Underground Catholics in Gao Ja Di village, Inner Mongolia, by Jordan Pouille

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Leon Yao Liang, a bishop in China’s underground church who was imprisoned for more than 28 years under the communists, has died, a U.S.-based Catholic group reported Monday. He was 87.

Yao died on Wednesday in the northern township of Xiwanzi, where he had been auxiliary bishop since 2002, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said in an e-mail.

Yao had held the position in defiance of the government-sanctioned Patriotic Catholic Association, which has no official relations with the Vatican and does not recognize the pope’s right to appoint bishops.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Not since late antiquity has the world seen a migration of peoples like the great urbanization of China now in progress. By 2025, migrants will make up two-fifths of China’s billion-strong urban population, a fifth of all the Chinese, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.

Many analysts have observed that this great confluence of ethnicities and languages has prepared the ground for a great wave of Christian conversion. At the end of World War II, with a nationalist government supportive of Christian missions, barely two percent of Chinese were Christians. The World Christian Database now counts 111 million Chinese Christians, while an internal survey conducted in 2007 by China’s government puts the number substantially higher: 130 million, nearly 10 percent of the total population.

Far less often observed—and potentially more important—is the fact that this exponential growth of Christianity in China would not have been possible without the forbearance and tacit encouragement of the regime. In recent years, the Chinese government has shifted from persecution of Christians to subtle—and sometimes even open—encouragement of Christianity. Christianity never will be a state religion in China, to be sure, and the Communist party in China is still officially atheist. But it is not an exaggeration to say we are near a Constantinian moment for the Chinese Empire, as the government looks to Christianity—particularly Catholicism—for an instrument of social cohesion.

© Xiao Qiang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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In China, it is now trendy to wear a cross, hanging from a small chain at the neck and fully exposed on the chest. The cross might be made of wood, metal or, even, silver or gold or with precious stones. However, the cross is not always worn for the sake of fashion. While it may be worn as jewelry, it is also worn by many as a religious statement.

Today, when asked about the meaning of the cross, the bearer might answer, proudly and clearly, “Yes I am a Christian.” Yet, after that pronouncement, everything becomes blurred. Most people do not know the difference between being Christian (jidujiao in China refers to Protestants) and being Catholic, or of the various branches of the Protestant faith.

A Chinese government estimate puts the total number of Chinese “Christians” at 130 million, almost 10% of the population, and at least five times the percentage of Christians (Protestants and Catholics) as when the communists took power in China in 1949. Even taking into account the country’s population increase during the past 60 years, the absolute numbers of Christians has grown immensely from the original 8 to 9 million in 1949.

However, when taking a closer look at these numbers there might, in fact, be little change from 1949. The Catholics, even in their more optimistic estimates, make up no more than 12 to 13 million, or about 1% of China’’s population. Of note, this is the same percentage of Catholics as in 1949. The rest of the Christians are Protestants or members of similar groups.

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The Vatican‘s highest ranking representative on Chinese-controlled soil on Thursday held out hope that a compromise could be reached on the appointment of Catholic bishops on the mainland – one of the main barriers standing in the way of normalisation of Sino-Vatican relations.

“Only the Holy Father can decide what people are suitable,” Hong Kong‘s Cardinal Joseph Zen said. “But if the government is worried about an appointment they can give their views It has happened in the past.” Such an unofficial arrangement was in place in Poland during the Cold War.

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Post tags: catholics, normalization of relations, Vatican
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