Retired Kaohsiung cardinal Paul Shan (單國璽), who is planning a high-profile trip to China this summer, says he hopes that the Vatican and Beijing can be “mature” and reconcile their bitter differences.
Shan, 89, made the remarks after he unveiled plans for the trip, hailed as the first contact between Catholics on both sides of the Taiwan Strait in more than 60 years.
“It takes time for China and the Vatican to reconcile. The government has its jurisdiction and the Church has its jurisdiction, and they should respect each other,” Shan said in an interview.
Photo: Patrick Lin, AFP
“The two sides should be in contact and exchange [views] and let the other side know its jurisdiction so they can eventually reconcile,” he said at his residence in Greater Kaohsiung.
The Vatican and China have not had formal diplomatic ties since 1951. China’s state-controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association does not acknowledge the authority of Pope Benedict XVI and is fiercely opposed to the “clandestine” clergy loyal to the pontiff.
However, about a dozen clergymen have been recognized by both the Vatican and the Chinese authorities in recent years, which could become a model for future ties, said Shan, who was born in China.
“Catholicism is different from other religions and there is one Catholic [authority] in the world. The pope appointing clergymen is a fundamental part of the Catholic faith and China should respect core Catholic values,” he said.
“Catholics are not willing to accept clergymen who are not recognized by the pope and it’s better for the two sides to work out their issues through dialogue,” he said.
Demonstrating fragile relations, a war of words erupted between Beijing and the Vatican in December, with Beijing rebuffing criticism from the pope about its curbs on practicing Catholics and of the state-sanctioned Chinese church.
China has about 5 million Catholics who worship at Chinese Communist Party-sanctioned “official” churches, while up to 11 million reportedly worship at “underground” churches.
Shan, appointed by then-pope John Paul II as a cardinal in 1998, moved to Taiwan after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was defeated by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949. He said that rapprochement between Taiwan and China in recent years served as an example that dialogue and contact are the way to go.
“Painful lessons from history show that violence and war cannot solve problems and everyone should conduct negotiations in a mature fashion,” he said.
Shan first returned to China in 1979 by way of the Philippines to visit relatives, in a trip that was kept private because of the tensions between Taiwan and China. He has not been back.
Shan has remained active in public despite his retirement from official duties in 2006, the year he was diagnosed with lung cancer.
He launched a “goodbye tour” in Taiwan the following year to share his fight against cancer and to call for the public to treasure their lives — the same message he intends to take to China.
In June, Shan is scheduled to travel to Shanghai and Zhengzhouin, Henan Province, near his hometown, in a weeklong journey.
He is expected to hold a joint mass with Shanghai Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian (金魯賢), said Chou Chin-huar (周進華), head of Taipei-based cancer charity the Chou Ta-Kuan Foundation, which organized the trip.
However, Shan said he was not planning to meet members of China’s “underground” Catholic church because he does not wish to “create trouble for them.”
The retire clergyman has also been promoting environmental protection and disaster prevention, issues he discussed with the Dalai Lama during the Tibetan spiritual leader’s visit to Taiwan in 2009 after Typhoon Morakot.
“The Dalai Lama is a down-to-earth person and he came to comfort victims of the typhoon as a religious figure; there was no reason for me to refuse him a meeting,” Shan said.
Chou said that meeting had “increased difficulties” in arranging the cardinal’s trip to China and that Beijing itself would not be a stop because of “political sensitivity.”
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