The Catholic Weekly 17 May 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 13 17, May, 2020 Christians from China carry a cross on the Via Dolorosa in the Old City of Jerusalem. PHOTO: DEBBIE HILL Troubled relationship: a man waves a Chinese flag in St Peter’s Square as Pope Francis leads the Angelus in 2016. PHOTO: CNS/TONY GENTILE, REUTERS In brief JRS calls for help, donations Churches to open DURING COVID-19 many refugees and peo- ple seeking asylum liv- ing in Sydney need help to prevent them from be- coming homeless or des- titute. For many of these men women and children the Jesuit Refugee Service is their only safety net. To donate to the Jesuit Refugee Service Emer- gency Cash Appeal please call (02) 9356 3888 or email jrsreception@jrs. org.au. Alternatively, JRS are also seeking essential items that can be dropped off at a number of parish- es around Sydney. Infor- mation on participating parishes can be obtained from these same contacts. MASSES, WEDDINGS, funerals and baptisms are set to resume in Italy on 18 May, with the provi- sion that those attending abide by a strict set of so- cial distancing and sani- tation measures. The move came after the signing of a protocol between the President of the Italian Bishops’ Con- ference, and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. All religious ceremo- nies – Masses, baptisms, weddings and funerals – were either cancelled or closed to the public in early March when the government imposed a nationwide lockdown to help curb the spread of Covid-19, a virus that has now killed almost 30,000 people in Italy alone. The protocol outlines that the faithful must wear facemasks, and must respect the 1m safe- ty distance between each other. All rooms and objects used will be sanitised at the end of each ceremo- ny, and the sign of peace will be omitted. For the rites of Com- munion, the celebrant is required to sanitise his hands and must use gloves and a mask. and now online with Zoom. (Early Rain members were visited by the police because they livestreamed their Easter service at Easter.) Telegram church groups and posts on Github continued to send out sermons and prayers, keep- ing the church members up to date, whilst circumventing censorship. Early Rain and other house churches uploaded their jailed pastors’ sermons on YouTube. Church leaders under house arrest continued to write ser- mons and record and distrib- ute them online. Even pro-life, anti-abortion groups are still active and operating clandes- tinely in the midst of severe restriction, trying to persuade mothers, both Christians and non-Christian, to reconsider abortion. This means that house churches now have deep roots in China, roots too deep to eliminate. The background to this is that while faithful Chris- tians have experienced dec- ades of persecution in China, after every persecution they have come back stronger. For the house churches, at least, repression and persecution have been counter-productive for the Party. Church numbers actual- ly grew during the Cultural Revolution despite the fact that the official policy at the time was to eradicate religion, even the version practiced by the obedient and loyal TSPM. Following the present perse- cution it is likely there will be another revival. Such is the resilience of the house church, which direct- ly challenges the CCP in its unique way: it is formed by people from all backgrounds — from government officials to businessmen to former prostitutes. Its movement has followers in every province, in every major town and many villages, with a self-elected, self-nominated leadership structure completely devoid of CCP influence. The CCP’s at- tempts to crush themovement seem unlikely to succeed. The consensus has tradi- tionally held that that Hong Kong was the only place in the greater China region to have publicly held memorials for the June 4th Tiananmen mas- sacre in the years after 1989. But Pastor Wang’s Early Rain Church held public vig- ils that were open even to the plainclothes police monitor- ing them each year in Cheng- du until the church was shut down. Hundreds of faithful pub- lically banded together and called for the truth behind the massacre to be investigated. A priest celebrates Mass in an empty Italian church. House churches across Chi- na also ignored a long-stand- ing ban on public proselytism. Beijing Shouwang Church and Beijing Zion Church had pub- lic prayer meetings every week in the streets of the capital city despite police brutality. Chengdu’s faithful open- ly preached with homemade banners and self-directed plays in the parks and pave- ments. Meanwhile the TSPM churches are still following Party orders. The CCP’s fear of the Chris- tian gospel is the fundamental reason for its crackdown on house churches on churches. Yet the effectiveness of the house churches can be seen in the fact that most Chinese have never heard of secular idealists like Xu Zhiyong or Xu Zhangrun, but many have heard of Jesus and at least ba- sic tenets of the gospel. If the Cultural Revolution and Chairman Mao could not eradicate house church- es, how can Xi Jinping? At the time of writing, Xi can’t appar- ently tame the relatively tiny Hong Kong. Meanwhile, today’s CCP is no longer the Party of Mao, which inspired intense loy- alty. Communism used to be an ideology, but its contem- porary descendant is bound together not by revolutionary fervour but a desire for profit and power. In contrast, Chris- tian believers have a faith and fervour which will help their house churches survive. Many will falter and fall, like those Chinese Christians who joined the TSPM in the early 1950s. But others will keep the faith. A Catholic bish- op (later a Cardinal), Ignatius Kung Pinmei, expressed it in these moving words in 1954: “If we renounce our faith, we will disappear and there will not be a resurrection. If we are faithful, we will still disappear, but there will be a resurrection.” The epic struggle of the house churches and their faithful members in China offers hope to Christians elsewhere. It is a David versus Goliath battle which has lasted seven decades and will stretch on for decades to come. But in the end, as in the Bible, David seems likely to win. This article first appeared at www.mercatornet.com FEATURE