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LETTER: No change since Pius XII

Regarding your Dec. 25 editorial ("The Vatican's deal with the devil," page 8), I can understand why it might cause umbrage in certain circles, but I agree that the Vatican seems mute in commenting on the many human rights abuses in China and its government's repeated repressive actions against Catholics and other religious groups.

Over half a century ago, Pius XII wrote Ad Sinarum Gentem ["On the Supranationality of the Church"] and, in reviewing this document, it seems little has changed. The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association rules the "official" church, while many more "underground" Catholics have remained true to the Holy Father, despite arrests, imprisonment, torture and death.

Ad Sinarum Gentem clearly stated the right of the Bishop of Rome over appointments of bishops and Church affairs, saying: "The people or the civil authority must not invade the rights and the constitution of the ecclesiastical hierarchy (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. XXIII; De Ordine, Cann. 2-7; Vatican Council, Sess. IV; Canons 108-109)."

He also said: "Lastly, there are some among you who would wish that your Church would be completely independent, not only, as we have said, in regard to its government and finances, but also in regard to the teaching of Christian doctrine and sacred preaching, in which they try to claim `autonomy.' Being most certain that this doctrine (whose integrity we must defend with the help of the Holy Ghost) has been divinely revealed, we repeat these words of the Apostle of the Gentiles: `But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel to you other than that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema' (Gal. 1:8)."

Pius XII ended by saying: "The promoters of such movements with the greatest cunning seek to deceive the simple or the timid, or to draw them away from the right path. For this purpose they falsely affirm that the only true patriots are those who adhere to the church thought up by them, that is, to that which has the `Three Autonomies.' But in reality they seek, in a word, to establish finally among you a `national' church, which no longer could be Catholic because it would be the negation of that universality or rather `catholicity' by which the society truly founded by Jesus Christ is above all nations and embraces them one and all."

Have things really changed in over 50 years? Might not Ad Sinarum Gentem have been written today? Dante's quote, "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality," sounds very similar to "dealing with the devil" to me.

Bob Baker

Anaheim, California
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