Catholic Herald: 'The Sino-Vatican Pact isn’t working: so why does Cardinal Chow insist that it is?', Benedict Rogers

This weekend should have been one of celebration for Hong Kong Catholics – the elevation of their new bishop to the rank of cardinal. The fact that the city now has three living cardinals – Cardinal Joseph Zen, Cardinal John Tong and now Cardinal Stephen Chow – is remarkable, and a sign of how much importance the Vatican places on Hong Kong.

Cardinal Chow was one of 21 new cardinals to receive the red biretta at this weekend’s consistory, and he spoke of his surprise when he received the news of his appointment. No one had informed him in advance. “Pope Francis has a nickname: the Pope of surprises,” he told Vatican News.

But Chow’s elevation to the Sacred College is causing increasing alarm for those in the Church who are profoundly concerned about the Vatican’s approach to China. His recent insistence that the Vatican’s pursuit of dialogue with Beijing is working; that the participation of two mainland Chinese Beijing-appointed bishops in the Synod of Bishops on Synodality is a sign of progress; and that those who perceive the Vatican’s approach as “naïve” are wrong shows that he has clearly signed up to Pope Francis’s China policy – which is one of kowtowing to and appeasement of the dictators in Beijing.

Some feel that his elevation suggests that the Pope wants him to be seen as the Cardinal of China, with the authority to speak on behalf of the Church on the ground, replacing 91 year-old Cardinal Zen. But clearly Chow takes a very different approach from Zen. While courageous Zen has spoken out frequently for human rights, religious freedom, justice and democracy, Chow has never publicly criticised the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Instead, it seems that he is becoming a poster-boy for the Sino-Vatican Pact – a deal which Beijing has brazenly violated multiple times, yet he claims is “working”.

Chow says “we always have to have some optimism” about the relationship with China, adding: “they also have some good people, they also have goodwill, they also want to see something good happening”. When “the good meet together and encounter,” he argued, “beautiful things can happen”. The key point for him to clarify is this: who does he mean by “they”? If he means the people of China, or genuine Chinese Catholics, then of course there is no argument. But if he is referring to the Vatican’s interlocutors in the CCP and the regime’s state-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association, then that shows extraordinary naivety.

Too often Pope Francis, and it seems now Cardinal Chow, conflate two different things: the Chinese people and the CCP regime. That is a grave mistake. We should always distinguish between the good people of China, and the brutal regime which is persecuting Christians, committing genocide against Uyghurs, intensifying atrocities against Tibetans, perpetrating forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, particularly Falun Gong practitioners, cracking down on dissidents, bloggers, lawyers, civil society activists and human rights defenders, and dismantling Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy.

We should be on the side of the people of China, and oppose the cruel tyranny that represses them. To think that the perpetrators of these crimes have “goodwill” and want “beautiful things” is a fantasy. Chow’s expressed desire for the Church in Hong Kong to continue to be “a bridge between east and west” is a beautiful idea, but one which in the current context is wishful thinking. Over the past few years, by dismantling Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy and exerting direct control over the territory, the CCP has severely undermined Hong Kong’s ability to be a bridge.

No one can ignore the fact that anyone in the position of diocesan bishop in Hong Kong would be having to tread a very difficult path in the current circumstances. No one should under-estimate the challenges Chow has to navigate. And we can all understand if, for the sake of the safety of the Church, its clergy, religious and laity, in Hong Kong, he avoids confronting Beijing directly. One can also understand, as a Jesuit appointed as bishop and cardinal by Pope Francis, he would not wish to challenge Vatican policy head-on. But there are brave steps he could take which would go some way to providing reassurance.

When he says, for example, that he is likely to make more visits to dioceses in China – because “the more we go, we will have more contacts” – the question should be asked: will he visit underground bishops? He cites the fact that dioceses in China have invited him, which is, he says, “very generous of them”, but fails to point out that these are dioceses under the CCP-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association. By accepting these invitations without seeking to visit underground bishops – or appeal for the release of bishops and priests in prison – he is drawing the Hong Kong diocese further into the CCP’s “patriotic” church system.

Chow should follow the example of one of his predecessors, the late Cardinal John-Baptist Wu, with whom he often likes to compare himself. According to research by Professor Ying Fuk-tsang, a Christian historian at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, when Wu was invited to Beijing in 1985, he explicitly requested to visit the underground bishop of Shanghai, Cardinal Ignatius Kung, who had been created cardinal by Pope St John Paul II in pectore in 1979 and was held under house arrest. The request was refused, but at least Wu tried. In contrast, when he visited Beijing in April this year, Chow told Catholics to be patriotic. To be truly patriotic – loving the country – and to truly celebrate “diversity”, Chow and the Vatican should not disregard or marginalise or forget China’s brave, loyal, faithful underground Catholics. Plurality is a sham if certain voices are silenced, eliminated or ignored.

When Cardinal Chow was appointed Bishop of Hong Kong in 2021, I was hopeful. I knew he would not be outspoken like Cardinal Zen, but I also understood that he was not Beijing’s first choice either. Everyone who knew him told me he is a good man and an excellent pastor, and a suitable compromise candidate who could be accepted by all sides. From his recent remarks, I worry that he is becoming not simply a compromise candidate, but a comprising and compromised one. He seems to be too eager to give too much away to Beijing too quickly, instead of defending what is left of Hong Kong’s autonomy for the Church. I will pray for him, and I will pray too that he proves me wrong.

This article was published in Catholic Herald on 1 October 2023.