Blessed is the party

THE Catholic church in China, according to a state-affiliated Catholic newspaper, Tianguang, has never enjoyed the sort of “political and religious harmony and friendly atmosphere that it has today.” This is not exactly the gospel truth. The Communist Party is trying to tighten its control of the Catholic church in China. Some of its members, as well as the Vatican, are fuming.

The rosy newspaper commentary marked the opening on December 7th in Beijing of a national congress of Chinese Catholic representatives. The Vatican objects to the conclave, which is intended to elect new leaders of the Chinese church's governing bodies. These are, in effect, government appointments over which the Vatican has no say. Several Chinese bishops, who would have preferred to stay away out of loyalty to the Vatican, have been forced to attend the three-day event.

Tension between the Vatican and the Communist Party's church-controllers has risen sharply in recent days. Earlier this month a group of seminarians at the Hebei Catholic Theological and Philosophical Seminary in the city of Shijiazhuang, 300km (185 miles) south of Beijing, mounted an unusually open protest. With the support of teachers, all 102 of the school's seminarians went from their campus on the dusty industrial outskirts of Hebei province's capital to the downtown office of the government's religious-affairs bureau. There the students, wearing their white school uniforms, peacefully demanded the removal of an official at the bureau, Tang Zhaojun, as deputy rector of the school. Mr Tang is not even a Catholic. The students began boycotting classes shortly after his appointment on November 11th and only resumed their studies on December 6th. Officials at the religious-affairs bureau brusquely refuse comment. But a seminary priest says the government has made a concession. It has agreed to remove Mr Tang from his leadership position and keep him only in a teaching role. The priest says “more big problems” will arise if the government fails to keep its promise. “We are all very united”, he says.

In fact, united ill-describes China's Catholic church. Its millions of members have long faced hard choices about where their loyalties lie. The government-sanctioned church bureaucracy, consisting of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Council of Chinese Bishops, does not recognise the authority of the Vatican. It manages affairs with the same heavy-handed approach that the party brings to all things. There is a widespread “underground” church structure in China that is loyal to Rome and thus suspected by the authorities of disloyalty to China. Pope Benedict XVI attempted to heal the rift in 2007 by telling Chinese Catholics not to shun the state-controlled church. But many remain deeply suspicious of it.

The biggest tussle between the Vatican and China has been over the appointment of bishops. In recent years there have been tentative signs of compromise. The two sides have reached quiet deals involving joint approval of candidates. But in November, for the first time since 2006, the government-backed church ordained a bishop, Guo Jincai, without agreement from the Vatican. To bolster the ceremony's legitimacy, officials forced Vatican-approved Chinese bishops to take part. Police kept reporters away from the venue in the Hebei town of Pingquan, northeast of Beijing. The Vatican called the event a grave violation of church law and of religious freedom. It hinted that Mr Guo might be excommunicated. China responded by accusing the Vatican of violating such freedom in China.

China forced its Catholic church to cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, two years after the party seized power. Ren Yanli, a former scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and one of China's leading experts on Catholicism, says attempts at reconciliation have been frustrated by “dove and hawk factions” on both sides. He says hardliners in China see nothing at all to gain in having a papal nuncio in Beijing. Vatican-baiters in China are in the ascendancy once again.