After 60 years of communism, Church in China faces most critical moment

ICC Note:

Zero growth among Catholics; declining vocations; bishops too young. Meanwhile, Party and government control continues along the same lines of the past 60 years.

By Anthony Lam

11/13/09 China (AsiaNews) - The People’s Republic of China is celebrating her 60th anniversary this year.  It is a good time to evaluate the development of the Catholic Church in China during the last six decades.

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 No significant increase in Catholic population

According to the different sources, the Catholic population in China has not experienced any significant increase in the last ten years. The situation is even worse than that during the Cultural Revolution when the Church still recorded growth in population.  It is true that every year there are some 150,000 new baptisms joining the Church, but this is just enough to compensate the natural loss of the Catholic population.  On the other hand, a great number of Catholics, especially those moving from the rural area to the coastal urban area looking for jobs, are left unattended in the new emigrant city.  Most of them become “CEO” Catholics, that is, going to the Church on “Christmas and Easter Only”.

 Shortage of all kinds of vocations

Following the decline of Catholic population growth is the decline in vocations.  The absence of the tier of youth alone already causes great difficulty in recruiting priesthood vocation, not to mention the impact of materialism and One-child Policy.

More important is that in China the Church lacks all kinds of vocations.  Sisters vocations are declining.  Mature vocation is not well cared for.  (Basically there is no institute taking care of mature vocations in China.  If one wishes to join the priesthood after thirty, it seems that the only possible way is to join a congregation abroad.)  Religious brother vocations and formation is still forbidden, at least not officially approved, in China.   Twenty years ago, a late bishop in Central China told me that he would like to recruit some young men as brothers, but the government had never given them the green light.  Vocation of permanent deacons has not yet been introduced to this country.

 Bishops are too young

Contrary to the phenomenon of an ageing Church, the Episcopal class is getting younger and younger.  Due to the closing down of the seminaries for more than twenty-five years from mid-1950s to early 80s, middle-aged priests were very rare in China at the time when the Church was re-opening her door to the outside world in 1980s.  Even nowadays, middle-aged clerics are still a minority.  Some bishops or bishopric candidates find themselves too young to take up the post.  Through the last two years there is no open consecration of bishop in China.  It may be attributed to many reasons, but we cannot deny that quite a number of candidates have turned down the proposal or appointment as bishops in China.  The problem will be solved after a few years when the young tier becomes mature.  The question is how to handle the existing Episcopal vacancy not at the cost of the diocesan development.

 The control of the Party

To conclude this article, I think it is not appropriate to neglect the influence of political impact on the Church in China.  Actually, the government has never given up her ambition of controlling the Church.  They are still sticking to the strategy as they did in the first thirty years, but just doing it the other way round.   New and advancing technology have not changed the government’s attitude towards the social and non-government group but just reinforcing their ability of control.  It seems that the party and the government still do not trust the Church.  In fact the control asserted by the government and the party is simply unnecessary.  The government should not be afraid of the Church.  Even without the government’s interference, the Catholic Church already has many difficulties to tackle.  The government should show some mercy to the Church.

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