pic. Jordan Pouille

Les vingt soeurs de la Charité de Tianjin ont de quoi être fières. Dans cette ville portuaire à 150 kms de Pékin, elle ont réussi un sacré tour de force: se faire bâtir une nouvelle église et un nouveau couvent !  La partie était pourtant loin d’être gagnée. Rappelez-vous. Il y a plus d’un an, un promoteur immobilier rachetait leur ancien terrain aux autorités et comptait raser leur vieux couvent, construit par des missionnaires français de Saint-Vincent de Paul en 1862. Les religieuses entamaient alors une grève de la faim, s’attirant les foudres de la police.

Les soeurs ont donc été expropriées mais elles n’ont pas perdu au change. Encerclé de nouvelles tours de béton dont le prix au m2 n’a rien à envier à ceux de Pékin ou Shanghai, leur bâtiment de briques rouges égaie le quartier et attire déjà les curieux. Il a été intégralement financé par le promoteur qui a compris que cette église allait apporter un “cachet” à son complexe cossu de logements et de commerces. Faute de quiétude, les soeurs vont profiter d’un confort inédit.

“Une partie est prévue pour les soeurs mais nous comptons aussi héberger des personnes en grande difficulté. L’autre bâtiment, avec le clocher, servira pour la messe”, explique la mère supérieure qui suit les ouvriers à la semelle. En face, sur l’autre rive du fleuve Haihe, une nouvelle église est également apparue. “Ne vous fiez pas aux apparences. C’est une station d’épuration. Apparemment l’architecture chrétienne est devenue très en vogue à Tianjin“. L’inauguration est prévue pour Noël.

Ci dessous… Le chantier de l’église début septembre. L’ancien couvent, qui servait d’orphelinat catholique avant la Révolution Culturelle a été rasé durant l’été. Les ouvriers ont creusé par deux mètres de profondeur pour vérifier s’il n’y avait pas de cadavres d’enfants. Ils n’ont rien trouvé, mettant fin à de très vieilles rumeurs.

En septembre 2010, les soeurs ont perdu leur couvent et ont du être hébergées par le gouvernement local dans plusieurs appartements de location. Le promoteur s’était engagé sur parole (et non par écrit) à reconstruire une Eglise, non loin de l’ancien site (ci dessus) avant fin novembre. Une attente angoissante pour les soeurs, qui, de fait, ont choisi de concentrer leurs efforts sur un nouveau projet: la résurrection du vieil hôpital catholique de Tianjin, destinés aux pauvres.

Mars 2010. Nous retrouvrons la soeur qui a rejoint le père Zhulige, prêtre officiel installé à la Cathédrale Saint-Joseph. Le moins que l’on puisse dire, c’est qu’elle n’ont pas bonne réputation. Elle a quitté le couvent… “déserté”, bref cédé peut être plus facilement que les autres face aux coupures de courant intempestives, au stress, aux menaces des démolisseurs, aux pressions de la police, au sentiment de défaite annoncée. On peut aussi la comprendre en se demandant ce qui peut pousser les soeurs à vouloir s’accrocher autant à de vieilles pierres (voir les photos tout en bas) quand leur mission initiale est de rendre service aux plus démunis.

La limousine du père Zhulige, une figure importante de l’Eglise catholique à Tianjin. L’Association Patriotique semble attendre la mort des évêques souterrains, consignés à domicile, pour peut être introniser le père Zhulige au poste d’évêque officiel. En attendant, cet homme jouit d’un prestige, d’un cadre de vie digne d’un officiel du Parti. Nous l’avons rencontré dans un très bon restaurant. Pendant longtemps, la Cathédrale Saint-Joseph était clairement partagées entre les fidèles souterrains qui refusaient de rentrer dans le bâtiment (d’où la chapelle à l’extérieur) et les fidèles officiels.

