They persecute the people of God in the name of God. They have classified Catholics as antirevolutionary, anti-socialist, reactionary, obstinate, and Pre-Vatican. They misinterpret Sacred Scripture, and preach false doctrine about God, Christ, and the Church. They distort everything to suit their Socialist Front strategy. Their Church is an Anti-Church. It is not a church. It is a secularist Government tool. To join them means to apostatize and enroll as anti-God and anti-Church activists. By the holy names they use, they mean and do things that are not holy.
For the Catholic Problem in China, Martyrdom: the only Answer.
19. All true Catholics and honest non-Catholic observers have seen this since the beginning of the Three Self-Movement and the CCPA. This truth is the real fact. Those who ignore this fact cannot understand the issue of the Catholic Problem in China under the Communism of today. Bishop Fan knew this fact is true. Facing this fact, he visualized the problem of the Church in China, for which he made his only choice that is possible: holy martyrdom.
20. Rationalizing to contradict this fact some individual members of the CCPA entertain a self-complacent hypocrisy in contending that they are faithful to the Church privately in their hearts. They say it is to avoid self-exposure and help the Church's survival. They say that is why they don't publicly profess their faith they keep hidden in their hearts. They say it is for realism that they do what they do. It is politically wise and it meets the needs of the time. They have found the Government pressure irresistible. They believe also that martyrdom would end in death and could not be a wise solution. Therefore, they think they are doing right.
Martyrdom is a grace and victory
21. However, they are mistaken. Their behavior is duplicity. It is unchristian and immoral. It is infidelity. Being sinful in itself, the public infidelity is not a means to keep the virtue of fidelity. The inverse is true. For the sake of fidelity, public profession is an obligation, and martyrdom becomes a duty, when necessary. The obligation of professing the faith must be fulfilled under a persecution here and now. It should not be procrastinated through temporary apostasy and betrayal until some day after the persecution is over. This is not wisdom but a lack of courage and understanding.
22. Constant tradition of the Church teaches the obligation of professing the faith externally, frankly and publicly with sacrifice of life, if necessary. Brilliant example was the martyrdom of blessed Lorenzo Ruiz from the Philippines and others with him in Japan 1631-1651. Beatified in 1981, Lorenzo was a lay apostle with a family. He had a Chinese father and a Tagalog mother. Martyrdom is a duty for all Christians. It is more so for Bishops and priests. When death is a duty and a grace, no stronger reason can be given as an excuse. Christ taught this by words and deeds. It is the necessary and the only way for Messiah to enter His Kingdom according to the loving will of the Father.
23. It is enough to consult two of the recent Popes: (1) Benedict XIV, Constitutio inter omnigenas calamitates, Feb. 2, 1744; Quod Provinciale Concilium, Aug. 1, 1754; Instructio ad Archiep. de Skopjie (Yugoslavia), Feb. 19, 1774; Instructio ad Vicarium Apostolicum Provinciae Szuchuan, (South-China) Jun. 6,1817. Father John Maxwell of Diocese of Southwark found these documents. England, in Collectanea, S. C. de Prop. Fide, Romae, 1707-1817. (2) John Paul II, Manila Address to China, Feb. 18, 1981. Beatifying Lorenzo Ruiz, a Martyr, he taught persecution should never be allowed to deter Martyrdom, public profession of faith.
24. While persecution is a trial, tribulation and temptation, it is also an opportunity, a grace and beatitude. It cannot be forfeited without impunity before conscience and God. The time of persecution is the day of the Lord. It is the useful time for salvation. So is also martyrdom. It is not a death nor defeat. It is a grace, victory and glory. It is the fatal hour that God has made for his divine glorification. It comes according to a schedule of God's Will. When it comes, it cannot be postponed. Martyrdom is not a death or destruction. It is a birthday and a new beginning where Christ comes to make everything anew. It is an inauguration of the Kingdom of God in its glory. No one can mistake it as a ruin without an error in faith and in understanding. This error has made so many to throw away the Cross instead of embracing it. This error is in the heart of CCPA as an Institute. It is also in the hearts of its members and their fellow travelers as individuals.
25. Bishop Fan remembered the death of Christ on the Cross. It was not a defeat, but a victory for His Kingdom. Like all the holy Martyrs, Bishop Fan had no fear of death. He had no doubt about the triumph of the Church in the martyrdom of her faithful sons and daughters. If all Catholics died as martyrs as Christ did, the Father in heaven would have granted them the Kingdom of eternal glory here on earth as hereafter in Heaven. This is the promise of God. Jesus Christ and all his faithful followers in history have reconfirmed this. The lack of this understanding is the heart of the Chinese Catholic Problem. To solve this problem, the gift of understanding is needed. Martyrdom is not something evil to avoid. It is a divine calling to follow.
Martyrdom is a Divine Calling
26. Bishop Fan knew that martyrdom is a divine calling of every human person and every people before God. It is more so for the Christians. It is a part of the baptismal vow. Martyrdom is implied by all the sacraments, precepts, and counsels of the Gospel. While no one should provoke persecution, everyone should pray for martyrdom as a gift from God. At least, no one should shy at it. "Thy Will be done! O God!" thus with Christ we pray. By faith, Bishop Fan had a clear vision of this same calling by which God has called the Chinese People as a nation in the destiny of all nations. Against this calling, the CCPA and its fellow travelers are leading the people astray. It is a betrayal. It is self-contradictory to preserve the faith by infidelity, and to preserve the Church for survival by an Anti-Church.
27. At the level of the universal Church Constitution, (Ecclesiology), the CCPA wants an acephalous church (headless) within the eschatological class-less framework of the Marxist Socialist utopia of equality. For these reasons, the CCPA was totally unacceptable to Bishop Fan and to the true Catholics. It is a contradiction to what a true Catholic Church should be. The CCPA is doomed. It is not redeemable. Cooperation with them is a cooperation in sin with the atheists for the atheist goal. This point must be remembered to understand Bishop Fan's rejection of the CCPA as a whole. He rejected also cooperation and unification with them. Not a person of duplicity, he did prefer martyrdom to infidelity. He did it for obedience to his conscience. He followed Christ with humility. He practiced the teaching of the Church with sincerity and courage. Unfalteringly, he maintained faith in God Almighty.
Divine Calling and Mandate of Heaven
28. Bishop Fan cultivated the growth of the Chinese nation as a divine plantation of God in His Divine Continent, the big land, (Shen-zhou Dalu, that is, Zhong-Guo, namely China). As a person baptized unto Christ, he received his vocation as a mandate of Heaven from Heaven. He was humble and resolute enough to obey it even with sacrifice of his life. Confucian classics taught the moral obligation of sacrifice of life for fulfilling the mandate of Heaven that is a mandate of Love and Justice. This teaching started to have a clear and higher meaning in the heart of Bishop Fan thanks to the light of the Faith. His faith was a Divine, Christian, Catholic, and Roman Apostolic Faith. It was this Roman Apostolic faith that the CCPA had lost completely and vowed to induce others to lose it, too; and to lose it entirely. The fundamental issue of the Christianity is centered in this faith. It touches the rock-foundation of the Church. By rejecting the Holy See, the CCPA is rejecting the Christianity.
Sacramental Judgment and Messianic Verdict
29. This was the judgment of Bishop Fan. He did this in his capacity of a Shepherd of souls on duty. He advised everyone to reject the CCPA and cooperation with it. He did it for the sake of honesty in faith and morality. He did it for his own Diocese, for whole China, and for the whole World. Those who dissent with him in this would treat the CCPA as Catholic. It amounts to treating true Catholics and false Catholics as the same. Also, it is treating falsehood and truth as identical. Those posing as arbitrators above the contending sides favor the wrong side. Their bias against the faith is a betrayal more insidious than that of the registered members of the CCPA. This is discernment and a verdict.
30. Bishop Fan reached this discernment through his lifetime experience. His verdict is competent. Accordingly, everyone should know that the "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association" (The CCPA), is an euphemistic pseudonym for a "Communist Atheist Anti-Roman Catholic and Anti-Papal Front Activist Agency." It is nothing else. Not only false, it is also dangerous and powerfully treacherous, deceitful, and misleading. Its essence belongs to the mystery of iniquity, the highest principle of all evils. It is capable of misleading even the Archangels to fall from Heaven to Hell, as Lucifer did.
31. Therefore, behind the facade of the patriotic churches, their liturgy is a pompous camouflage; their sermons, hymns and orations are lip service without righteous intention. They are not praying. They are cheating. They are not serving God and His People. They are serving the goals of Socialism, Communism and Atheism according to the purpose of the United Front. The World may be cheated. But the true Catholics under the pastoral care of Bishop Fan have not been.
The CCPA must be dissolved
32. This must be clearly understood. The CCPA must be abandoned by all and must be denied any kind of appeasement or cooperation. The only thing the Catholics can do for it is their prayer to God for its dissolution and for its members' conversion. As individuals each one in his own way, they must convert and repent in order to be absolved and re-accepted into the Roman Catholic Community. Before they do it, treat them as the Anglicans or more severely. Bishop Fan said this literally and repeatedly to his visitors, some times alone, some times in union with other Bishops in hiding.
33. Their repentance must be expressed with reparation fair and commensurate, for penance and penalty required so as to satisfy the obligation of the Sacrament of Penance for reconciliation as they had learned it from the Catechism. Bishop Fan did absolve and readmit into the Church several priests and lay Catholics, when they satisfied the sacramental and canonical requirements. Note, therefore, that his opposition to the CCPA was not political or ideological or partisan or military or violent. But, it was pastoral, moral, spiritual and sacramental. This opposition was a sacred duty. It was a holy act. The Communists could not understand it nor recognize it as sacred and holy. They knew only that the Bishop in the Sacrament of Confession was resolutely opposing the CCPA. And they could not forgive him.
Pastoral and Sacramental Verdict
34. The opposition to the CCPA was the main cause for his personal persecution by the Communist Government. For this reason, he chose to die as a martyr. His martyrdom was holy. His penitential treatment of the CCPA was holy. It was sacramental and pastoral. Bishop Fan made this decision as a final verdict with the full moral power and authority canonical and Apostolic. The ultimate goal of the sacrament of Penance is reconciliation and not mutual hatred or conflict. He opposed the CCPA for sacramental duty. He is a Martyr of the Sacrament of Confession. He opposed the CCPA for pastoral and sacramental reasons.
35. Bishop Fan opposed it in total fidelity to the voice of moral conscience, to the voice of Jesus Christ, to the teaching of the Church, to the authority of the Holy See. He did it also in answering to the silent tearful prayers of the loyal Catholic people and the non-Catholic discerning observers of fair judgment. Even the Communists know that he did right as a Catholic Bishop, albeit they had to punish him according to their policy, law and order. Some of them did repent as individual connoisseurs of Catholic morality.
36. Bishop Fan expected the world to consider this verdict as an essential part of his Last Will and Testament, even if he did not have an opportunity to write it down on paper. His entire life consisted in this verdict. The sensitivity of the good moral conscience of honest persons recognizes it as his and true. The issue was to offer a moral guidance and sacramental grace in resistance to infidelity and injustice. He understood the ideology of the CCPA correctly, and evaluated it fairly. Persevering in his fidelity to justice and truth, he sanctified his life and death as a martyr heroic and holy. His martyrdom is a victory in honor of the authority of moral conscience and of Christ, the teacher of faith and morality.
37. He earned respect from the Chinese people, Catholic and Non-Catholic alike. The prisoners felt themselves comforted and honored by his presence among them as their fellow inmate. Both believers and non-believers felt the special virtue of this man who followed Christ to the Cross. Even the Communists cannot deny the great dignity of Bishop Fan. His death in their hands may be the dawn of true peace and liberty for China and for the world. It is for the spiritual good of the Communists too. They have an obligation to understand the message of this man and his martyrdom. It cannot be emphasized enough: Bishop Fan's opposition to the Communist Party and Government was a moral, spiritual and sacramental opposition. Not belonging to the order of secular politics, it consisted in spiritual and moral discernment and defense of truth and honesty. It was not an act of hatred, hostility or violence. It should not be construed as unlawful or criminal in the category of immoral dishonesty.
Messianic Judgment
38. It was an act of moral conscience according to the logic and law of moral conscience. Let us repeat with emphasis: it was moral, spiritual, religious, prophetic, and sacramental. As a verdict, it should be understood in the full sense of the Messianic judgment of the living and the dead. It is time now that the Communists gain a little more ethical, political, and legal sense to appreciate the moral, religious and jurisprudence legacy of Bishop Fan. They will realize this soon. Or, if not, they will fail and vanish under severe punishment by God and by humanity according to the threatening prophecies of Christ. Remember the Dead Sea in the sites of Sodom and Gomorrah. "Unless you absolve them on earth, I will not absolve them in Heaven!" This is a commandment and a prophecy Christ himself gave to his Apostles and to Bishop Fan as one of their successors.
The Odyssey of His Spiritual and Pastoral Life
39. The divine gifts of wisdom and patient endurance supported Bishop Fan in his stepping forward toward the goal of his life without neither hesitation nor deviation. The Providence and the Mercy of God did fulfill the wish he cherished in his heart since childhood: "The holy martyrs go to Heaven straight without passing through the purgatory!" With these words the holy martyrs must have sweetened his heart by welcoming him in his journey home in their company to Paradise. The following is a brief review of the odyssey of his spiritual and pastoral life:
His Birthplace and the Tradition of Martyrs
40. Bishop Fan was born on December 29, 1907, in Siao-Wang-Ting, (Little Pavilion of Hope, alias: Xiao-Wang-Ting), in the Diocese of Paoting, (Baoding), in a strategic zone of chain villages. The Catholics once arrayed these villages for self-defense in the time of Boxers Rebellion 1900. The tradition of this territory is a Catholic tradition of valiant and fearless fighters, heroes, and martyrs. It was also rooted in the northern Chinese tradition of loyalty in obedience and faithfulness in brotherhood and friendship. That is the three of the five Confucian ethical standards.
