One priest’s reaction was accepting — even approving.

“I’m open-minded. You can retire as Pope,” said Father Yan, in a telephone interview from a Chinese province. (He can only be identified by his last name since speaking out about Roman Catholicism is politically sensitive in China.)

“When God makes us old, he doesn’t want us to work,” Father Yan said.

“People haven’t really talked about it here. It’s a sensitive issue because of relations, but it won’t impact on relations. The state church will accept it. You change a Pope and things go on for the state church,” he said. “But I think it’s very good to retire. It’s O.K. He’s old.”

Read more about Catholicism and China’s relations with the Vatican, via CDT.

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The nature of Christmas in China is fascinating, as I explored in an article yesterday, but it can also be baffling. In my post on eight fascinating facts about Christmas in China, number six was a trend that has long puzzled me: Chinese depictions of Santa Claus, of which there are a great many, very often portray him as playing the saxophone. There are posters of sax-playing Santa, cardboard cut-outs, plastic figurines, mall mannequins, all jamming on the sax.

It turns out that I’m not the only one curious about this trend: it also seems to puzzle a number of Chinese. Beijing-based journalist Helen Gao (who authored afantastic Atlantic article on Christmas in China) emailed that Sina.com, a widely-read Chinese news website, had translated my article into Chinese, changing the headline to “Foreign Media Looks at China: Confusions on Why Santa Plays Saxophone.” Sina also deleted a sentence where I had noted China’s persecution of Christians and an entire section on the Taiping Rebellion. Perhaps even worse, they did not provide their many readers a link back to the Washington Post site.

The Sina.com translation of my article received 400 responses, many of them debating the question of why Chinese Santas so often carry saxophones. Out of all those, Helen writes, “no one seems to know the answer.” When she emailed again, 30 minutes later, the number of responses had almost doubled to 700. By contrast, the original Washington Post blog item has received seven comments.

Helen’s theory echoes one of my commenters, mlouisa70394, who suggests it may have to do with Chinese perceptions of the saxophone as romantic and cool. Helen writes, “My guess is that it perhaps has to do with the fact that saxophone is obviously an instrument with a Western origin, which fits Santa’s image, and is portable so Santa can make Christmas music anywhere he goes. Sound like enough reason for Chinese to lump the two together?” One of the Sina.com commenters, according to Helen’s translation, joked that it could be worse: “At least our Santa isn’t playing erhu!”

In another article Fisher speculates former US president Bill Clinton is responsible for the saxophone playing Santa. From The Washington Post:

I would like to add the theory that President Bill Clinton may be partly to blame for this trend. Christmas became popular in China in large part because the government — as it liberalized the economy and some social restrictions against religion in the early 1990s — tolerated its spread. Christianity was and still is restricted, but the version of Christmas popular in China is more about shopping and fun Western culture. Those are two things that Beijing allowed to flourish in Chinese cities, particularly after former leader Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 “southern tour” to open up some southern cities to the world. And what could have been a better symbol of hip Western culture, circa 1992 and the immediate years after, than presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s June 1992 appearance on “The Arsenio Hall Show,” where he played Heartbreak Hotel on a tenor sax while wearing sunglasses. That moment, of course, was a cultural touchstone of the early 1990s. As Chinese culture started to open up to the West and Chinese consumers started to buy up Western stuff, it certainly seems possible that the sax-playing Clinton, still in the zeitgeist, could have gotten mixed up with the Santa depictions.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that China deliberately copied Clinton’s Arsenio Hall appearance in its Santa depictions. If there even is a connection, probably what happened is that someone somewhere in China in the early 1990s, as Christmas became popular, put out a saxophone-playing Santa. The depiction might have resonated with perceptions of the saxophone as particularly Western and cool, which would have been heightened in part by Clinton’s much-broadcast appearance. The tradition was brand new to many Chinese, after all, so it would have been especially easy for the association of Santa and saxophone to form.

Or maybe there was no connection, and the saxophone spread simply by coincidence, or because some early importer in Shanghai or Beijing liked it, or some other theory. But the mere possibility is a reminder of how recently China opened itself to Western culture, and of how those customs can change and shape beyond prediction in their first year.

Aside from images of Santa Claus, Pope Benedict XVI called for freedom in China in his Christmas address, the New York Times reports:

He also addressed China, where in recent weeks the Vatican has been increasingly at odds with the government over the ordination of bishops, who cannot hold office without approval from the authorities, to the dismay of the Vatican.

“May the King of Peace turn his gaze to the new leaders of the People’s Republic of China for the high task which awaits them,” Benedict said. “I express my hope that, in fulfilling this task, they will esteem the contribution of the religions, in respect for each, in such a way that they can help to build a fraternal society for the benefit of that noble people and of the whole world.”

Aggravating tensions, the Chinese Catholic Bishops Council, a government entity, stripped Thaddeus Ma Daqin, 45, the auxiliary bishop of Shanghai, of his title this month, according to Catholic Web sites that cited sources in the Chinese church.

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The suffering of Christians around the world framed much of the pontiff’s traditional Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” message (Latin for “to the city and to the world”). Bundled up in an ermine-trimmed crimson cape against a chilly rain, he delivered his assessment of world suffering from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Benedict’s exhortation to Catholics who have risked persecution in China highlighted a spike in tensions between Beijing and the Vatican over the Chinese government’s defiance of the pope’s authority to name bishops. The pope has also been distressed by Chinese harassment of Rome-loyal bishops who didn’t want to promote the state-backed official Catholic church.