Ci dessous, les soeurs de la Charité se sont barricadées dans leur couvent menacé de démolition. Elles sont beaucoup moins nombreuses que lors de notre toute première rencontre en décembre 2009. La plupart ont rejoint la campagne sauf celle ci dessus. Leur cadre de vie est rudimentaire. L’Eglise officielle leur a coupé les vivres, le prêtre attitré ne vient leur faire la messe, une manière de les faire sortir plus vite afin qu’elles renoncent à leur couvent et acceptent les propositions défavorables du promoteur immobilier (yanlord… une sorte de joint venture entre les officiels locaux et la cinquième fortune de Singapoure)

Le pot de terre contre le pot de fer: les tours résidentielles de Yanlord menacent la survie du couvent des soeurs de la Charité.

Le couvent bâti en 1862 par les missionnaires francais de la Congrégation de Saint Vincent de Paul.

pic. JP - Nantang Church Beijing

There has been a MASSIVE debate these days among catholics interested in China. Especially after a new catholic bishop – Joseph Guo Jincai – was ordained last November the 20th, in Hebei province against the Pope’s will (Here is the video). He just obeyed the China church rules. He now risks excommunication.

On one side of this passionate debate, you have Father Jeroom Heyndricks (that I met last summer for La Vie) who both support underground catholics and official ones but he believes that we should not simply confront the Patriotic Association, in charge of all religious affairs. He sees himself as a resless man of dialogue. However, he is being harshly criticized by another strong voice… from Hong Kong. Cardinal Zen, a sharp thinker who will never accept any compromise with the Communist regime.

Here is the “good guy”, Cardinel Joseph Zen (photo by the Vatican):

Here is the “bad” guy, Father Jeroom Heyndricks, according to Cardinal Zen:

(photo Jordan Pouile 2010)

Here is the “ugly” guy according to Cardinal Zen. Mister Anthony Liu Bainian, in charge of the Catholic Patriotic Association. (With Jean Paul II’s picture in the background…in his office!)

 (photo Jordan Pouille)

Father Heyndricks, from Leuven, has been up for the dialogue between the Chinese government and the Vatican since the 80′s. He regularly gets invited by the Official Church to give lectures at the National Seminary in Beijing. But he also keeps in touch with underground catholics in several Chinese provinces, especially where Belgium missionnaries were active in there time.

So each has it own interpretation of the Pope’s letter to China (27th of May 2007) which is subtile enough to leave most of the Chinese catholics into the blur. The result is that outside Beijing, beyon the fights between the Party and the Holy See, local governements are given enormous power and autonomy to deal with these thorny and complicated issues of religion… to deal with millions of believers.

What does it mean? In some cities or villages, local officials are smooth and don’t really bother if you pray in an underground catholic church – which is often in someone’s living room- or the official one. They will also ask for bribes in order to leave you alone.

But other officials get mad if  some catholics go to a service led by underground priest who have not registered at the patriotic association. They believe it could cause serious threat to social stability. Outside Tianjin, a bishop is living under house arrest. Next to his house, surrounded by noisy roads and toxic industry, stands a small church backed with 2000 people every sunday morning. Most of them are catholic from generation to generation, with a strong resentment to the Party since the Cultural Revolution. They all know their beloved bishop should not be here but in the beautiful Saint Joseph Cathedral in downtown Tianjin.

And other officials outplay their role, appoint themselves at top religious positions just like in small state owned companies. See the scandal of the 100 seminarians from Hebei who led a pacific protest against their new leader, a non-catholic Party official, according to South China Morning Post newspaper. The only protest from catholics in the last ten years.

Facing that, underground catholics can get barely no help from the Vatican (which has NO diplomatic relation with China) and will becore much more frustrated to learn that their own underground bishops are rapidly being replaced by official ones, with the consent of the pope. Such a situation might lead to some  ultra-underground catholic churches, that you get to see more and more in the remote countryside of China… where some priests just do whatever they want with their community.

Underground catholics somewhere in Inner Mongolia (2010 – Jordan Pouille)

The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral  between Cardinal Joseph Zen and Father Jeroom Heyndricks

“A funny sort of victory at Chengde

Published Date: December 6, 2010
By Cardinal Joseph Zen, Hong Kong

After the Chengde ordination, Father Jeroom Heyndrickx has spoken again. He pits himself against what he calls “the media,” which obviously include the Holy See and Cardinal Joseph Zen. These media, “who live in a safe haven outside China,” “condemn and recommend punishments” for those bishops and “put all the blame on them.”

