The Vatican may answer China's prayers and build diplomatic ties

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-11-22

Pope Francis greets to the crowd after he was elected the 226th reigning
pope of the Catholic Church, March 14, 2013. (File photo/ Xinhua)

China and Vatican City have had a breakthrough that may lead to the building official ties.

According to Hong Kong's pro-Chinese government Wen Wei Po, the two nations have reached a basic consensus regarding bishop ordination in China. China has proposed an institution of ordination to the Vatican, which is expected to respond by early next year, said an unnamed authority close to the negotiations.

Communist forces, which took over mainland China in 1949, rejected any exercise of power by the Catholic Church outside of China. The Vatican, in 1951, then built ties with the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government that fled to Taiwan.

The current Catholic representative body in mainland China, established in 1957 by the People's Republic of China's Religious Affairs Bureau to supervise mainland China's Catholics, is led by the two supervisory institutions, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) and the Bishops Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC), which do not recognize the Holy See or Vatican mandates.

The China-Vatican relationship though has been warming in recent years, as both sides have made efforts to build ties. In March 2013, the Pope Francis phoned Chinese president Xi Jinping to greet him after he took office as the leader of the country. In August, Pope Francis's flight was granted permission to cross China's airspace for his South Korean visit.

The major disagreement between the two sides is in regard to the appointment of Catholic bishops in mainland China, who are now named by CPCA, while the Vatican mandates that bishops can only be appointed by the Pope.

According to the source, one of the two compromising solutions for both sides is that each Chinese parish may select a bishop candidate and report to the BCCCC and the Religious Affairs Bureau. Foreign affair agencies would then submit the candidate information to the Vatican for approval. No one would be ordained before both sides reach an agreement.

The other option is that a parish may present two candidates for the BCCCC to make recommendations to the Holy See, which can then pick from the two.

"It can be anticipated that the Holy See would not be satisfied with a sole agreement on appointing bishops," said the source. "They want a series of agreements, including whether the CPCA and the Catholic Congress should continue to run. China would not easily give in on these points."

As to the "Taiwan issue," or the close tie between the Vatican and Taiwan which some believe has been one of the major blocks between mainland China and the Holy See given China's "One China Policy," is "not a problem," according to the source, who added that the Vatican has made detailed plan as to how it will make "arranges" for the island after it builds official ties with mainland China.

The Vatican is Taiwan's last remaining ally in Europe.

In response to the un-verified China-Vatican consensus, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said on Nov. 20 that whereas ties between Taiwan and the Vatican remain strong and close, the authorities will follow up closely on this issue.

Anna Kao, spokesperson for MOFA, said that as a religious state, the Vatican expresses concerns for regions without the freedom of religion and aims to help improve the treatment of its believers in said areas.

Higher-ranking officials in both Taiwan and the Vatican have close ties. Taiwan will continue to make efforts to strengthen its partnership with the Vatican in promoting peace and charitable acts, said Kao.

Wang Kun-Yi, a professor with the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies in Taiwan's Tamkang University, said it is no surprise that Vatican City may cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan and build them with mainland China. He is surprised, however, about the timing of the agreement talks.

This will severely damage the ruling KMT government, led by president Ma Ying-jeou, which has been trying to maintain a friendly relationship with China. If the Vatican cuts official ties with Taiwan, Ma's "viable diplomacy" policy can be declared a failure, said Wang.

The news would also potentially affect island-wide elections coming up at the end of the month, in which the KMT is perceived as having an uphill battle against candidates from opposition parties.

There has been a cross-strait consensus though, that China and Taiwan do not "attack each other in the international community," as Li Baodong, deputy minister of China's foreign ministry, stated after Gambia's president made a unilateral announcement to cut ties with Taiwan in November, 2013. Unlike precedents in which countries would soon befriend China after they cut ties with Taiwan, China has not built official ties with Gambia, said Wang.

The Vatican is a Catholic religious city state. Wang believes that the Chinese president, by actively seeking to reach an agreement and build ties with the Holy See, aims to demonstrate to the world that China is a country with religious freedoms, so as to gain more public support.

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