Cardinal Stephen Chow of Hong Kong has stressed the need for dialogue between the Church and China, saying the Church might find a way to present Christianity in a way that does not threaten the country’s culture. Source: USCCB.
The Chinese cardinal said the Church today needed to draw inspiration from Fr Matteo Ricci, a 16th-century Jesuit missionary known for his efforts to bridge Christianity and Chinese culture.
Speaking at a conference on Fr Ricci hosted by Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University on November 15, Cardinal Chow said that due to the Jesuit missionary’s capacity for dialogue and intellectual prowess, “Christianity was not seen as a heresy to Chinese culture, but a novel teaching compatible with Chinese culture.”
However, when Catholics in China started prohibiting ancestor worship, a key value in Chinese culture, the government saw that as a threat and started suppressing Catholicism.
Although Catholicism continued to exist in China, the cardinal said that it was particularly oppressed during the first two decades of communist rule.
Amid the new nation’s efforts to form a national identity, it purged Western influences, “and unfortunately the Catholic Church was seen as a part of the Western world.”
Drawing parallels to Fr Ricci’s time, Cardinal Chow said that the present moment is “an important time for the Church to have dialogue with the intellectual scholars of China on sinicisation.”
“Maybe there is a way that the Church in China can really be a Chinese church, if we do it well and pray to the Holy Spirit to enlighten both sides,” he said.
“The Holy Spirit is not restricted to Catholics, and it is open to the truth.”
“Sinicisation is not going to go away,” the cardinal added. “It is here, so we need to engage in dialogue.”
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Chinese cardinal calls for ‘sinicization’ of church in China (By Justin McLellan, CNS via USCCB)