41. In retrospect, from the moral and ascetic viewpoint on martyrdom, it is regrettable that in 1900 they, the Catholics in Paoting area, chose to be fighters rather than martyrs. When they were killed, they did not die according to the example of Jesus Christ. The true Messiah offered himself not to fight with violence but to die without physical resistance. He suffered death willingly as a sacrificial Lamb in silent obedience to the will of God for the salvation of the world including the enemies whom he came to redeem with brotherly and patient love. To conquer the death and the evil, Christ showed the way of victory by His Martyrdom on Calvary.
Christian Soldiery
42. But in the 90-day battle in Tong-lu (Dong-lu) in August 1900, most of their dead were recorded as fallen soldiers and heroes in the battlefield and so listed in the basement of the parish church. They were not the holy martyrs in the messianic sense. However, this did not diminish the valor of their faith or the purity of their intentions. Their daily prayer-life elevated their military wisdom and courage to a high level of Christian virtues in fulfilling the military duties in the battlefields. Morally speaking, the armed self-defense is one of the basic human rights. "Vis vi repellitur!" Repel force by force. (Cicero)' A defensive war for a good cause becomes a duty within the limits of human ethics of justice and prudence. (Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, II-II, 40, 1.). Christian soldiers can be saints too. They were willing to fight and die for the truth of their God and their Church in that year 1900. They fought and won. The Holy Family that is the Blessed Sacrament, the Blessed Mother, and Saint Joseph miraculously assisted them in battle.
43. They celebrated their victory after each battle by a triumphal procession with the Blessed Sacrament around the ramparts before the eyes of the enemy troops and Boxers. They challenged the enemy for the next battle. Their victory, as a miracle, was transmitted as true story by the popular legends from generation to generation. The tradition of heroic faith and courage is maintained alive and constant in the region. Since his childhood, Bishop Fan lived in Siao-Wang-ting and Tong-lu alternatively with his relatives in both villages. They were proud of their victorious battles.
Christian Martyrdom
44. On the other hand, all these Catholics did know the difference between soldiers and martyrs. They learn it from Catechism and from spiritual reading: Holy Martyrs enjoy greater honor in the Heavenly Jerusalem than other saints do. The Christian martyrdom is a higher Evangelical perfection than Christian soldiery. The true Messiah is a martyr and is a king of martyrs. He is the God of Sabaoth, the God of hosts. But his hosts are the holy martyrs that are killed by the enemy, and preferably not the soldiers that have the enemy killed. For, the enemy is a brother. He is to be redeemed. This is true after all and despite all.
45. This is the region's Christian and Messianic spiritual tradition. It has had a long history in the areas of Paoting and Peking. This tradition's spirit came unscathed through the persecutions great and small. It kept itself alive from the end of Ming Dynasty about 1600, the time of the Catholic Modern Missions, up to the present. It is not wrong to say that it could have started even earlier, namely from Archbishop John Monte Corvino and Blessed Oderic of Pordenone, the Franciscans. They were contemporary to Marco Polo. They were laboring in Peking around 1325 in the beginning of Yuan Dynasty, the Mongolian Empire under Kublai Khan.
46. Bishop Fan and his ancestors grew up in this tradition of faith and courage. Among his contemporary relatives today, there are no less than 30 priests, religious, novices, seminarians, catechists, and lay apostles. As devout Catholic children, they learned in their childhood to appreciate the value of holy Martyrdom. They prayed for it in their daily prayers. They reenacted it in their games and dreams. It is a common belief among the people in this territory that the holy martyrs go straight to heaven.
Priestly Vocation
47. Imbued with this religious heritage, Bishop Fan had an early vocation for priesthood. He followed the example of his eldest brother who became a priest before him. This brother was popularly known as "Father Pierre-Marie." He was an author of a spiritual daily reading book devoted to the Sacred Heart in the month of June. He served a Catholic High School as its Principal. He was also a sort of martyr. While he was bicycling in a journey on parish duty, the bandits assassinated him by gunfire in an ambush in 1930's. It is worth commemorating this family in having two of the sons, priests and martyrs. The martyrdom of his brother must have impressed the mind and heart of Bishop Fan with an indelible calling from Jesus: "Come this way, and follow me!"
48. As a seminarian, Bishop Fan studied in the Preparatory Seminary at the Cathedral School of Paoting at the age of 11. Two years later, he was promoted to Saint Joseph Minor Seminary in the western suburb of the city. Graduated from there in 1927, he entered the Saint Vincent Major Seminary in Peking. This seminary is adjacent to the cemetery where Matteo Ricci (+1610) and other ancient missionaries lie in rest. Being selected as outstanding students, he and his cousin, Matthew Yang, were shipped together from Peking to Rome for higher studies in 1928. He was ordained priest in Rome on Dec. 22, 1934, the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle. From his studies at the Urbanian University there, he earned a Bachelor degree in Philosophy and Licentiate in Theology.
On the whole, his education was international. Since the Minor Seminary, he had some as teachers and many as classmates from France, Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Armenia, England, and America among other countries of all the Continents.
49. After returning to China in 1935 together with the cousin, Father Matthew, he served in various parishes and positions in several dioceses and provinces in north and central China. It was during the turmoil of the Japanese invasion. (July 7, 1937-1945). He enrolled as a secretary in foreign languages in a Catholic Relief Agency of a para-military citizen's militia.
The Relief works brought him to visit Xuzhou,
Yichang, Changsha, and other capital cities of other provinces. His charitable works extended assistance to the poor, the refugees, and to the wounded soldiers, including the Communist soldiers and activists. He even earned a document of gratitude from the Communist commanders. This shows that Bishop Fan's charity was not hostile nor belligerent to the Communists. But, the above said citizen's militia for reasons of martial law placed itself under the command of the National Army. It fought equally Japanese invaders and Communist insurgents, (1937-1948). This was remembered and revenged by the Communists when they came to power.
Pastoral Life in Struggle - Question of Validity
50. When the national troops withdrew to Taiwan 1948, Father Peter Joseph Fan went to teach in a seminary in Wan-hsien Diocese (Wan-xian) near Chungking in South China. During these years, he sided himself with the Papal Inter-nuncio and other loyal Catholics in opposing the Communist engineered Catholic Three Self Movement, (the TSM = Self-Reliance, Self-Management, Self-Evangelization, in Greek version, The Tri-autonomy). The Communists devised this movement to detach the Catholic Church in China from the Holy See and from the Universal Church. They miscalculated by thinking that, once detached from the foreign world, this foreign church would vanish gradually. The remnant of it could be reformed and assimilated into the Communist world order. They publicized this was their intention.
51. They confirmed it in theory and in praxis. They confiscated the Church institutions. They expelled the missionaries. They arrested the Chinese priests, religious and lay leaders. When they reopened some churches for limited worship, they placed them under strict control by the United Front Department. For this, they set up a network of the Religious Affairs Bureaus in all provinces and counties. The Movement was promptly denounced as uncanonical by Pius XII in Rome and by the Inter-nuncio in Nanking. During the Korean War (1950-1953) the Communists suspected Christians and Catholics as potential sympathizers, if not collaborators, of the U.S. and the U.N. They expelled the Papal Inter-nuncio because of his opposition to the religious policies of the Government in general, and against the formation of the Three-Self-Movement in particular. The common traditional Catholic policy of neutrality in wars was not well understood by the Communists now engaged in the Korean War.
52. The Three-Self-Movement members played a prominent role by parading in the street to advocate the expulsion of the Papal Inter-nuncio. On September 8, 1951, the Communists expelled him. They also arrested his Secretary, Father Matthew Chen, and the national Director of the Propagation of the Faith, Father Joseph Shen. Both suffered torture and died in prison. Both were Bishop Fan's junior classmates in Rome. They had been cooperating with each other in facing the difficulties coming from the government controlled Three-Self-Movement. The expulsion of the Papal Inter-nuncio was a diplomatic and political crime the Communists committed against themselves in essence and in style. Violating the norms of diplomacy, they expelled the Papal Diplomat with violence and public insults. He chose to remain in China, when the diplomats of all other nations left there before the oncoming Red Army. Bishop Fan pointed out this crime to them several times, when they kept citing the Vatican's denial to establish diplomatic relation as a sign of hostility. They have no reason to accuse the Vatican of anything, since it was they that expelled the Vatican Diplomat in the beginning.
The Vatican Taipei Mission
53. This made it necessary for the Vatican representative to establish residence in any part of China that was accessible. In this case, it was in Taipei City in the province of Taiwan (Formosa) which was made an Ecclesiastical province of the Church with its own Hierarchy erected in 1952. The fundamental theological truth is that the Vatican Diplomats are essentially different from secular diplomats. As Saint Paul says, they are ambassadors of Christ sent by God to all human individuals, groups, nations and their governments for evangelical and pastoral services for the spiritual and moral good of the souls.(Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Super II Corinth, 5, 20 #199; Eph.6, 20)
54. Their presence transcends all human barriers. They enjoy the rights of immunity in political, military zones with rival claimant governments in each within one country divided by civil wars. They should not be instrumentalized or manipulated by rival groups for non-religious purposes. They are mediators and makers of peace. They should not be abused to foment wars. They should be given facilities to fulfill their evangelical mission. Representing God's presence, the Holy See never takes initiative to cut off diplomatic relations once established. It endeavors to establish working contacts with all living social forces in the human world, no matter where.
55. No rival groups should take offence from the Holy See's missionary presence in any part of each other's territory. Recent history shows that the Vatican diplomatic immunity did render good services to the Chinese People cross the frontiers of the war zones. No one can deny this immunity to the Vatican missions without ignoring the basic historical facts and theological truths of the international transcendental character of its apostolic messengers. Their title (Messengers), emphasizes this fact. This is a common knowledge. It is regrettable that the Chinese Communist Government has been failing to make these truths understood by the people under its control.
56. On the contrary, presenting the Vatican Taipei mission as an offence and hostility, it is not realizing that its judgement is mistaken and counter productive. It is politicizing the Holy See and the church for political interests in the secular order, which are not the business of the Ecclesiastical Representatives. It has no reason to misrepresent the Vatican Diplomatic Mission in Taipei as a cause of political irritation, or as an obstacle to initiate working relations on the mainland, before formal diplomacy can be involved. The proper role of the Holy See is transcendental. It is by nature a mediator and peacemaker. The Chinese people knows it. Bishop Fan and the loyal Catholics know it too. In the transcendental order of religious sacraments and prayers, friendliness with Taipei doesn't imply hostility with Peking. Good prayers should be offered to God for both sides in any way.
57. As one Country, whole China is the concern of the Catholic Church. Under the changing circumstances, the Pro-nuncio for Taipei was for one time concurrently the Pro-nuncio for Bangladesh with residence in Dacca. It maintained a Charge d'Affaires in Taipei plus a semi-official Study Mission on China in Hong Kong. This arrangement was a usual practice for the convenience of all the parties concerned. For the good of the country, Bishop Fan and loyal Catholics did raise prayers to God for something different from what they god from their People's Government. The difficulty remains to this day. It seems a long way to go, before a higher degree of understanding can be reached. Frankly, the difficulty comes from the Communist Party's faulty ideology alone, and not from anywhere else. But, the Party has the power to let the Government change its wrong policy and attitude.
Pius XII, The Holy See and the CCPA
58. Returning to 1951, the history recalls that by helping the Communists in expelling the Inter-nuncio with public insults in the parade, the Three Self Movement conspicuously defined its own nature. It is anti-Catholic and Anti-Pope. It is a political tool of the Government. The people see it. The world sees it too. Thus, having lost credibility, the Three-Self- Movement failed. To replace it, the Communist Leaders devised a new Movement called "The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Reform Movement." It was worse than the old one. It was intended for revenge against Pius XII and his Inter-nuncio. The first fruit of this movement was the organization of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA). The first principle of its statutes is self-emancipation from foreign control that includes the socialist liberation of the People of God, the Church, from the control by the Holy See, the Vatican. Its first task was to create a Patriotic and Independent Church by electing and consecrating Patriotic Bishops purposely against the Holy See in defiance to its explicit orders. It was a great challenge to the Faith, and to the authority of the Church and her Laws.
59. Guided by the United Front purposes and tactics, the Communists deny that the Patriotic Church is a Church. They say it is not a separate entity from the main Catholic Church. They present it as a voluntary association of patriotic Catholic citizens. But, in fact, they did create a separate Church by a series of deeds. The chief one was to create Bishops against the Law of the Church. They began it with the Archdiocese of Hankow in Central China in 1957. They mark out this year as the date of foundation of the CCPA. History will remember this year as the beginning of the rupture of the CCPA with the Church. The CCPA itself initiated the rupture, completed and formalized it with public declarations and acts. The United Front Department dictated the details of procedure. They blame Pius XII for not accepting the episcopal candidates they have chosen for him and presented to him. Pius XII could not accept; it was wrong: wrong intention, wrong procedure, and wrong style. These requests made were against the regulations of the Church's law and its usage. They were subversive demands against obedience and protocol.
60. By their wrong doings, they invited a rebuttal from the Pontiff. They placed His Holiness in an unsolvable dilemma. As a legislator and diplomat, His Holiness chose the inevitable: namely to uphold the Law and refuse the illegal. The Church received the fatal reaction from the Government and the CCPA. That was they went ahead to elect and consecrate the Bishops for the establishment of a self-governing Church. In doing this, they violated all the pertinent articles of the Church Law. With this accomplished, they got what they wanted; that is, they have established a national patriotic Church independent from the Roman Apostolic See, the Vatican. Thus, it is clearly and simply a schismatic church. Not only separated from the Roman Catholic Church, it is also hostile to it. Its nature has been determined as a historical fact according to the intention of those who were responsible for making it.