To be fair to those “media,” I note that they blame first the government, just as Father Heyndrickx does. The difference is that, while the Holy See intends to carry out a detailed evaluation of what has happened, including consideration of the aspect of validity and the canonical position of the bishops involved, Father Heyndrickx calls what happened “a victory.”

For Father Heyndrickx, the concerns of the Holy See represent “the outer side of the Church in China, you can call it political, diplomatic, canonical whatever, but it is not the Church itself.” This means that Father Heyndrickx sees himself and his concerns as “the Church itself!”

Now let us give a good look at the facts. We all agree that there was heavy pressure from the government and that the bishops expressed their unwillingness to comply. But the fact is that they did participate in the illicit ordination. They did impose their hands, however grudgingly. They did concelebrate.

Father Heyndrickx uses different phrases to describe what eventually happened to the bishops, saying on the one hand that “they were forced into submission,” but then on the other hand, glosses over this fact by saying that they “were forced to witness the event.” The two expressions, in my opinion, have a very different meaning. I would like to ask Father Heyndrickx: “Would he consider it a victory of the old Eleazar (cf. 2 Macc 6) if, after his strong protest, he actually ate the meat offered to him?”

Father Heyndrickx spends many words to praise the Church in China for all the efforts it made to survive even the Cultural Revolution. He equally appreciates their actual efforts to save the faith and build the community. Nobody will disagree with him about this. But to continue to do all this, do they have to pay the price of contravening the discipline of the Church and of acting against the heartfelt encouragement of the Holy Father to remain faithful to the apostolic nature of the Church?

For Father Heyndrickx, whoever thinks that way is inviting the Church in China “to abandon their way of dialogue and engage in confrontation.”

In the recent past, I have spent many words telling Father Heyndrickx that there is no dialogue at all, “dignified” or otherwise, between our Church in China and the authorities and that it is ridiculous to call “a confrontation” any resistance to yield to the authorities’ illicit demands. The old Eleazar would be guilty of “confrontation,” along with St. John the Baptist when he presented his neck to the blade of the executioner.

When the Holy Father on Dec. 1 invited the people to pray that the Chinese bishops “may courageously bear witness to their faith,” was he instigating “confrontation”?

Father Heyndrick would leave the evaluation of the facts to the bishops, priests, and faithful in China. I think we should make a distinction between the bishops themselves and the priests with their faithful. For the bishops, how can you make them judges of themselves?

I would challenge, instead, Father Heyndrickx on how priests and faithful actually evaluate these facts. I know that the few priests in Chengde and their faithful have a great desire to have their own diocese and their own bishop. These priests and faithful are the real innocent victims in this incident.

I understand their actual desire that Father Guo Jincai be soon pardoned by the Holy See. But can Father Heyndrickx be so sure that the priests and faithful in the rest of China, whether in the underground or in the official community, are on his side? My information is that they are in the most sorrowful state of bewilderment in front of such a renewed serious act of damage to the communion in the Church.

Father Heyndrickx says that the goal of the bishops is to have “one Church in China, no more the ‘unofficial’ (underground) Church community, nor the ‘official’ (patriotic) Church community, but simply the Catholic Church in China.” Put that way, this is, of course, our common final goal, but this is not yet possible at present.

I would dare to read between the lines. What is said is actually the goal of Father Heyndrickx himself, but in the sense that the underground community should simply be absorbed into the official community in a unity of structure or a “merger.” This, I want to stress, is unacceptable because it would mean that the underground community would disappear and there would be, yes, one Church, but completely under the control of the government.

This, surely, is not according to what the Holy Father said in his Letter to the Church in China. The possible goal of reconciliation desired by the Holy Father at this moment, and to achieve which all efforts should be made, is the reconciliation of spirits and of hearts, followed by discreet gestures of fraternal love. The hasty attempt to achieve unity at the level of structure, instead, has caused so much tragic confusion and sorrowful division in the underground community.

I would hope that Father Heyndrickx becomes more aware of these disastrous consequences of his misguided interpretation of the Letter of the Pope“.

This is tough !