Cardinal Tagle could change the Vatican’s tune on China

Catholic Herald, 30 January 2020

Loyalty, trust, and justice hang in a balance. In what way will the influential new prefect for the Evangelization of Peoples, Cardinal Tagle, tip the scale?

A bishop is being harassed by the authorities – arrested, bullied by officials, barred from Masses, told to leave his own home. He is, in fact, an auxiliary bishop, and the ordinary of his diocese is giving him little support.

What then is Cardinal Luis Tagle going to do about it?

The bishop is Vincent Guo Xijin, who used to be the bishop of Mindong (Fujian). He was an “underground” bishop who refused to join the Chinese “patriotic association”, controlled by the communist party. When the Holy See signed its “provisional” – and still wholly secret – agreement with Beijing in September 2018, Pope Francis agreed to lift the excommunications of several patriotic bishops who had been consecrated without papal approval.

One such state-appointed bishop was Vincent Zhan Silu. His excommunication was lifted and in a further gesture of goodwill Pope Francis personally asked Bishop Guo to resign as Bishop of Mindong so that Bishop Zhan could take his place. Guo, in turn, would become the auxiliary bishop to Zhan.

It was among the most dramatic of the known concessions that the Vatican has made to the Chinese communists. The underground bishop faithful to Rome would be demoted to serve under the patriotic bishop loyal to Beijing who was previously excommunicated.

Beijing, detecting weakness in Rome’s agreement to such conditions, has spent more than a year putting pressure on Bishop Guo. In April, he was told he could not concelebrate the Chrism Mass. “The government officials said in clarity that they do not recognize me as a bishop,” Guo told ucanews.com. In November, Asia News reported that he had been taken to Bishop Zhan’s chancery, from which he went on the run. Most recently, he has been told to leave his church, supposedly because of fire safety.

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