61. Also, they had in mind a hateful retaliation against military and political intervention in the Chinese civil war. The intervention was made by certain powerful personalities of the Catholic Faith. It was their personal initiative and responsibility. But, the Communists blamed the Holy See and the whole Church for it. Their revengeful hate has been implacable. They must destroy the Church as their mortal enemy. Hence, their real intention has been a religious one, namely to fight the Catholic Church for the triumph of Communist and Socialist Revolution which is atheistic. The struggle must be carried through to the end. With this goal in mind, the said Schismatic church was not only illicit but also invalid. Deep down in its essence, it is a political creature of the United Front Department of the Party. For this reason, it is neither a Church nor a religion. It is a puppet in the hands of those who fabricated it. The question is the nature of their objective goal and their subjective intention or design.
Antecedent Schismatic and Atheistic Intention
62. In the case of China, one of their intentions was a fundamental one, It intends to split the local church from the universal church and turn the two against each other with mutual opposition and condemnation. The final goal is to let the schismatic church prevail within the Socialistic and Atheistic context of the United Front. This intention did not follow from the split as a consequence and effect. It preceded it as an antecedent and cause. Being an antecedent cause of splitting the Church, such an intention cannot be the intention of Christ who wanted unity with no split. Thus means that the antecedent schismatic intention makes the sacraments invalid and illicit. With such intent to cause schism, it makes evident that the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Church is schismatic and invalid. Therefore, because it did not receive valid sacraments to begin with, it can't give valid sacraments. Being not a church at all, it is essentially unable to have valid sacraments. . It is like a mule hybrid, strong and big but sterile. For, the intention of Christ required for valid sacraments wasn't and couldn't be there. Furthermore, in consecrating the uncanonical Bishops to establish the independent church, the Communist Government and the CCPA could not have any other intention than to create a schism and a non-church, in disobedience to the true Church. Being contrary to Christ's intent, it makes the sacraments invalid and illicit. (Cf. Epistola, "Apostolicae Curae," Leo XIII, 1896, dealing with the Anglican Orders. Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, III, 64. 8).
63. A Phantom Church: -- It clearly follows that the Chinese Patriotic Church is a schismatic and invalid Church. It is independent from the Holy See and hostile to it. Moreover, sacramentally, it is sterile. Its invalid sacraments can't produce a valid sacrament. Being not an existing reality, it is a phantom. It is made to appear real and strong by the Chinese Communist Party and Government. From now on, with the Patriotic Phantom Church established, the Communists began to force the Roman Catholic Church in China to become a Church of Silence, a name given by Pius XII. They have been denying her freedom and facility to make her voice heard. During the subsequent years the CCPA unmasks clearer everyday. It can be clearly seen as anti-Church and anti-Pope. It has been violating the sacred canons of the Church Law governing the structure and the function of the Church. Beyond the political nature of being an instrument of the Government, the CCPA proclaimed their egalitarian and geo-ethno-centric Ecclesiology, (Theory of Church Constitution).
Socialist Revolutionary Ecclesiology
64. According to this Ecclesiology, each bishop is autonomous and equal to any other. Bishop or priest or any church personnel must emerge from the local community through a process of socialist democracy and revolution. There should be no other law than the will of the community formulated through the Socialist process of revolutionary struggle. The Primacy of the Pope and the hierarchy of the priesthood have no foundation in the Sacred Scripture according to the Communist exegesis. It is a by-product of Western imperialism, feudalism, and colonialism. History produced it to serve the purposes of the rich for exploitation of the poor. Being the chief target of revolution, the Holy See and the Roman Catholic Church with it cannot be tolerated as leaven of the society. It must be eliminated or reconditioned. The reconditioned church must serve the socialist goal of revolution, and follow the leadership of the Communist Party. The United Front Department must direct it by the Religious Affairs Bureaus and through them. In any case it must cut off its ties with the Holy See under the penalty of high treason conspiring with a foreign enemy power. The authority of the Holy See is either eliminated or confined within the Vatican City. This severe religious policy in dealing with the Catholic Church is administered by the Government through the medium of the CCPA in conjunction with the Patriotic Reformed Church, which is slightly different from the CCPA, but can hardly be distinguished exactly. It needs be kept distinct at least nominally for legal or ideological disputes.
The Patriotic Reformed Church
65. The said Patriotic Reformed Church is a vague name for any reconditioned and remodelled church in China under the umbrella of the CCPA. Designed in the form of a trinity, it has one head and two wings, like an airplane: the CCPA is the head, the Patriotic Bishops Conference is the right wing, and the Patriotic Catholic Commission of Religious Affairs is the left wing. The Patriotic Catholic people is the body. The spirit animating it from within is the Marxist-Leninist ideology of revolution in a Chinese version, with adaptations to the Chinese historical and cultural context. The pilot guiding it is the Chinese Communist Party through the State it controls. The three parts are one, because they are identical in purpose, in statutes and in membership. Organizationally, they belong to the United Front Department. They depend on it to exist and to function. They are respected as agencies of the Government. The Government has presented the whole complex of it as the "Catholic Church in China." Bishop Fan, the loyal Catholics, and other honest people knew that it is not the Catholic Church. It is not any church at all. It is purely a tool created and manipulated by the Government to reduce the true Church to nothing. It is a fake church. It is a dummy fashioned to take the place of the true Church. It either absorbs the true Church by reshaping it; or eliminates it, by denying freedom to its leaders. The CCPA helps the United Front Department to do both. It follows the latter's ideas and strategy in the religious policy.
The Chinese Communist Party and the Church
66. The Chinese Communist ideology derived its origin from the teaching of Marxism and Leninism. The Chinese Communist Party adopted the European Communist and Socialist method and strategy. Its leaders reinforced it with the Chinese traditional interlocking system of many-sided and many-layered intricate regimentation, surveillance, control and mobilization. It propels itself constantly in motion for the Marxist and Socialist Cultural Revolution in all sectors of national life. Its mechanism is more dynamic, pervasive, and complicated than the Parties in other countries. The power and the authority in the nation and in the party are centralized and totalitarian. It is a monorule, and monolithic. It would never tolerate a Church free and separate from the State. It can not countenance a multi-party and multi-religion political order with liberty and equality of all parties and religions. It must submit all living social forces to the hegemonic leadership of the Communist Party. It leaves no room for the UN and universal declaration of the Human Rights. Being imbedded in totalitarian Socialist regimentation, it can not tolerate personal freedom, personal ownership and interpersonal equality for mutual solidarity. In brief, it has no room for liberty and democracy.
67. For the rest, its religious policy is an instance of its statecraft. In general, it shows that the State keeps people and institutions under control by the means of Law, Security, and Army. It is totalitarian, militaristic, intolerant and violent. The Party controls the State. The State controls the people and the institutions. A few individual leaders who can coalesce into a one-man-rule control the Party. Then, it becomes quite dictatorial, despotic, absolutist, and tyrannical. History can take the anomaly of the Great Leap, the Great Cultural Revolution and Tian-An-Men Incident as symptomatic and typical episodes. This, in the main, is what the Chinese Communist Party is. No wonder it persecutes the Church: it kills Bishops, Priests, Religious and Lay Catholics.
68. This Party was born in Shanghai in 1922; 4 years before the first six Chinese Bishops were consecrated in 1926. After a long struggle of 26 years, it reached the climax of its power with the taking of Peking by its Liberation Army in 1948. During the same years, 1948-1951, the main body of the Catholic Church personnel about 5000 had to leave China. The remaining elements, Clergy and Religious about 3000, who couldn't leave, had to find a new way to serve the souls in the new situation. Difficulties, disappointments, and dangers surrounded them. Having lost everything, in order to make a living, they had to accept jobs they could find in labor teams and battalions. They went haphazardly each one in his way, by luck, within the labyrinthine centralized plan of employment. As a result, they were dispersed, and left without facility of mutual communication.
Bishop Fan, Defender of the Rights
69. The Church personnel were in disarray. In order to fill the vacant episcopal sees under these chaotic circumstances, the Holy See hurried to appoint many new Bishops for urgent needs. Bishop Fan was one of them. He needed faith, obedience, courage and trust in God to accept it. Elected on April 12, Peter Joseph Fan was consecrated in Hankow to be the Bishop of Paoting by the papal mandate forwarded by Inter-nuncio Archbishop Antonio Riberi, on June 24, 1951, that is, about five months before the Communist Government expelled this Inter-nuncio. As the new Prelate, Bishop Fan had to return to Paoting incognito. As soon as he reached the city, the Communists placed him under house arrest, confined in a dormitory of priests besides the Bishop's residence inside the Cathedral compound. They allowed him to receive visitors through a window of his room. From this window, he did what he could to serve as a Bishop. He should have heard by this time that the Papal Inter-nuncio was expelled from China.
70. The government invited him to take part in the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Reform Movement that was starting. Taking his part in the meetings, he did all he could to oppose the Movement. He felt obliged in conscience to vote against any motion, which violates the Law of the Church. He did not hesitate to veto the resolution they adopted against the law and the interests of the Catholic dioceses and church institutions. By doing this, he made himself recognized as the defender of the rights of the Church, and as an opponent to the State religious policies. Specifically, against the invitation of the government, he refused to join the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, (CCPA). He refused to approve its organization and statutes. He refused to ordain the Patriotic bishops and priests. (Within this context, the word "Patriotic" is used to signify an agent that is "National Emancipated from Papal Catholic Hierarchy.) On every occasion he would condemn canonically the Catholic Chinese Patriots for their offenses. He kept rejecting the Patriotic Movement and the Patriotic Association as incompatible with the Church in their institutional nature and intent.
Confessional Forum
71. Within the Confessional forum, however, he did leave room for re-consideration of individual consciences only. Some Patriotic Bishops and Priests as individuals under special and rare circumstances might have been validly ordained in secrecy, although they should withdraw their membership publicly from the CCPA. Bishop Fan never agreed to tolerate the CCPA as an institution, nor anyone's membership in it. Obliging Catholics to avoid mingling with the Patriots, he did advise them to respect the Patriots as agents of the Government, without ever recognizing them as Catholics. From that time on, to be a Catholic Patriot has been to be an apostate and traitor of the Catholic Church. The popular sentiment was in agreement on this. Bishop Fan consolidated this sentiment with knowledgeable conviction and pastoral authority. Nonetheless, he repeatedly advised the Catholics to respect the Patriots as the Government agents, never to provoke their anger and retaliation, nor offend them with insults. Just pray to God for their re-conversion. Silently stay away from them for political safety and for avoiding dangers of sins against faith. This was the advice he gave in the Confessional.
"Ecclesia Supplet!" "The Church supplies!"
72. Therefore, he forbade the Catholics to worship in the Patriotic Churches or to receive sacraments from them, except the cases provided by the Church Law. The exception works with the proviso "Ecclesia supplet." This means that the Church supplies what is missing when the Catholics have a right to request sacraments in case of necessity and in danger of death from any priest even if the priest is under canonical censure, such as having been suspended, excommunicated, schismatic or heretical or even if he is not a real priest at all when he is only a fake and putative one. Being not a priest in reality, he is mistaken as a real priest. In such cases, the fruitfulness of the sacraments derives from the Church and from Christ directly for the benefit of the recipients on their request. Such request can be justly made in good faith with cautious restrictions, namely, if it is not a cause of scandal, nor involves cooperation in sins.
73. It leaves out of consideration the question whether the priest involved was validly ordained or not. The Church supplies everything that is missing in such cases. She reaches the souls with the fruits of the sacraments through the invalid and unworthy or fake priests. The same applies to any ordained ministers, bishops, or deacons etc. This was what Bishop Fan chose to do. These exceptions made, he urged the Catholics to avoid the Patriots. He advised them to satisfy themselves with prayers in private homes or in mobile groups in the open air or in any convenient place. The pastoral needs are satisfied without presuming the validity of the Priesthood in schism.
"Excommunicandi et Vitandi!" A Moral and Sacramental Advise.
74. Treat the Patriots as "excommunicandi et vitandi", that is, "to leave them outside of the Catholic community, and avoid social contacts with them." Unless they repent and do penance as required for sacraments, the Catholic community may not accept them back into the fold. He gave this advice by moral and pastoral prudence, not by canonical prescription. It was a catechetic instruction and a sacramental judgment in the Confessional. According to his judgment, the Chinese Catholic Patriots are schismatic, heretic, and apostate, but they are also treacherous in design, scandalous in morals, and merciless in cheating and misleading the faithful and the world. Some of their Bishops and priests married, divorced, remarried, and have continued to celebrate sacraments. Living in illicit sexual union, their actions are repugnant to the common sense of the people Catholic and non-Catholic alike. They feel it's scandalous to go near them.
75. In many cases, the Patriots are more treacherous than Judas is. For, they are the false and immoral prophets known in both the Old and New Testaments. They are replacing the true Church with a false Church, and substituting a False Christ for the true Christ. It is a phenomenon near apocalyptic. Having effectively created "captive minds" out of them, the Communists have made them traitors to the Church. Having been so transformed by the methods of thought reform; the victims would propel themselves to work dynamically for their commitments. In certain anti- Catholic strategies, they can be more resourceful Communists than the Communists themselves can. In treating the Holy See and the Catholic Church, they will never stop to cheat and mislead both in action and in ideology until their goals are reached. Or at least, allowing themselves to be tied up by some formal and irrevocable bondage, they will never disengage themselves from the Communist direction.
76. Ideologically, they live according to a Marxist eschatological worldview. They think there is no Kingdom of Truth and Peace outside the Marxist Utopia of the Proletarian Classless Society. Inspired by this worldview, they are anti-Christ and anti-Pope in everything they say and do. Bishop Fan knew this by his pastoral experience in his Diocese. He knew this by examining the statutes and the practices of the Patriotic Association and its institutions. By its institutional nature, the CCPA is anti-Catholic instrument in the hands of the Atheists. In everything this Association does, its intention is not that of Christ or of His Church. It is the intention of the atheists who designed it. Its members have committed themselves to promote socialist goals in society. They mistake the Socialist Utopia for the future Kingdom of Christ. By mixing up the two kingdoms, they falsify both. They incorporate the Gospels and the Church as subaltern parts into the meshwork of the Communist United Front. They transform the Church into a Communist Atheist Front agency. They are not converting the Communists to recognize the rights of the Kingdom of God and its Justice. Misinterpreting the Gospel message, they assign false attributes to Christ and to God. By denying the Primacy of Saint Peter and his successor, they misinterpret the Sacred Scriptures. Thus, they make Christ a liar in his teachings and promises. Consequently, they preach a false Christ and a false God. They are Marxist Atheist militants under the cloak of Catholic Patriots. They excommunicated themselves from the Communion of Saints, by rejecting their obedience to the Law of the Church and to the Supreme Shepherd.
Their Sacraments are neither Valid nor Licit.
77. Rebelling against Bishop Fan, a few priests of his Diocese rebelled against Bishop Fan. They elected a bishop to replace him. They did this by the power of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA, 1958). That false bishop got married and left the Diocese soon after his episcopal consecration. He is still functioning as a Clergyman in some other capacity in the Provincial government. His case is a typical example revealing that his consecration was an empty ritual, lacking proper intent. More like a theater play depicting a magical rite, it was antithetical to the intention of Christ and His Church. It was a sacrilegious event made to simulate a sacrament. There is no question that it was neither valid nor licit. A null sacrament, it yields the consequences that are schism and treachery.
78. Because it violates the law, it is sin. To know that it is a sin, there is no need to penetrate their consciences. It is enough to consider their public acts in the flagrant violation of the Laws. The Law of God, the Law of the Church and the Law of Conscience coincide and coalesce in this case. By having violated them thoroughly and publicly, they perform sacramental rites without spiritual character and without grace. They give wrong interpretations to the texts they quote from the 19 Gospel. Their actions reflect that the CCPA statutes and policies dictate their intentions. They are committed to them. Thus, they preach false doctrine about God, Christ, Church and sacraments. Their sacraments are invalid, illicit, and fruitless. They are sacrilegious sins. Co-operation with them in their sins has the same sinfulness.
79. Similarly, it is known in history that, in the time of the Roman Persecutions around 300, the Church considered the episcopal consecrations by the as null and void. ( are traitors, who handed over the Sacred Scripture to an officer as an act of Caesar worship.) So also the consecrations administered by the Anti-popes in the Middle Ages. They were both illicit and invalid. Schism combined with apostasy and anti-papal disobedience renders the sacraments illicit and invalid. The reason is because they are contrary to the intention of Christ and his Church (Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas quoted above in #62.) For this same reason, the Patriotic Sacraments are illicit and invalid a fortiori. For, it involves neo-paganism with its post-Christian and anti-Christian characteristics inherited from the de-Christianizing Enlightenment and worsened by Marxist Liberation from God's Kingdom. (Cf. James P.Keeler, Saint Augustine's Notion of Schism... Mundelein, Illinois, 1961, p.21; August Frenzen, Das Konzil von Konstanz, Herder, Freiburg, 1964, p.116-123;C.M.D. Crowder, Unity, Heresy and Reform...,London, 1977., quoted Keeler, p.126-127. Simon de Cramaud, (ca 1345-1423), De Subtraccione Obedientie, new edition, Cambridge, Mass. 1984.p.109. And other documents, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Library, Toronto.)
80. Please note: Schismatic disobedience to the Holy See involves heresy, apostasy, and treachery. It is a sin of paganism, , which makes sacraments void and null. Ejecting the sinner back to the pre-Christian world, living in a milieu of illiterate irreligious rustic villagers, the heathens. Similar cases in history were the predecessors of the CCPA since the early years of Christianity through the Middle Ages down to the present Age, an age of insurgent neopaganism. Without exception, the neo-pagan spirit is inherent in schismatic disobedience. It is bound to make all schismatic sacraments invalid, illicit, fruitless, and sacrilegious. This is obvious for the special type of schismatics. Sins of this kind belong to the category of sins against the Holy Spirit of Christ the Lord.
Theological and Moral Neurasthenia
81. Some pro-Communist theologians and pastoral practitioners would like to presume that the Patriotic sacraments are valid. They cheat themselves, because their presumption cannot find foundation in reality. It may even show that they lack proper understanding and genuine experience of the nature of the sacraments of Christ. They seem to overlook the connection of the sacraments with the mystical Body of Christ and with the Communion of His Saints. They apparently ignored the nature and the effect of the spiritual character and grace in the sacraments. The spiritual character imprints a seal to confirm the sharing in the hypostatic union between God and humanity in the person of his Divine Son, Jesus Christ. Grace is the cause of friendship with God through Christ. Both the character and the grace incorporate the recipient into the Mystical Body of Christ. Therefore, the intention to administer sacraments against the sharing in the hypostatic union and in the life of the Mystical Body of Christ cannot be the intention of Christ who is the principal minister of the sacraments. Without or against the intention of Christ, no sacrament is a sacrament. Those who presume validity of the "Chinese patriotic sacraments" show the weakness in their understanding of the sacraments. It is a theological and moral neurasthenia. In its disastrous consequences, this neurasthenia is regrettable and pitiful. It uses the rituals of the sacred Liturgy to celebrate sacrilegious profanation against all norms of the divine faith and charity.
82. It crucifies Christ by each act of profanation, perpetuated through centuries. Call this horror
"Pan-Christian Ecumenism". Such high sounding enigmatic names cover up the ugliness of a religious psychopathic illness: the self-injuring and selfcutting neurosis. Like a leper and cancer, it is rooted in the concupiscence of flesh and blood. It embodies itself in human traditions contrary to the divine revelation. It is opposed to the faith and the love professed by Peter in the name of all the apostles to their living Lord and God. Saint Paul recognized it, and Saint Clement of Rome re-emphasized it in their exhortations to the Corinthians. All Christians read them, but not all are humble enough to recognize the sins in their hearts. And, they would not confess them to the only Apostle who holds the keys of the Kingdom. It is regrettable and pitiful. It belongs to the World where Satan is the Prince. It is therefore, rather an Energumenism than a genuine Ecumenism. An "energumene" acts by devil 's energy.
83. This type of theological and moral neurasthenia is one of the root causes of the incurable cancer: the division of the Body of the Church into many Christian denominations. The divisive denominations disrupt the Kingdom of God. Disfiguring and dismembering the body of Christ, the pluralistic division of Christians made Christ himself incredible and unrecognizable before the world. Christ knew it. He prayed and died to prevent it. For his Messianic Kingdom, He wanted unity, not disunity.Here please note: sacramentally, the formula "ex opere operato" is misunderstood, stretched and misused. As by a magic, it is taken to make Christ a captive. And, it forces him to validate the invalid. It is hurling Christ at Christ. It is substituting the divisive intention of schism for the unitive intention of the Redeemer, and prolongs the division. Vice versa, it would validate the sacraments, only if it were so understood as to substitute the unitive intention of Christ and His Church for the divisive intention of the schisms; and thus to confirm the unity of intentions in the two ministers: Christ, the principal and unique, and the priests, the secondary and instrumental. The unity of intentions is required in the two at the outset to produce one sacramental act: one "opus operatum" that is "one work in completion". A secondary cause acting against the Principal, like an instrument against its user, cannot produce any effect intended by the Principal. It would act devilishly, monstrously, and absurdly. Compare it with a saw sawing a wood by itself without a carpenter. On account of this, please observe, objectively considered each schismatic is a form of "Anti-Christ." He is a false Christ replacing the true one, and vice versa, he would not allow the true Christ to come to live and work in him. Schismatic Anti-Christ is a "Monster-Christ." because he indulges himself in self-splitting in chain reaction endlessly, spiritually, culturally and liturgically. A socio-cultural disease, it is originated from the self-inflicting neurosis. The cure is conversion to the unitive principle, as pointed out by Christ and followed by His followers. Salvation consists in this conversion. "Do Penance, the Kingdom is near!" But conversion is futile without obedience. Those who refuse to obey Peter are disqualified to follow Christ. . This is an order given by Christ: "Feed my sheep, feed my lambs". . By this, I make you the "Praelatum Mundi",he Prelate and the Universal Shepherd of my flock in the whole World. (Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Exp. Super Mt. 16, 18; and Jo 21, 17. Catena Aurea, ib.) 21
A Rule of the Apostolic Faith
84. Bishop Fan sacrificed his life for the unity of the Church. This is the challenge he gave to the Catholic World by his long-suffering and martyrdom. By dying for the Holy See, he died for Christ and for the unity in the Communion of saints, that is, for the true Ecumenism and for the salvation of the World. This is a rule of the apostolic faith. By turning away from this rule, the Ecumenical Movement has become a laughingstock of Satan. It has been degenerated into a coverup for perpetuating the sinful discord that is a negation of the unity, an essential attribute of God and His Kingdom, the Church. When the drapes of the Ecumenism are pulled down to camouflage the proliferation of schisms, they hide their ugly sinfulness. They do this with fallacious subterfuges and cosmetic decorations. Among them, they enumerate the treasures of art and culture, local liturgy and spirituality, national heritage and historical tradition, and other emotionally appealing arguments. They use all these arguments to strengthen the schismatic positions and accelerate the centrifugal fragmentation.
85. As soon as they were imported into China by the pluralistic Theologies, Bishop Fan and the loyal Catholics with their simple faith recognized the fallacies in their arguments. In their essence, they are "ad populum" sophisms. In their heart, resides the queen-mother of all evils: the disobedience to the right order canonical and divine: "Non serviam!" "I will never obey you. I am better than you." The choice of Bishop Fan was, in short, that the right order, dissipated, must be restored according to the catechism of order and unity. Adoring God with Saint Michael "Quis ut Deus? (Who can be compared with God?)" a true Christian should not follow the tradition of Lucifer.
The Catechism of Order and Unity
86. The Catechism of the order is this: Being the King, the Prophet, and the Priest, Christ prayed for unity and abjured pluralism that is disunity. Christ died for unity of all in Him. Short of unity, "the divided kingdom can not stand," the prophesy becomes self-contradictory, the priesthood gives the lie to its spiritual character. The communion of Saints is scattered and disintegrated. The body of Christ is dismembered. The Church is fragmented. The Holy See is isolated and discarded. Christendom can no longer be the tabernacle of the indwelling Lord.
The Rock-foundation of the Unity
87. As a centrifugal movement, Pluralism is contrary to unity. It is a mask covering sins against the organic unity of that organism, the Body of Christ. It is contradictory to true Ecumenism. It refuses the rock-foundation of unity. Christ laid down this foundation to build up His Church. Such a spiritual discord in the hearts of Christians, like a cancer, eats at the essence of Christian solidarity through schisms, divisions, and splits. With its underlying divisive intention, everything in conduct becomes contrary to Christ. This makes any sacrament invalid, illicit, and sacrilegious. Co-operation in this sin is sinful too.
A Holy Martyr for Unity and Truth
88. By dying for fidelity to the Holy See, Bishop Fan died for the ecumenical unity of the 22 believers in God. The Holy See is the sign, the principle, the source and the foundation of the unity. It is the rock-foundation of the objective reality of religion. It is also the touchstone of the truth of any church group believing in God. This then is the significance of the life and the death of Bishop Fan. He is a holy martyr for unity, and for true and sinless ecumenism. He is hard to understand. He is thoroughly Roman Catholic and faithful to the Pope. He is impossible for pluralistic theologians. But, he knew in his heart that his position was true before God. In union with Christ, he died for the Holy See. His martyrdom is a continuation of the Prayer of Christ for unity and for Peter. By this, he showed that he knew better the teaching of the Gospel and the mind of the Lord than those who depart from him or rebel against him. Bishop Fan and all the loyal Catholics were aware of this and were certain in the truth of this faith in their conscience. They held dear and firm their Catechism as echoing the words and prayers from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the true Messiah.
89. Under this light, they saw clearly that the Patriotic sacraments are neither valid nor licit. Their liturgical celebrations are lies. Their churches are cages, traps, or decorative dummies. Their seminaries and schools are brainwashing centers established to teach the Communist Front ideology, strategy, and tactics. By institutional purpose and method, they produce Marxist Atheist activists dealing with the Roman Catholics under siege and unarmed. They are not made to produce Apostles neither for Christ nor for the benefit of His people. They are created, controlled, manipulated and operated constantly by the secularist Government in every detail.
Government Interference
90. Regarding education, Bishop Fan opposed the Communist policy. He also claimed that the right of governing the seminaries and schools of the Church belongs to the canonical Bishops. The loyal Catholics were one with him. The Church can not tolerate the government interference in the affairs of Christian education. In short, the Government has no right to interfere in the internal affairs of the Church at all. The freedom of conscience and religion means the freedom of religious education for faith and morality. For defending this fundamental right of the Church, Bishop Fan opposed the religious policies of the Communist Government. They are unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of human conscience and religion. The loyal Catholics were one with Bishop Fan in this opposition. Even the non-Catholic observers knew that he was right. Cryptically, the Communists knew it too.
