Pope Benedict XVI yesterday invited all Roman Catholics in China to unite under his jurisdiction and urged Beijing to restore diplomatic ties and permit religious freedom.
He called the state-run Catholic Church "incompatible" with Catholic doctrine, but nevertheless made unprecedented overtures toward it.
In an eagerly awaited letter to the faithful in China taking up a priority of his papacy, Benedict insisted on his right to appoint bishops, but said he trusted that an agreement could be reached with Beijing on nominations.
Significantly, Benedict revoked previous Vatican-issued restrictions on contacts with the clergy of the official church and recognized that some Chinese faithful have no choice but to attend officially recognized Masses.
The Vatican said in a note accompanying the letter that it was prepared to move its diplomatic representation from Taiwan to Beijing "at any time" as soon as an agreement with the government was reached.
The letter was the most significant effort by Benedict to balance his pastoral concerns for the up to 12 million Roman Catholics in China who are divided between an official church -- the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association -- and an underground church that is not registered with the authorities.
The Beijing government forced its Roman Catholics to cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, shortly after the officially atheist Chinese Communist Party took power. Worship is allowed only in the government-controlled churches.
Millions of Chinese, however, belong to unofficial congregations that remain loyal to Rome.
On several occasions, Benedict praised Catholics who resisted pressure to join the official church and paid a price for it "with the shedding of their blood."
But he urged them to forgive and reconcile with others for the sake of unifying the church.
Tellingly, Benedict referred repeatedly to the "Catholic Church in China," without distinguishing between the divisions -- an indication of his aim to see the two united and in communion with Rome.
On several occasions, he also called the Patriotic Association "incompatible with Catholic doctrine" because it named its own bishops and sought to guide the life of the church.
At the same time, however, Benedict made an unprecedented gesture, revoking 1988 guidelines issued by the Vatican's evangelization office that sought to limit contacts with the official church and declared that any bishop ordained by the official church would incur an automatic excommunication.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS