An Olympic leap

“The horizon of my contacts with the People’s Republic of China, and with Christians in China, is necessarily limited and is reduced to four journeys (in 1980, in 1996, in 2000 and in 2003), even if the number and especially the quality of these visits are something of an exploit for a cardinal under a Communist regime”: this sentence is taken from Cardinal Roger Etchegaray’s book “Verso i cristiani in Cina” (Towards the Christians in China) (Mondadori, 2005). The Cardinal, who will be 85 on 25 September, was the first cardinal to travel to the People’s Republic of China, as the envoy of John Paul II for peace and justice in the world. On the occasion of the publication of Benedict XVI’s Letter to the Church in China (30 June 2007), we open SirEurope with a passage taken from Cardinal Etchegaray’s book that is almost an anticipation of the thought of Pope Ratzinger. The resumption of relations between Rome and Beijing will be based on an examination of the life of the Church in the midst of the Chinese people as it is today and not as it was fifty years ago. The tenacity of John Paul II in exploring new ways for a meeting is without ambiguities. It was in his message of 24 October 2001 to the Conference on Matteo Ricci that the Pope is most committed: “The Catholic Church today does not ask for any privilege from China or from her political authorities. She asks only to be able to resume the dialogue so as to promote a relation founded on mutual respect and deep knowledge”. And he went on to say: “And it is with this renewed and strong wish for friendship with the whole Chinese people that I express the hope of soon seeing practical ways of communication and collaboration being established between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China”. John Paul II concluded his message as follows: “The normalization of relations would undoubtedly have positive repercussions for humanity as a whole”. What is striking in this message is the sense of urgency that is expressed in it not only for the Church’s own interest but also “for the good of humanity”. In this sense it coincided with the profound hopes of many political leaders concerned about the future of Chinese society. So why did the Pope express such pastoral impatience? In the first place because he saw that mentalities were sufficiently mature to overcome without too many difficulties two obstacles that were constantly being faced, namely the diplomatic problem of Taiwan, and the canonical problem of “non interference” in Chinese internal affairs, in particular with regard to episcopal nominations: under every climate in history, the Church has shown how to protect the faith of her children! In the second place, because John Paul II feared a certain hardening in relations between the two parts of the Church unless steps were taken to clarify and reform the current status of the Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics. The history of relations between the Church and China is punctuated with many lost opportunities, often due to the false steps that the Pope was the first to deplore. Now it was time resolutely to turn over the pages, both the most ancient that Peking and Rome had difficulty in writing together and the more recent ones written separately in mutual ignorance and mistrust. It was time to make a fresh start: the present time calls all of us to make an “Olympic” leap to re-establish dialogue and tackle together the gigantic challenges that threaten mankind, especially in a China in the throws of rapid change. Matteo Ricci teaches us that the Chinese people must be understood for what they are, and recognized and respected in their identity: it is on this basis that we must resume and develop a dialogue of which both partners feel the pressing need. “What makes man is the horizon: that of the oceans and that of the mountain peaks. The horizon of what one sees and of what one can only guess, that of the earth and that of dream. The horizon shows to each person the scale and limitation of his own needs and capacities”. This inspiring remark by Jean Favier, author of the book ‘From Marco Polo to Cristoforo Colombo’, prompts me to go even further: what makes the horizon is the Christian. That is the highest service that the new China can expect from Chinese Christians for whom Christ is “the way, the truth and the life”.