91. Moral teaching authority of truth comes from truth. Truth is higher than Government. Confucianism knew that truth is the way of Heaven. The authority of the Government is to follow it. The truth of God is in the Church of God. It is superior to governments. The sovereignty of the Church is spiritual and moral. The sovereignty of the State is secular and political. Contrary to certain superficial historians, Confucianism knew this distinction by the ritual symbolism that the sovereignty of the moral teachers as Confucius was white robed, while the Sovereignty of Kings and Emperors was yellow. Nevertheless, the two sovereignties are equal and free under Law. They have to treat each other as such. It is based on the sovereignty of the Moral Conscience and inviolable rights of human person. It is recognized in history by the Conferences of International Law and Diplomacy. (See #100-103).
92. The equality of these two Sovereignties under Law in each nation in the public order reserving the moral and spiritual superiority to the Church in the forum of the human conscience is 23 a divine truth for which Christ and all the Holy Martyrs with Him offered the supreme sacrifices of their lives. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's. Give to God what is God's." (Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Exp. super Mt 22, 17; Jo 18,36; Catena Aurea {Golden Chain}, ib.) This truth is the bitter pill the Atheist Secularist Communist Government must convince itself to swallow in order to become truly legitimate, democratic; and heal itself from the cancer of totalitarian and mono-rule dictatorship. This will be a posthumous honor to Bishop Fan. Let us pray to the Almighty God for it. But, by libeling Bishop Fan' religious fidelity to his Faith as a political crime, the Communist Government committed a crime of having persecuted the Bishop and the loyal Catholics in China and in the World. Persecution is spiritual and indivisible. If one part of the Church is persecuted, the whole Church is persecuted. Spiritually, the Church suffers it no less in the Free World than in China itself. There are religious persecutors in the Free World too. Their masks vary.
The Free World and the anti-Pope Catholics
93. With silent tears in their hearts, the Catholics suffer this painful tribulation. They suffer it from the "Chinese Catholic Patriots" in China. They have realized that they suffer it also from the overseas Chinese Catholic Patriots and others like them outside China in the free world. They expected support from the free World. What they received from it is betrayal or tacit indifference. Coming from the free world, this betrayal pierces their hearts with more excruciating wounds than any blow from their adversaries inside China. In union with Bishop Fan, the Chinese Catholics loyal to the Holy See were disappointed by the pro-Communist and anti-pope tendencies, which obsessed the minds of many Catholics in the free world. They were dismayed by the specter that, coming from the free world into China, the pro-left Catholics brought in with them working plans for implementing the Communist religious programs. They are pro-Communists, pro-Left, and pro- CCPA.
94. These pro-left Catholics from the Free Word undertook to interfere in the internal affairs of the Church in China by helping the Communists in their anti-Roman and anti-Catholic crimes. Without any authority or permission, they have sided themselves with the persecutors of religion. They weakened the pastoral authority of the true local Bishops, Priests, and Lay Leaders. They weakened the authority and the prestige of Bishop Fan, the leader, the hero, the saint, and the boulevard of the Catholic Church in China in the modern world. They made the loyal Catholics in China feel not only abandoned like orphans, but also betrayed by their confreres whom they always respected as the Church in the free world. Asking for bread, they are served with scorpions. They find no where to go for support anymore except turning their tearful eyes to their Savior in their hearts. "Ave Crux, Spes unica!" The solitude of Jesus Crucified, after all, should be the normal condition of the blessed life of the Saints.
The Pro-Left Critics
95. The pro-left people in the free world criticized Bishop Fan and the loyal Catholics unfairly. They favored the Communists with adulation. By preaching dialogue, they talked for the Communists against the Catholics. Their dialogue was a monologue by the Communists for the Communists. They brainwashed themselves to believe that the Communists are powerful, and the loyal Catholics with their Pope are powerless and have no future. They downgrade the loyal Catholic Church of Silence to the underground. They call it secret, hiding, underworld or clandestine Church 24 and other similar names suggesting contempt and ridicule. They give to the Patriotic church honorific titles as suggested by the United Front strategists. Such titles are, for instances: Public Church, Official Church, Open Church, Government Approved, Orthodox, Regular, Legal, Lawful, and the like. They give a clear impression to the people that the Roman Catholic Church is unworthy of these honors. It is merely some underground, underworld, clandestine low class and lawless gang, or something even more contemptible. Or, they leave it in oblivion entirely, while singing loud praises to the new church seemingly flourishing everywhere, except the Vatican on the verge of vanishing with its loyal Catholics.
96. They pride themselves in exhorting the loyal Catholics to rise up to the above ground and to join the Communist Government Official Patriotic and Open Church. In reality, they are handing them over to their captors for capture and torture. With ostentation, they brandish the glorious quantity and quality of patriotic church-buildings, seminaries, institutions, and accomplishments. They exhort the loyal Catholics to come out from the clandestine underground and join the Patriotic Catholics for reconciliation, co-operation and unification. Then, they say, we, the Chinese Catholic Church in China, will stand up, talk as one to the Vatican with dignity as equal to equal, and win our points in dealing with it. They say nothing about justice that the Government has an obligation to restitute all the confiscated Church properties to the Church from where it took them over in the beginning. That was from the original true Church headed by the Bishops in union with the Holy See.
97. Instead, it abused the properties to enrich the Government created phantom church, selfchristened "Patriotic": to mean "Anti-Catholic, Anti-Vatican, and Anti-Pope". By using the Church properties as bait, they try to induce the Catholics to join the Patriots, while labeling the loyal Catholics as unpatriotic, or accusing them of high treason in conspiracy with the Holy See as a foreign enemy. Treat them as un-Patriotic and counter-revolutionary.
98. In reality, however, for the Communist Government, the question is not whether the Roman Catholics love the Country. The question is whether the Country loves its Roman Catholic citizens: including their God, their Bishops and Priests, and their Holy Father. But, in unison with their Communist advisors, the pro-left Catholics put the questions the other way around presupposing the Vatican with the Catholics is guilty of some crime against China. The loyal Catholics have a right to preserve their Faith that only a Catholic loyal to the Holy See is truly a citizen loyal to his own country, and not vice versa. The Holy See by essence is a Cathedra teaching truth of love as the soul of all human virtues. Without or against this teaching, no love is true, and no virtue is authentic. (Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, 62, 4; 65, 2, 3, 4; II-II, 4, 3; 23, 8.) The Church of God has a duty to preach penance to all countries, convert them from their sinful ways to the holiness and justice of God's Kingdom.
Vatican II and John Paul II
99. Moreover the pro-left Catholics say Vatican II called us for renewal and reconciliation. Vatican II (1963-1967) advised us to stop using the word "schism" in describing the Chinese Church condition. Paul VI and John Paul II exhorted us to love each other, just to love. Therefore, let us love and unite. They are so eloquent in this sophistical preaching against Bishop Fan and the loyal Catholics. They even hijacked Vatican II and John Paul II as aircraft to rain down their United Front 25 ballistic missiles of sweet words to sophisticate, to cheat and mislead. They forgot that, during their late visits in Peking in 1979-1981, Cardinals Franz König (Vienna) and Roger Etchegaray (Marseilles) one after another both obtained from the Patriots and the Government reiterated public clarifications and reconfirmation of their religious policy. As always since the beginning, their policy consisted in the irrevocable separation and independence of the Church in China from the Holy See at the Vatican. The polite people still have to abstain from the words "schism, heretic or the like" not in the context of the Church Law and doctrine, but in the context of social and ecumenical relations. Mutual courtesy avoids recrimination as impolite.
100. The Word "Schism" reinstated. In the context of Law and Doctrine, the reason for caution in using the word "schism" ceased to exist, since the Communists themselves reconfirmed it. They wanted what they had always wanted, namely a Chinese Religion of the Lord in Heaven in the line of Matteo Ricci dependent on the Emperor in Peking, and independent from a Sovereign Pontiff in Rome on earth. They invoked the name of Matteo Ricci and the authority of Chinese Civilization to justify their claim for the absolutist State sovereignty against the sovereignty of moral and religious conscience, and against the sovereignty of the State of the Roman Apostolic See of Saint Peter at the Vatican. In this attitude, the CCPA and the Government are one. This attitude is Caesarist and State absolutist. It finds no foundation in right reason for legitimacy.
Matteo Ricci and the Religion of the Lord in Heaven
101. The CCPA theoretists misrepresented the attitude of Matteo Ricci and of the Emperor by one-sided exaggeration. It is true that the Emperor did oppose with anger the regulations given by the Papal Legate in 1707 in Nanking. The regulations forbade the Catholic active participation in the Confucian rites under penalty of mortal sin, while allowing only passive participation for the necessity of social courtesy and civil respect. That happened 97 years after the death of Matteo Ricci. The emperor decreed to expel all the missionaries under the penalty of capital punishment, except those who agree to adopt the "Religion of the Lord in Heaven according to the teaching of Matteo Ricci." To this effect, the Emperor authorized the issuance of certificates in favor of those who agree to request one in order to be free to live in China. But the Emperor and Matteo Ricci and the missionaries after him made clear their attitude that, blaming only some missionaries for misleading the Sovereign Pontiff by misinformation, they have no intention to offend His Holiness, the Sovereign Pontiff himself.
102. Through a sifting process of historical memory, the Chinese Catholics remember only the religious friendship of the Emperor and the piety of Matteo Ricci. And, loving both of them, they deepened their respect to the authority of the Holy See. This, they did despite the persecution they had to suffer from the Imperial Government. This complexity was known in history as the "Matteo Ricci's Imbroglio" (embarrassing situation). Lately issued to the Last Emperor in Manchuria, the 1938 Church document allowing the Confucian Rites as civil rites only, reconfirmed their prohibition as religious rites. With explicit expression, it left the religious issue in the status quo. History is unable so far to clear up the religious "Imbroglio" for the lack of needed documentation since Ricci's death in 1610. But the whole episode, if understood in its objective perspective, cannot be invoked usefully to justify the attitude of the CCPA. The two attitudes are fundamentally different. Except a remotely implied modicum of disobedience to Rome from the part of some 26 Confucian minded Catholics and un-Confucian Communists with the Patriots.
103. Venerated by all Chinese Catholic homes, the picture of Matteo Ricci and the calligraphy of the Emperor in verses praising the Creator, never ceased to inspire the people with faith in God, reverence to the Holy See, respect to Confucian moral teaching in harmony with Christian morality. The title given by the Emperor to the Pope was "the Sovereign of Religion and Civilization." The title of the Emperor was "the Sovereign of Ten Thousand States under Heaven" Ever since then, the painful history made the people more aware of the contention between the two Sovereignties, the Son of Heaven in the Emperor in Peking, and the Son of God in the Vicar and Successor of Saint Peter in Rome. The attitude of the CCPA is concentrated in supporting the religious policy of the Communist united Front. It aims at subordinating the Church to the Socialist State structure. It involves a perversion of the right order in theological understanding and in practical behavior. For this, it is not comparable to the attitude of Matteo Ricci and his Confucian Emperors. The latter did show an adequate understanding and respect toward His Holiness, the Sovereign Pontiff, at least in the protocol formality, which is transgressed by People's China.
The Church and the State: Two Sovereignties
104. The same CCPA attitude is closely akin to that of the French Constitutional Clergy, (Prêtres Assemblés, 1790), and other similar episodes in history since the secularist cultural revolution of the Enlightenment (1610). They hold that the two sovereignties, the Church and the State, cannot co-exist, and are incompatible with the absolutist national state power. Their erroneous attitude proceeded from the confusion of the political and military sovereignty of the State with the spiritual and moral sovereignty of the moral conscience and that of the Church. It is in this point that the Chinese Communists have shown that they are deficient in historical understanding, and that they are immature in political analysis and wisdom. Giulio Andreotti, the Prime Minister of Italy, in his recent visit, has observed the same ideological deficiency in the minds of the Chinese rulers in Peking. That is why they want to absorb religion into the state absolutist structure, instead of leaving it in the spiritual and moral open space to where it belongs. In this open space, the sovereignty of individual moral conscience and that of the Mystical Body, the Church can live and serve in freedom and peace.
105. Despite these and other clear indications, the pro-Communist visitors continued advocating the acceptance of the Patriotic Reformed Church for its political power and glories. In their defeatist and opportunist mentality, they are disposed to surrender the religion to the control by worldly vanities of political power, prestige and glories for survival. They refuse to realize that what they say reiterates the passage in the Gospel: "Look around, I will give the glories of all the kingdoms of this world to you, if you kneel down and adore me", the words the tempter said to Jesus in the desert in Matthew 4,8. (Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Exp. super Mt 4,8, Marietti ed., p. 59 sq.)
106. Church Documents Re-edited: -- They disseminate their pro-left ideas in the name of Vatican II and John Paul II with fragmentary misquotations and unfounded claims. They misinterpret, misquote and reedit the Church documents to suit their ideologies, to cheat and confuse the faithful people in China and in the world. They made collections of Church Documents. They take texts out of their context, compile them together in a clever sequence with biased emphasis underlined, and insinuate the gradual progress of the Holy See and the Church toward reconciliation 27 and unification with the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Church and with the Powerful Government of the Chinese People's Republic. They produced cassette tapes, videotapes and filmstrips for the same confusion and misrepresentation. They project a view that the Patriotic Church is the future, while the out-dated Roman Catholic Church is dying out. More over, some of them went so far as to present the Chinese version of Caesarist Government as a model of the future political order. In this order, not separation of the Church from the State but subordination and integration of the Church into the structure of the Totalitarian State as normative and ideal. It is reversing the progress of theology and philosophy in the fields of religion, diplomacy and prophecy. It is another recurrence of theological neurasthenia. (See #81)
107. 92. Furthermore, they propose a plan of reconciliation and unification of the Church in China. Their plan is unfair and one-sided. They favor the Communists at the expense of the Catholics. They praise the Patriotic power and look down on the Catholics in humiliation under persecution. They are opportunists and bend themselves to the winning side. They favor the Communists at the expense of the Holy See with contempt of the Church Law. They believe that the Communists are powerful and winning; and that, being weak and lost, the Holy See itself is turning to lean to the side of the powerful Chinese Patriotic Church. Therefore, they say: let us reconcile, reunite, and grow together in love, concord, and harmony, and move fast before the bus is lost. With so many enchanting words, they project a visionary illusion of a wedding feast of Israel with Baal in the Kingdom of their Communist atheist ruling power. They dismiss the Holy See and the Canon Law as obstacles of reconciliation and unification. They think the survival of the Church can be achieved by the CCPA with the Government for the glory of God and for the good of the people without the Holy See and the Canon Law. Actually, this is postulated by the acephalous socialist People's Church structure. ""Acephalous" means "Headless, Pope-less, Hierarchy-less, Class-less and the like.")
