On this episode of China Uncensored,
what's a Pope got to do to get some respect in China?
Welcome back to China Uncensored.
I'm Chris Chappell.
In China, if you want to be Catholic,
you have two options:
Belong to the official Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association,
which is under the supervision
of the atheist Communist Party—
or worship at an underground church,
where priests and even worshippers
can be arrested and persecuted.
The Communist Party has never recognized
the Vatican's authority over Catholicism in China,
and vice versa.
And China's 10 million Catholics
are caught in the middle.
The Vatican has made attempts in the past
to work out some of these issues.
Like back in 2007,
Pope Benedict the sixteenth said that
loyal Catholics could worship
in the state-backed churches.
But now Pope Francis is looking to make a deal
with Chinese leaders on the most hotly contested issue:
Who gets to appoint Chinese bishops.
I went to Washington DC to sit down with
human rights activist Benedict Rogers.
He work for Christian Solidarity Worldwide,
which works for freedom of religion and belief for everyone.
Mr. Rogers, thank you for joining us again today.
My pleasure, very great to be with you.
So, I'd like to talk a little bit about the ...
situation for Catholics inside China.
Please tell me about it.
Well, historically, ever since 1949
the Church has been essentially divided
between underground Catholics
who have remained faithful to Rome,
to the Pope, to the Vatican—
and an official Catholic church
that is under the control of the Communist Party...
Well recently,
Pope Francis has been trying to strike a deal
with the Chinese Communist Party
which ties into all this.
Can you tell us a bit about that?
His goal is to try to unify the church in China
and have the whole church in communion with Rome.
The compromises that I think are being made,
and we'll have to wait and see the details
of the exact deal that they end up with,
but so far,
I'm extremely concerned about the way things are going.
We've seen courageous underground bishops
being asked to step down in favor
of Communist Party approved bishops.
Well, I don't know.
The state approved bishops
don't sound too bad to me.
I mean, of the seven Pope Francis looked at,
only two had mistresses
and only one was ex-communicated.
Well, maybe looking at the Church worldwide,
statistically, perhaps that's not such a bad rate,
but no, it's very concerning the way things are going.
Well, tell us a bit about your work
with Christian rights in China.
Well it's important to say that my work
is not just on Christian rights.
I work for freedom of religion or belief
as set out in Article 18
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for everybody.
I work very actively with people of other faiths:
Uighur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists,
Falun Gong, and others.
But in terms of Christians,
we've certainly seen a severe increase
in repression in recent months.
We've seen the destruction of churches,
the destruction of crosses,
new regulations just introduced
controlling religious practice,
and I think that's one of the troubling things about the Vatican's
—not just the substance of what the Vatican is doing,
but the timing of it—
to be striking a deal at the time
when actually regulations and physical repression
are intensifying,
seems very wrong to me.
What might this Vatican-China deal mean for Taiwan?
Well, that's incredibly serious.
I find it very hard to imagine that Beijing
would accept a deal that didn't involve
changing diplomatic recognition
from Taiwan to Beijing,
and I think that would be devastating.
So if you were the Pope,
what would you do about the Catholic situation in China?
I would be insisting on an arrangement
that has the church outside
the control of the government,
has the appointment to bishops
coming from the Pope alone,
and an arrangement that does not in any way
affect relations with Taiwan.
So, China has many beliefs and religions.
If I lived in China,
what religion should I choose
to not be persecuted?
I think you'd have to be of no religion
because even if you choose a religion
that is within the official structures,
even they have come under pressure in recent years.
Official Protestants and I think Catholic as well,
but certainly Protestant churches
have had crosses torn down in recent years.
So, you'd be best off as an atheist.
So what religion should I definitely not choose?
Well, again I think all of the religions
face varying degrees of persecution,
but it's clear that the one belief system
that seems to be target of most hatred
is Falun Gong.
So, if you want to be sure of
condemnation and persecution,
that would be the belief system you practice.
But, really if you're an underground Christian,
if you're Uighur Muslim or Tibetan Buddhist,
you're in for a hard time as well.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
That was a pleasure.
Thank you.
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