“May the birth of the savior strengthen the spirit of faith, patience and courage of the faithful of the church in mainland China, that they may not lose heart through the limitations imposed on their freedom of religion and conscience,” Benedict said, praying aloud.

Chinese church officials did not immediately comment late Saturday. A day earlier, one said the Vatican bears responsibility for restoring dialogue after it had criticized leadership changes in China’s official church.

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The Pope has told Chinese Catholics of the officially tolerated Patriotic Church and those who worship secretly take steps towards reconciliation.

Beijing broke off formal diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 1951, and Catholic worship is only permitted in officially recognised churches.

But members of the underground church have kept their allegiance to Rome.

It is estimated that, altogether, there are more than 10m Catholics throughout China.

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Pope Benedict XVI sent greetings to China on Sunday before the Olympics and said he hoped the Games would offer an example of coexistence among people from different countries.

He said he will follow the Olympics, which open Friday, with a sense of “deep friendship” and hopes the sports can represent “a pledge of brotherhood and peace among people.”

Benedict spoke during the traditional Angelus prayer in Bressanone, a town in the Italian Alps where he is vacationing.

“I follow with deep friendship this great sporting event — the most important and awaited on a world level — and I wish that it offer the international community a valid example of coexistence among people of different background in the respect of common dignity,” the pope told the faithful gathered in Bressanone.

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The leader of Hong Kong’s Catholic Church said Monday that China was still not ready for a papal visit, as he denounced the Asian power’s lack of religious and media freedoms, a news agency reported.

“The time has still not come for an official visit from the pope in China. His trip would be used, misunderstood, and it would do nothing to serve the faithful of the Church of Rome,” said Cardinal Joseph Zen.

“The Chinese government, even in these pre-Olympic times, wants to control everything,” he said, quoted by Italy’s ANSA news agency.

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The China Philharmonic Orchestra performed Mozart’s Requiem with the Shanghai Opera House Chorus for Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday, an unprecedented concert that could signal a thaw in the historically chilly relations between the Vatican and the Chinese government.

The event evoked memories of Ping-Pong diplomacy, which helped lead to the restoration of relations between the United States and China in the 1970s, with music instead of sports as the bonding agent.

“Music, and art in general, can serve as a privileged instrument for encounter and reciprocal knowledge and esteem between different populations and cultures,” Benedict said after the concert, which was held in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican. “A means attainable by all for valuing the universal language of art.”

Read Pope underlines ‘great importance’ of Beijing Olympics by AFP, Chinese orchestra performs for Pope Benedict at Vatican from AP, and Pope reaches out to China at unprecedented concert from Reuters.

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Events in Tibet cast a shadow on Friday over the Vatican’s Easter observances, which have Chinese overtones this year to reflect Pope Benedict XVI’s advocacy of greater freedom for China’s tiny Catholic minority.

According to an advance text released by the Vatican, [Hong Kong Cardinal] Zen’s text will refer to “living martyrs of the 21st century,” a theme that is unusually political compared to other years.

In one of the meditations to be read out at the event, Zen wrote that Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Jerusalem who approved the death sentence for Jesus, was the “symbol of all those who use authority as an instrument of power and don’t concern themselves with justice.”

Read more about China’s relationship with the Vatican, via CDT.

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Liu Bainian, the de facto head of Beijing’s official Patriotic Church, has said on several occasions that he would like to welcome the Pope to China once an agreement has been reached.

While the Vatican says it has received no formal invitation, observers say Liu’s words would have been uttered only with approval from the highest levels.

The announcement of mutual recognition and a papal visit would be a propaganda coup for China. It would counter the negative publicity that has stunned Beijing recently, culminating in the decision by Steven Spielberg, the film director, to end his involvement with the Olympics over China’s policies in Sudan.

Read more about China’s relationship with the Vatican, via CDT.

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From the New York Times:

In an extraordinary open letter directed to Chinese Catholics and released Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged the suffering experienced by Catholics under Communist rule but also concluded that it was time to forgive past wrongdoings and for the underground and state-sponsored Catholic churches in China to reconcile.

Openly hoping for a renewal of relations between China and the Vatican, which were suspended in the late 1950s, Pope Benedict reassured the Chinese government that the Vatican offered no political challenge to its authority, while urging the state-sponsored Catholic Church to acknowledge the Vatican’s control on religious matters. [Full Text]

UPDATE: The Vatican released a translated version of the Pope’s letter today, published on Catholic Online.

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Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to Christians who are persecuted for their faith, including Roman Catholics who suffer because of their loyalty to the pontiff, an apparent reference to the underground church in China.

…Benedict has been leading a Vatican campaign for religious liberty, with particular attention to the plight of Catholics loyal to him in China. The faithful in China are only allowed to worship in a state-sanctioned church, and Beijing views papal appointments of bishops there as an interference in its internal affairs.

Chinese bishops and priests loyal to the Vatican have been detained and sometimes imprisoned. Millions follow the pontiff and worship in secret, but members of congregations are frequently harassed. [Full Text]

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