The Demarcation Line
108. Within the mirage of their plan, they have blurred the demarcation line between the true and false Catholics. They have perverted the legal and moral order between the canonical legitimate Bishops and the illegitimate uncanonical Bishops who are the Patriotic ones. They treat the uncanonical Bishops as superior with honor, and treat the canonical Bishops as inferior with contempt. They see modernity and progress in the Patriotic Bishops; they find only many faults in Bishop Fan and the loyal canonical Bishops. For them, these are poor, sick, old aged, still living in the Pre-Vatican mentality, and, therefore, not good for anything, at least not good for Socialist Cultural Revolution.
109. Through the news media, they present the Patriots as official church Catholics and depict the loyal Catholics as a dying remnant of the Old World hidden in the clandestine catacombs of society. By not distinguishing the true Catholics from the false ones they confuse and mislead the people. They create an impression that the true Catholics loyal to the Holy See and the false Catholics loyal to the Communist United Front are equally Catholics. They make no distinction in the news paper language. This confusion in terminology and nomenclature is favorable to the Communists and unfair to the Catholics. They equate non-being with being. Some Religious news agencies are no less confusing in terminology and presentation than others. It shows the weakness of the Catholic Mass Media, while revealing the power of the pro-Communist journalism. 28
Bridge Church and Liberation Theology
110. Some pro-left Catholic activists appointed themselves as builders of a new Church, called "Bridge Church". But their bridge is leftist. They made it a narrow one way lane going left. It leads a few selected Catholics only to go left, either into a trap of a Communist Front club. Or, it leads them into a Communist jail simply by handing them over to their captors. It never leads the Communists to come right onto the road of conversion to truth and justice. They also preach Liberation Theology with the effect that the liberty they give to the Communists is denied to the Catholics and to the Holy Father Himself. They turn the Catholics to go the way where the Communists want them to go. In short, they are the agents of the Communist United Front, posed as Catholic teachers to confuse the Catholics living under persecution.
111. Many of them enter China to visit relatives or for tourism. By drawing to them the loyal Catholics from hiding, they give the Communists an opportunity to know them and eventually arrest them. More than one Bishop was arrested and taken away at the door of a rendez-vous with foreign visitors. Some of these visitors are playing this role purposely, some unknowingly. The Security agents take advantage of both. The visitors gather the loyal Catholics and the Patriots together, under pretext of promoting reconciliation and unification. In this way, they trap them all into one dragnet and hand it over to the United Front for re-education or other treatment. They counsel the loyal Catholics to join the Patriots, and negotiate with the Communists for unfair readjustments over the heads of the loyal Catholics and their leaders. They do many things according to their pro-left schemes without due concern for the interests of the local communities, without due respect to the local community leaders. They presume that the Patriotic sacraments of the Holy Orders are valid and licit. By preaching this, they mislead many Catholics unaware of their deceit.
"Factum non est praesumendum, sed probandum."
"If it is a fact, prove it. Do not presume it."
112. Seeing the damages they cause to the souls, Bishop Fan felt painfully hurt by these proleft Catholics. Coming into China from the free world, they presented themselves as having authority, education, prestige and wealth. They presumed the CCPA and its churches and sacraments to be valid and licit. They were forgetting that in cases dealing with facts, the truth must be proved and cannot be presumed. "In dubio, factum non est praesumendum, sed probandum." They make a rash judgment according to their ideological and wishful prejudices before they learned the objective truth from the local Catholics. It showed their insufficient training in spirituality, jurisprudence, and political semantics. They presumed that the Holy Spirit is less effective in guiding the chosen souls under persecution in China than their pro-Communist teachers advising them in Europe and America where they say there is freedom and no persecution.
Reckless Foreign Interference
113. Their interference in China is reckless, intrusive, neo-colonialist and self-invited, without Catholic canonical permission or commission. It is quixotic and much worse. It has come to fight for the Communists against the Catholics, instead of rescuing the oppressed and righting the wrongs. It caused a great deal of confusion, division and irritation among the Catholics. They 29 divided the Catholics and induced them to fight each other by preaching harmony to them instead of discerning truth and justice. Harmony without justice is oppression and exploitation of the weak by the strong. In coming back and forth between the Communists and the Catholics, these foreign visitors disclose whereabouts of the Catholics and hand them over to their enemies. Serving the Communists as spies and guides knowingly or unknowingly, they enlarge the areas of the Communist Front contacts and influence. Usually, they cheat and betray the Catholics by doing what they do, because they make the Catholics believe they are new missionaries sent by the Holy Father. They quote Vatican II and John Paul II for reconciling Catholics to the Communists and never the other way around. Their bias is parti pris. Their strategy is wrong: ignoring the real need of keeping the Catholics buried in the love of God instead of uncovering them to the spying eyes of the roaring lions, their mortal enemies, eager to devour them.
A Dutiful Bishop and Loyal Shepherd
114. In dealing with some serious cases, Bishop Fan reached the conclusion that he should censure some of the Pro-left visiting priests from abroad with canonical measures including excommunication, suspension, interdict, and other penalties according to the law and discipline of the Church. He did it shortly before he was martyred. Naturally, his actions drew Communist displeasure toward himself. He knew the consequences. He had no fear. He exercised his rights and fulfilled his duties as a Bishop from the place of his home exile or detention. He signed a document of censure. When interrogated, he recognized and reconfirmed it. As a loyal shepherd, he had to protect his flock with all the might an old Bishop can wield in a moment near the majesty of a martyr's death. He must obey God with fidelity to his duty. His life is short. He has no time to waste. He must act before it is too late. He really wanted the Communists to know it. He wanted also the free world to pay heed to it. He wanted the foreign visiting clergymen to relearn the wisdom and the obedience from the simple faith of the good Catholic farmers under his pastoral care, instead of playing the role of the pseudo prophets.
Intervention needed, not Interference
115. By his death, Bishop Fan warned the foreign countries from the ambition of interfering in the internal affairs of the Church under persecution in China. Their interference is misguided by erroneous ideologies and interests, and militates against the interests of the faithful souls. Interference is not intervention. Naturally, any good-will intervention is welcome and is always needed, if and only if the Holy See has mandated it. The issue of debate is between the Holy See and those who reject its authority. A Third party should not come in for the Holy See without its authority.
Cardinal Tomko
116. Recently in dissenting openly with the Holy See, specifically with Cardinal Joszef Tomko, Prefect of the Congregation for Evangelization, certain Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, religious men and women non-Chinese and even some Chinese from the foreign countries in treating China did what was not their duty. They hurt deeply the feeling of old and dying Bishop Fan. Being free in the free World, instead of doing anything good for him and for his Catholics under persecution, they preached, wrote and acted publicly against his example and guidance. They 30 were unfair to him and to the suffering Church in China. They did it to please and appease the Communists, by rejecting what the Communists reject. Namely, they reject the Holy See and Bishop Fan and other Bishops or Catholics like him, at least temporarily. They cheat themselves by the wishful thinking that they can preserve the Faith for its survival in the future by postponing the obligation of professing it here and now. They seem to be like those husbands who would try to preserve the marriage fidelity for the future by means of temporary infidelity in adultery at the present. They reproached publicly and openly Cardinal Tomko for antagonizing the Communists and hindering the claimed process of reconciliation. For, His Eminence in a circular letter determined the uncanonical, that is, schismatic and inadmissible nature of the CCPA according to a pastoral and canonical position the Holy See had always held since Pius XII. That position happens to be that of Bishop Fan and other loyal Bishops and Catholics. The latter were comforted by this fact and, being assured that they were suffering for a good cause, they were grateful to the Providence of God for His Church.
Fashionable criticisms
117. Regarding Bishop Fan, their criticisms were unchristian and shallow. They made "ad hominem" derogatory remarks gossiping against his personal temperament and socio-cultural religious background. In doing this, they seemed well trained by their Pro-Communist advisers to use the Communist method and style of pernicious propaganda, false accusations, and defamatory calumnies. They could not find anything substantive to say against the reputation of the unfortunate Bishop. Mainly, they accused him of smoking tobacco. They pointed out his taciturn obstinacy since early childhood. They ridiculed him as fanatic in the tradition of loyalty of northern Chinese socioethical character and in the tradition of fidelity learned from Roman Seminary education. Pointing accusing fingers at the insufficient formal education in some candidates he ordained Bishops and Priests. They considered him generally conservative, backward, opinionated, prejudiced, old aged, immobilist and obstinate. They chided him as being more Vatican than the Vatican. They accused him of being a stumbling block on the road to reconciliation, renewal and unification of the divided Catholics. They dismissed him as pre-Vatican and old fashioned. The similar criticisms are fashionable. They are often addressed directly to the Holy See, under the nomenclature of the Roman Curia, the Vatican, the Hierarchy, the Institutional Church or the like
An Apologia for the Church and for Bishop Fan
118. In the criticisms against the candidates of ordination for the lack of formal education, the Critics failed to see that the formal education of most of his candidates is actually higher than that of most of his critics, some Cardinals and Archbishops included, "salva reverentia." It is certainly higher than that of the 12 Apostles and 72 Disciples of the Lord put together. Generally, they had college education in the Catholic Universities. They knew no less than three foreign languages: Chinese, Latin, English, French or Spanish, or Portuguese or German. Majority was alumni of the "Collegium Sinicum" of Fujen Catholic Peking University (1946-1951). Some were trained by the Jesuit Schools, Scholasticates, Seminaries and Universities in Peking, Tian-jin and Shanghai.
119. But, under the Light of Faith, a Christian should know and discern that the so called 31 formal education of the secularized Euro-American type, while proliferating Ph.D.'s, is incapable of begetting children of God nor of training Apostles and saints. Our Lord did not come to us with a diploma. Neither any other prophet ancient or new. For Saint Paul, his certificate was not a piece of parchment, but the Holy Spirit in the conscience of his faithful. Bishop Fan or any other Bishop, if he is truly a Bishop, has enough discernment and authority from God to recognize a candidate whom the Divine Providence brings to him. He can find ways to train him without going through the formal education in a classroom when it is not available in the time of persecution. The true teacher is Jesus Christ, the Word of God, indwelling in the hearts of his chosen ones, needing neither classrooms nor cathedras. This is a living reality for all souls in general and for the time of persecution in particular. The divine teacher knows how to utilize the human imperfections to confuse the proud and the powerful. Jesus Christ did not fail to thank God the Father for having revealed the mysteries of the Kingdom to the merest children. (Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Exp. super Mt 11,15; 21,15. Ps. 8,4. Exp. super St.Paul, I Cor. 18-31; II Cor. 3, 2-4.)
The Value of Formal Education
120. Being the mother and the teacher of all nations, the Catholic Church knows the formal class room education is an instrument of methodical learning. She was the founder of the schools of all grades in history. While being useful, they are not absolutely necessary. When they are not available, wisdom of life can be learned elsewhere. In fact, it preceded the Classroom formal education in the chronological order of history. World conquerors and Saints were trained in the battlefields of life, and not necessarily in the Military and Theological Academies. For the Church, Saints came in time before Doctors. Doctors were converted to the simple faith of the humble saints in order to be true Doctors, not vice versa. No saint needs to be a Doctor in order to be a true saint. The art of holy life by faith is a gift from the Savior. It is not a fruit of human formal education alone, as like wise man doesn't live on bread alone. Even a pagan Confucius emphatically taught that you should choose fidelity in preference to bread in case you cannot have both. He also said that, as a gift from Heaven, wisdom is not found exclusively in schools. It is in every home where you live by practicing it in the daily duties of life.
121. The wisdom of simple faithhas proved itself higher than the wisdom of the human ideologies, theologies, philosophies and pseudo-prophecies. History knows that the knowledge acquired through human efforts of formal education is imperfect and is replete with errors, malicious counsels, fallacious arguments, and insidious deceptions. They often contradict the divine teaching of truth in faith and morals. The wisdom of the Holy Spirit is being poured out in the hearts of the faithful in the time of salvation. In Providential cases, it is a supernatural gift from God.
122. Both Bishop Fan's obstinacy and Roman Seminary fidelity and northern Chinese villagers' loyalty were transformed and elevated by the Holy Spirit into a high level of the Confucian and Christian virtue of perseverance in the faith in searching for wisdom under the trials that surpassed the natural limits of human endurance. According to the promises of the Lord, the Holy Spirit guided the loyal Catholics and spoke in them and for them in the time of their trials. Many 32 witnesses have observed that this has been a frequent occurrence in China under the present persecution. Even the Communists have noticed it with admiration.
