A possible forecast on the Rome-Beijing relationship in the new year. This comes from the Union of Catholic Asian News.
-----------------------------------------------------------
CHINA China-Holy See relations expected to develop slowly in 2010
January 8, 2010
BEIJING (UCAN) -- China Church observers in and outside the mainland expect the country's dialogue with the Holy See to continue to develop slowly, in pragmatic ways, during 2010.
Ren Yanli, former research director on the Catholic Church for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, says China is keen to keep a line of communication open with the Vatican but would not rush to establish official ties."Compared with the Tibet or Xinjiang separatist movements, the Catholic Church causes less trouble, so the Chinese government has no urgency in establishing diplomatic relations," observed Ren.
The Vatican sent delegations to China at Beijing's invitation in December 2008, and February and June 2009, he revealed.
"We can deduce those closed-door talks did not yield any positive outcome," the retired researcher told UCA News.
As an indicator he cited the "strong-tone" of the compendium the Vatican published last July to clarify points in the Pope's historic 2007 letter to Chinese Catholics.
An appendix in the compendium allows mainland bishops or diocesan administrators, especially those in the underground community, to ask the Vatican for special faculties "whenever particular situations so require," a practice the original letter had revoked.
Nonetheless, Ren said China has adopted a more flexible approach in the past three years toward the ordination of bishops, turning a blind eye when candidates apply privately for a papal mandate and not pushing illicit ordinations. He admitted the matter remains delicate.
Church law gives the Pope supreme authority in appointing bishops, something Chinese authorities have refused to accept.
"China and the Vatican must negotiate with each other" on the choice of bishop candidates to avoid the tension that arose in 2006, when the mainland Church ordained three bishops without papal mandates, Ren said.
Kwun Ping-hung, a Hong Kong-based China Church observer, says China-Holy See relations progressed in 2009. He applauded the fact that the two sides avoided disputes over the authority to appoint bishops.
Beijing and the Vatican seemed to have similar choices on bishop candidates in recent years, Kwun added. But he said it would be premature to conclude the two sides had reached consensus on the issue, which he believes will be a focus of China-Holy See dialogue in the coming year.
Given the Church's hierarchy and the situation in China, the Vatican has little room to maneuver, he said.
Kwun sees it as significant that an unnamed "authoritative person" in Beijing signaled last May in "Wen Wei Po," a pro-Beijing newspaper in Hong Kong, that Beijing might propose an updated definition the Vatican could accept for an "independent, autonomous and self-managed" Church in China.
"This showed clearly the possibility of China making more compromises," Kwun said.
Ren suggested the statement in the paper implied Chinese authorities may have already settled privately on a new definition of "independence."
He said speeches of top government officials and the teaching materials for political studies in major seminaries over the past couple of years tended to support this view. They indicate the independence principle no longer applies to the religious aspect of Church life, but only in a political sense, he explained.
It is now a decade since Cardinal Angelo Sodano, then the Vatican secretary of state, signaled a willingness to establish diplomatic ties, saying the Holy See was ready to move its diplomatic mission from Taipei to Beijing overnight.
