There have been reports in the Hong Kong media quoting the Christian community media in China as saying that Chinese e-commerce platforms have stopped selling the Bible. Almost as soon as the story was published, China’s State Council on Tuesday last week issued a white paper entitled “China’s Policy for Safeguarding Freedom of Religious Beliefs.”
The paper said that “it is a principle established in the Chinese constitution that religious groups and affairs should not be subject to the control of foreign forces.”
It also stated that policies guaranteeing religious freedoms should impose safeguards in accordance with the law and “actively guide religions to conform with socialist society.”
The paper also called on religious communities to support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and uphold the socialist system.
In addition, a rumor spread over the Internet that the Chinese government had decided to completely remove all copies of the Bible from e-commerce sites because it wants to promote an alternative “Chinese version” of the Bible, and that the content of this version has been approved by the CCP and modified to incorporate “Chinese traditional culture” and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” to produce a “Catholicism with Chinese characteristics.”
This is a crucial time for the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and China. One of the issues involved in this process is the question of whether or not Beijing will be allowed to interfere with the appointment of bishops in China.
However, the Holy See earlier this year asked Bishop Peter Zhuang Jianjian (莊建堅) of the Shantou Diocese in Guangdong Province to step down in favor of Bishop Joseph Huang Bingzhang (黃炳章), while Bishop Joseph Guo Xijin (郭希錦) of the Mindong Diocese in Fujian Province was asked to step aside for state-appointed Bishop Vincent Zhan Silu (詹思祿) and accept being demoted to auxiliary bishop.
Neither Huang nor Zhan has been ordained by the Holy See.
Following these compromises by the Vatican, the CCP will not only be able to exercise even tighter control over “underground” Catholics, it will also be able to use the global influence of the Catholic Church to its advantage, and expand and raise China’s prestige in the Catholic world.
Earlier this week, there were reports that Guo had “disappeared” the week before, and now there are reports that the Bible has been taken down from e-commerce sites. Perhaps these events mean that the Vatican will stop leaning so strongly toward China.
It is difficult to believe that the Vatican would find it acceptable that Chinese Catholics would have to read a version of the Bible published and annotated by the CCP, and it is even more difficult to believe that the Vatican would allow the Sinicization of the Catholic Church and accept that Catholic bishops serve the CCP.
Chen Kuan-fu is a graduate student in law at National Taipei University.
Translated by Edward Jones and Perry Svensson
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