Wisdom of Moral Conscience
123. Like Pontius Pilate, the persecutors show occasionally secret remorse of conscience for their public torturing of innocent religious people. That is why they hide the cruelty they commit in secret chambers and camps, even as well as in public squares or plazas. By hiding it, they show that they know they are shamed of it. Regarding Bishop Fan, they were quick to deny any cruelty, even though they didn't succeed to conceal it. They would retaliate against any one who dared to denounce it. And, they would protest loudly that any one who denounces it is attacking the sanctity of the People's Republic. Their simple and clever way is by saying that it did never occur. For, they know that it is too shameful for them to admit it. This knowledge in their hearts is a sign that there is a self-evident wisdom of moral conscience with sensitivity of shame in every human heart. The rules of conscience can be denied by lying but cannot be forgotten by heart. By breaking and denying these rules, they know they are lying to themselves and to the World.
124. In answering to the pro-left Catholics, the truth should be firmly held that, in reality, the "Government Approved Official Church" is a misnomer; it is a Communist Atheist United Front organization. Not a real church at all, it is an Anti-Church and Pseudo-Church. Working in the free world in favor of the "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association" and its related pseudo-church institutions, the pro-left Catholics in dissent with Bishop Fan and with Cardinal Tomko, are disturbing the faith of the Catholics, the unity of the Church and the authority of the Holy See. Holy See.
THE CCPA Ideology in the Free World
125. Bishop Fan was neither scandalized nor discouraged. For, he knew the power of the Communist United Front tactics. Under this power, many can falter, even the elected souls. Some are of a high rank in the society, academy and hierarchy. The third part of the stars can fall from the sky in the apocalyptic upheaval. For this danger, Bishop Fan made it known that these pro-left Catholics coming from the free world disappointed him. By writing and by messengers, Bishop Fan warned the Holy Father of the same danger of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic ideology spreading to the free world outside China. The Holy Father responded by calling up the whole world to pray for China in the spring of 1982. For, in conscience and in truth, a Bishop must oppose the dissolution of Christian faith, morality, and canonical authority. Bishop Fan's opposition to the Chinese Communists and to the Chinese Catholic Patriots was very intense; it extended universally.
Moral and Loyal Opposition
126. His was a moral opposition for the sake of truth. It was dictated by a higher wisdom of moral conscience and divine Law. His opposition to the Political Parties in certain cases should not be classified as crimes of any kind. He was obliged in conscience to teach the Moral Law governing the inter-party relations and the relations between the Party and the State, as well as between the Church and the State. The issue at stake involves the life of the Church, the Kingdom and the Body of Christ. The Church does not need to beg good counsels from the enemy governments and institutions for the needed self-reform; she can carry out this internally by her own resources. The proper response to persecution is martyrdom and not compromise. Having a living faith in the resurrection of body, Christians do not fear physical death but do fear the spiritual ruin that issues from cowardice and infidelity.
127. Further, his was also a loyal opposition. It was not an enmity, hostility, prejudice, anger or hatred. It was meant to heal and not to hurt. Rooted in the spirit of Faith, Hope and Charity, he was open to discussions for mutual understanding and ready to negotiations for mutual readjustments. He was willing to talk peacefully and reasonably with the Communists and the Catholic Patriots. He addressed them properly and lovingly as "Comrades," "Brothers," "Sisters" or the like. He kept giving Catholic answers to their questions. He often said he is abiding by all the Government laws and Party regulations for the sake of the common good. He wanted to love his neighbors, enemies included. Naturally, he would never go against the laws of moral conscience and the Church of God. In exercising his rights and duties as a Bishop. he would not allow the Government to restrain him. During the re-education sessions, he studied carefully the Communist documents, he argued with serenity and paternal dignity for the truth against falsehood.
Pastoral and Sacramental Duties
128. Occasionally, he censured some priests with canonical penalty including suspension, excommunication, interdict and the like. Then, he absolved, forgave and readmitted them into the community, when they had satisfied the canonical and sacramental requirements. His censure was not an expression of personal preference. He was merely fulfilling his pastoral and sacramental duties for spiritual healing and reconciliation, according to the norms given in the Catechism of Penance. Besides the Sacrament of Penance, he administered the Sacrament of the Holy Orders. He ordained bishops and priests according to the law of the Church against the wishes of the Government. He did it not only for his Diocese but also for the dioceses in other provinces. He did this in opposition to the Government. But, as said before, his opposition is not classifiable as a crime. The Government has no authority to legislate against God and His Bishops. He did it within the limits of the law of God and moral conscience.
The Sovereign Rights of the Bishops and of the Holy See
129. According to his understanding, by granting the sovereign rights to the Chinese Bishops it appoints, the Holy See is not interfering in the internal affairs of China, nor infringing on its sovereignty. It is granting and consolidating it. By accusing the Holy See of crimes in its sacramental services, the accusers are confusing the lawful with the unlawful, and are mistaking the father for a thief in his own house. In truth, the Holy See is not a foreign power to any country or to any part of it. So, also the Apostles and missionaries, being spiritual fathers, they were appointed and consecrated by God through His Church, to fulfill their duties in offering sacramental services for the good of the souls. Their service transcends the national and man-made barriers of any kind, like light and air. With this conviction in his conscience, Bishop Fan did ordain Bishops and priests according to the wishes of the Holy See in opposition to the Government and to the CCPA. Yes, it is true. But, Bishop Fan did it for the spiritual benefit of the Chinese People. It was the Government that was committing a high level crime, by mistaking the Bishop's opposition as a crime, and by penalizing him for doing what were his rights and duties. By recognizing the sovereignty of the Church and that of the Moral
Conscience, the sovereignty and authority of the State is recognized, founded and confirmed. This truth is not understood by many political theorists.
The Sacrament of the Holy Orders
130. Bishop Fan was doing well for the People by giving them Bishops and priests through the sacrament of the Holy Orders. He was administering a sacrament, which is an essential part of the Church services a Bishop is entitled to perform. It is a benefit to the people. He knew the People were grateful for it. He never imposed a sacrament on any one who was free to receive or decline it. The sacrament of the Holy Orders is essential to the Church. If the Church enjoys the Freedom of Religion, the Ordination of Bishops and the Holy Orders must be allowed to be free. It is inseparable from the basic right to religious freedom. Bishop Fan could not justly be deprived of this right. He ordained Bishops, Priests, and other ministers according to the Law of the Church. No one knows how many Bishops and priests he ordained. Some news sources asserted after his death that he "filled the vacancies of the Dioceses in China before he died." More over, he maintained relations with the Holy Father and with friend's abroad, whenever he found some way to do so. Mainly for these reasons, the Communists sentenced him to a 10-year imprisonment in the winter of 1982, one year after his final arrest. By doing this, the Communist Party and Government proved themselves to be terrorists against a humble, peaceful man.
131. Bishop Fan's answer to the Court was simple and repetitive: "Yes, I did it. It is my duty and my right." Often in the years past, he would challenge the Communists to kill him by pointing with his finger at their guns. He warned them of the consequences of their actions before God. He did this with paternal goodness and dignity. "I did what is my right and my duty. You say that it is a crime. You may do to me what you wish." Something like this was his final word in the Court held against him in that year. His behavior in the Court was known to have revealed his virtues of humility, patience, courage, reasonableness, firmness and dignity. In their hearts, the Communists as individual human beings respected him and God. They revealed this occasionally by apologizing to him in saying: "Sorry, we have to do this to you, because the Government has its law and order." When they served him food or water, they did it with silent sympathy.
The Funeral in honor of a Saint
132. For his funeral, the Government officers and the "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Associates" forebad but did not effectively stop the Catholics from honoring their Bishop with funeral services. To certain extent, they joined the funeral services to mourn this great Bishop. About 30,000 Catholics attended the funeral services in the ancient city of Paoting and at the tiny village of Siao-Wang-ting. During the wake, a novena of prayers preceded the burial. Twenty orchestras accompanied the services with Chinese and western music. Each mourner was wearing a white cap as a symbol of grief, sympathy, and filial piety. Filling the heaven and the earth, the torrent of great voice crying, praying and singing from the immense crowd was impressive and extraordinary. It was a respectful farewell to the hero departing and a jubilant welcome to a saint ascending to the Paradise. A simple gathering turned out so beautiful as though a piece of the paradise came down from heaven to earth over Siao-Wang-Ting. (Xiao-Wang-Tong).
Five or Six Hundred armed Police and Soldiers
133. The News media reported that, at the funeral site, the government did send 5 or 6 hundred armed police and soldiers. To fill up the rank and file, it hired workers and farmers $15 each person per day in Chinese currency. They caused some minor skirmishes which, however, were overshadowed by the solemnity of the occasion. They tried but did not succeed in preventing or dispersing the funeral celebration. They ended up stationing themselves along the roads and places to maintain order. Their presence was drowned in the immense crowd of the mourners. Against their intention, their presence drawing public attention dignified the occasion in the small village of Siao- Wang-ting. According to a message from Paoting, the government officials and the Patriots with them dispatched a gift to Siao-Wang-ting to honor the dead and to comfort the living. For the same purpose, the local government officials turned on videotape to show the last words of the Bishop before dying: "I am a man of faith. Therefore, make my funeral modest and simple. But, please, offer a lot of prayers for me to God!"
The Bishop died at the age of 85, 1907-1992.
134. The Leaflets - The funeral committee printed leaflets bearing a sign of the Cross in the center with Bishop Fan's name and title on it, surrounded with characters in Chinese computerized style in poetic verses. The verses say:
"Bishop Joseph Fan, the Great, is a Shepherd of China, Protector of his flock, shed his boiling blood, wrestled in battle with evil devils, and singing triumphant songs of victory, he went to the Heavenly Home in glory. He sacrificed his life for God, the Lord. He is a great man of this century. He is a great Bishop of Paoting. He is the President of the Bishops' Conference of China on the Mainland."
Note: "shed his boiling blood" is a cultural expression of "having exerted all his energy," not signifying literally "having shed his red blood," from the body.
135. The Tomb: - High enough to be visible from afar, his lonely tomb is on a lot east of the village. Made of white cement, it has an oblong arch shape. The north end of it is decorated with a white Cross. The south end bears the Jesus' symbol, IHS with a cross on the top. It impresses the daily travelers on the high way as simple, yet dignified. The Bishop was dressed with Bishop's vestments including a pectoral Crucifix and a miter. The local Party and Government officials were courteous and offered co-operation to the funeral committee.
Prayer and Hope for Peace, Liberty and Reconciliation
136. For historical record, the sum total of all manifestations comes down to justify the final evaluation that the Patriotic Associates and the Government officials and the Loyal Catholics did come together in peace and in good order. They joined the Funeral celebration to honor Bishop Fan who is dead and respected as a saint. This fact is remarkable. It is the first public and solemn occasion in the history of the Church in China. It has joined the Chinese Patriots and the Loyal Catholics together. They shared the religious and human sentiment to mourn, to pray, and to honor a man who was a Father and Shepherd of their souls. By his heroic deeds, he was a great teacher in Moral Law and in Catholic Religion. This man is respected as "one longest serving prisoner of conscience," by the public opinion of the whole world. 36
137. Psychologically, it is true that the Chinese Communist psycho-technical methods are efficient in interfering in the internal affairs of conscience. They can create "captive minds" through brainwashing and thought reform. They were successful in the cases of many people. They failed in Peter Joseph Fan. On the contrary, they made him a Prisoner of Conscience in honor of his dignity as a bishop and as a man. By pressing him low, they made him high and great. This reflects the fact that the human nature is spiritual. The sense of honor and dignity transcends the limits of physical violence and terror. -- Religiously, Bishop Fan is a clean martyr without bloodstain. He lived under oppression. He died victorious. He is free. He is a saint. Glory to God and to His Church! The persecutors could not expect this. "Forgive them, O Father, because they know not what they do," preyed thus on the Cross Jesus, the King of Martyrs. (Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, In Lc 23, 34.)
The Succession
138. Bishop Fan left no successor. His Auxiliary Bishop Paul Shi, (Chun-jie) died under detention in a similar way on November 3, 1991. For his burial, funeral services were not allowed. Adjutor Bishop with right to succession Peter Chen (Jian-zhang), old and dangerously ill is also under arrest in a place, which is unknown. He is not expected to survive his imprisonment. His Vicar General, Father Thaddeus Huo (Bin-Zhang), imprisoned more than once, recently died of multiple cancer in the house of his niece in a village near Paoting, at the age of 82, on February 19, 1992. Over 16,000 mourners joined his funeral services.
Christian Prisoners of Conscience
139. A list of 104 Christian prisoners contains 20 persons who are Bishops, according to the Chinese Times Daily of San Francisco (July 2, 1992). The real list must be much longer. It would need international and impartial inspection to find out about more prisoners of conscience. The Chinese Government has an obligation to open the Chinese territory to the International inspection, which is needed to be fair to the oppressed. The New York Times, Obituary, April 25,1992 published the report of the Associated Press from Peking, with the headline: Peter Joseph Fan, a Bishop Imprisoned by China for Beliefs, for loyalty to the Vatican." (See #136.)
An Apology is to be requested
140. An Apology is to be asked: -- A powerful and very religious Lay Leader, Mr. Matthias Zhang, Da-Peng, and one of his grandsons, Kuo-yan, (10 years old), both devoted cooperators of Bishop Fan in the religious services of Paoting Diocese, were arrested since January 15, 1992. They were moved later to a labor camp for thought reform through labor. Let all people of good will pray to God for them that the Communist Government set them free immediately and unconditionally. They deserve an apology from the Government and from the Party in honor of Bishop Fan and his Diocese. For the same reason we pray to God that the Holy See declare publicly invalid and illegitimate any Bishop Successor the Holy See haven't elected for the Diocese of Paoting which is left de facto vacant by the death of Bishop Fan and by the absence of his Adjutor, Bishop Chen, probably without hope of his coming out alive. (He died in December 1994, after release.) 37
Incompatibility and Negotiability
141. After the burial of Bishop Fan, a news service publicized a lengthy statement of a high rank Chinese Communist Officer in Hong Kong. In substance it said that all the religious dissidents would be retained in prisons or in re-education camps for life, unless they show enough progress in thought reform. The Security officers in Paoting area near Peking pronounced the same menacing statement. The press remarked that the Chinese Communist Government increased the severity in suppressing the dissidents because of the alarming situation following up from the collapse of the Communist governments in Poland and in other Eastern European countries; from Tian-An-Men incident of June 4, 1989 in China; and from the recent disintegration of the Soviet Union and of the World Communism. The Chinese Communists are afraid that the Catholic presence has contributed to the downfall of the Communist power everywhere. They persist in their conviction that the Communism and the Catholicism can never cease to be incompatible to each other. This remains to be a danger to the State. In certain sense, they are correct. They are wrong; however, in believing they can solve the problem by violence and terror. Bishop Fan won his victory over the Chinese Communists not by violence but by the spiritual power of holiness and martyrdom.
A Plebiscite is needed
142. The future of the Catholic Church in China seems to have a long way to go before it can reach the day of liberty and peace. This was a final remark recently made in a press interview by a high rank Cardinal Archbishop in Rome, a member of the Secretariat of the State of His Holiness John Paul II, as was reported by the world Press. The present moment of national crisis in China needs a clarification of the Communist viewpoint about the incompatibility between the Communist Party and the Catholic Church. The hour has come indeed for the Communist Party to concede defeat everywhere. But it is unrealistic for the Party to blame the Catholic presence for it. In the same argument, they have no reason to accuse Bishop Fan and the Chinese Catholics of crimes against the State. As unarmed sheep and lamb, they have been slaughtered unjustly by the violent Government of their own nation. The historical record of the martyrdom of Bishop Fan and many others is written as a verdict. It will not be effaced forever. It demands that the Chinese Communist Government and its leaders pay a fair penalty for the crimes before God and humanity. Therefore, in order to be worthy of the name, a Government should start having enough human sense to stop threatening with further violence and terror. Instead, it is a shame to such a Government, if it lacks the courage to allow his People to have a say through a plebiscite or a national survey about their rights. Let this be done under multiple International supervision from various international authorities civil and religious. The deep issue remains to be the legitimacy of this Government itself. It is unethical to sidetrack it. It is a moral crime for any Government to govern against moral laws of justice and human fairness. This crime becomes a case of International justice, when a Government governs against the moral conscience of its own people.
The Levels of Incompatibility
143. Bishop Fan and the Catholics in union with the Holy See always believed and promoted peaceful Co-existence under law with justice and honor. To solve the problem of incompatibility, several levels of dialogue and negotiation are possible. The multiple levels of incompatibility and negotiability must be understood and kept distinct by all the concerned. The process of negotiation 38 and interaction can be carried out by the rules of reason in peace and in good order. Each level is to be treated differently. (1) In the level of theory, the incompatibility is insoluble and nonnegotiable. This is true. But, even in this level, the order of peaceful co-existence can be reasonably maintained. Theoretical discussions, by nature, are to be carried out by theoretical methods of logic and dialectics. They need peaceful approach. Brutal forces of violence and terror are unable to solve the theoretical problems of truth and falsehood. (2) In the level of Ideology, Constitution, and Law, negotiation is always possible and mostly needed. Satisfactory solution can be obtained. Patience and gradual process are efficient to guide the process. (3) In the level of security and safety, negotiation and solutions are always possible and necessary. This level of negotiation deals with security regulations, ordinances, safety measures, strategic and tactical adjustments in daily interchange and interactions.
Battle of Violence and Battle of Sportsmanship
144. In this level dealing with safety measures, it is true that daily life is a battle; and life itself is warfare. ("Militia est vita hominis." (Job 7,1. Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas' Commentary on the Book of Job.) Cr. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Com. in Job 7, 1.) But, battle of violence should be replaced by battle of reason in order to be human. Battle of reason seeking peace through peace is made possible and necessary by the advancement of modern communication and interchange. For replacing the battle of reason in peace for the battle of violence in terror, freedom and good will are necessary and sufficient. In this point, an observation must be made that in the last 70 years, the good will was not found sufficient in the side of the Communist Parties in the world. The blood revolution in violence was the rule. The power from the gun was the boasting. By reputation, the Chinese Communist Party must realize, its history has been a history of violence and terror. This is more so in regard to the armless and innocent majority of Roman Catholics in the parish level. There is no excuse. The Party leaders themselves should recognize their responsibility and change the course of behavior for a better future. "Violentum non durat" that says: "Violent regime can't last." It is honorable to concede defeat, when the hour has come. At least, learn from the World Olympic Spirit how to change the battle of violence into a battle of reason by the model of honorable sportsmanship. Play the game by the rule of the game, not by the rule of the jungle. Only kindness with fairness is the rule worthy of human being.
145. In sport, battle is real, wrestling is tough, but the rule of the game is friendship and fairness. It never allows violence andterror. In a game, you can win and you can loose. When you loose, please concede it, in order to qualify for playing the next game. But, in all cases, the rules of friendship and fairness must not be subverted by the rule of violence and terror. When you treat the religious people, please abolish the police and the military in order to be wise and reasonable. Open the prisons. Stop the arrests. Set the people free. Then, treat each other with reason never with the gun anymore. Respect each other with equality and reciprocity in search for peace through the methods of peace. This is the way: the only way human and divine. It is holy. The losers are the violent terrorists, and not the holy Martyrs like Bishop Fan.
Gradual and Selective Approach
146. Through reasonable process of dialogue and discussion, mutual understanding leads gradually to selective discussion, tolerance, inter-change, and selective co-operation, toward the 39 final goal of full friendship in the new order of security, safety, and inter-party sportsmanship. Constant negotiation for constant readjustments must be chosen as the guiding principle in the historical process of public life. This is particularly needed in managing the fluid and constantly changeable relations between the Church and the State, between the religious freedom of conscience and the political authority of the Government and society. Learn this wisdom from Bishop Fan and from the Catechism of Penance for Renewal and Reconciliation, which he taught through his life and death.
147. The Martyrdom of Bishop Fan will bring the blessing of reasonable discussion to the negotiation table between the Church and State in China. It is important for the Chinese Communist Party to concede its defeat in its religious policies of the last 40 years. It may regain its authority, if it can honor itself by replacing violence and terror with reason and kindness. To begin with the new order, the Chinese Communist Party leaders must be the first to say to the Chinese People and to the civilized world: "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." (My fault, my most grievous fault). Repent, ask forgiveness, and resolve to improve the conditions of tomorrow. The spirit of Bishop Fan will help you and China.
Submit to International Authorities
148. In practice and in urgency, the first thing the Communist Party should do is to convince the government to release all the prisoners. Seat them around the table of negotiation. Treat each other as equal partners in kindness and fairness. Accept International supervision and observation in the proceedings. Consult International Law authorities. Respect all internationally recognized Human rights, and the Chinese tradition of rights. True democracy is a regime of human rights. It is an administration of human needs. Human needs are common concern of all humanity. Submit all human right issues to International authorities.
149. In practice and in urgency, the first thing the Communist Party should do is to convince the government to release all the prisoners. Seat them around the table of negotiation. Treat each other as equal partners in kindness and fairness. Accept international supervision and observation in the proceedings. Consult international law authorities. Respect all internationally recognized human rights, and the Chinese tradition of rights and duties. True democracy is a regime of human rights. It is an administration of human needs. Human needs are common concern of all humanity. Submit all human rights issues to international authorities. Stop insisting in contrary claims. No internal reason of a State or territory can overrule the International Authority of Justice. Human rights and human needs belong to the humanity as a whole, and their issues form the proper field of the International Law. They cannot be contravened by any pretext nor be administered by one Government alone in order to be fair. In these issues, the Government is not the judge or accuser, but is the suspect criminal to be accused and judged. And, the accusers often happen to be the oppressed who are voiceless and helpless. They need assistance from International Powers and Authorities.
Abolish the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association
150. For the particular case of the Catholic Church in China, the Chinese Communist Government will honor the spirit of Bishop Fan and earn understanding from many Governments 40 in the world, if it undertakes to initiate negotiation with the Holy See without precondition and without agenda. Proceed with the usual gradual progression. Start with the working relations about the daily needs of the religious people. Then discuss other problems by order of priorities. Leave the diplomacy to the end of the process. The first step is to eliminate the obstacles. The first obstacle is the "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association" (CCPA) with its related institutes. Abolish it unconditionally, immediately, and completely. This was the advice and the verdict of Bishop Fan. Please accept it and put it into practice. It will bring peace, order and honor.
151. It is well known that the CCPA concept is not acceptable even according to the legal standards of International Socialism and Communism. Please observe how ridiculous it is the scene that it is the Party, which is creating a Church, Priesthood, and Episcopacy. The Party itself is playing the role of the sexton, the catechist, the theologian, the economic procurator, the book keeper, the registrar, the usher and the door keeper, the supervisor, the custodian, and the like in a Church it creates and maintains. And, such a Party appears so religious and churchly while, by inner essence, it is a Party of Atheism. Bishop Fan would give a better advice than that by his Martyrdom: stop interfering in the internal affairs of the human conscience and the Church. Recognize in full the rights of the Church and the Holy See. Restore full freedom and peace of conscience to all citizens without delay.
The Partners of Negotiation
152. The attitude of Bishop Fan was clear and legally correct. It was an attitude of pastoral and sacramental services. The partners of negotiation in the first instance are the Government and the Canonical Catholic Bishops. In the second instance, the solution of problems depends on direct understanding with the Holy See. The CCPA should not appear at all. It belongs to the internal affairs of the Church. The Chinese Government has the obligation to resume the process of working contacts, which it has interrupted by methods of violent crimes in 1950's. Let the Catholic World pray to God for reconciliation and peace, through changing spiritually the hearts of the Chinese Communist leaders from brutality to humanity. The Catholic Church doesn't have to go so far as Gorbachev and Yeltsin to say that a Communism with human face is impossible, or that the Communism has proved itself to be a failure both as a concept in theory, and as an experiment in praxis, although this was true in Russia and in all the Communist countries, including China.
153. History will show that, in China of tomorrow, it will be the Catholic Church with the Holy See which will maintain some measure of order and stability among the people when the nation becomes chaotic, untenable, morally corrupt, uncontrollable, and ungovernable. Then, please remember the spirit of the Bishops whom the Communist Party caused to suffer and die unjustly. Their spirit, like that of Bishop Fan, are a spirit of Jesus, a good Shepherd for reconciliation and renewal, and the Prince of Peace.
Prayer and Hope for Reconciliation and Peace
154. Incidentally, history has it, during the reign of Paul VI, a Japanese Ambassador and his wife, both Catholic, went from the Vatican to some place in North Italy to pay tribute to the Japanese Martyrs in a Church the Italian Catholics dedicated to their honor. The Ambassador actually honored Japan in Italy by honoring Japanese Martyrs. Such honor does not imply dishonor 41 or revenge to the Japanese Empire for its having put to death so many of its holy citizens in the ancient past of its history. It has simply pushed the regrettable aspect of the event into oblivion. With the glory of the Japanese Saints, it recalls only the happy reconciliation and friendship between Japan and the Holy See, with the Catholic Church both in Italy, in Japan, and in the world as one big happy family.
155. With this religious sentiment, let the Catholic World of today pray for the happy reconciliation and friendship of tomorrow between China and the Holy See. May it come sooner than late? Honor to Bishop Fan! Honor to all the unknown Martyrs and Saints in China! Glory to God and His people everywhere!
Report miracles, please
156. If you have obtained major miracles from God through the intercession of Bishop Fan, please report them to the undersigned. For any serious need, pray in your heart: "Bishop Peter Joseph Fan, pray for us!" Bishop Fan is honored as a saint in China by popular spontaneous consensus and roaring proclamation crying to Heaven with tears. Let us pray that God grant us a confirmation that He did elevate Bishop Fan to be our patron saint in Heaven, and a protector of the Church under siege on earth. May God bless us all through Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
-------------------------------------------------
Rev. Matthias Lu, Ph.D., Th. D., A.F.S.C.
Director, Saint Thomas Aquinas Center
P.0.Box 3014, Saint Mary's College,
1928 Saint Mary's Road, Moraga, CA 94575,USA.
Telephone (925) 376-9398. Fax (925) 376-3862.
The date of issue: May 6, 1992.
Revised, and supplemented, July 21, 1992.
Web Edition, October 18, 2001
Supplemented, December 29, 2003
This is a draft for confidential use
Copyright @ Saint Thomas Aquinas International Center.
Post Scriptum
-------------------------
A reliable source gave out the information that the Qing Yuan County government ordered Xiao Wang Ting village government to flatten the Tomb of Bishop Fan to the ground. They used bulldozers to do it. They eliminated many other cemeteries to reclaim the farmland for Ecological and Agrarian Reform purposes. The Central Government policy would exempt certain tombs from demolition for the respect of memorable monuments. They did not grant such an exemption to the tomb of Bishop Fan. The local Catholics failed to get an answer for their enquiry. They have reason to suspect that the local agents did demolish the Bishop's tomb for anti-religious, anti-Catholic and anti-Papal motives. They did it on May 24, 2001, a Mary's Feast Day. They did not exhume the coffin. The Bishop's relatives covered the spot by a mound of earth and marked it with a stone.
Despite political and social restrictions, private pilgrimage for silent prayers keep bringing people Catholic and non-Catholic to the hidden
buryal location of the Bishop for the honor of their faith in their hearts .
Matthias Lu
|
