Beijing Confirms Contact With Vatican

ROME, APRIL 3, 2006 (Zenit.org).- For the first time, the Chinese government has publicly admitted that contacts exist between China and the Vatican on the question of diplomatic relations, AsiaNews reported.

In a statement to the newspaper China Daily, the director of the Chinese religious-affairs bureau reaffirmed the two traditional pre-conditions for Beijing-Vatican rapprochement: the severing of ties with Taiwan and "noninterference" in China's internal affairs.

"The contact between us has been continuing all along but it is hard to set a timetable," Ye Xiaowen, director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, said Sunday in a statement to China Daily.

Ye's statements came a few days after Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican's secretary for relations with states, said "the time is ripe" to re-establish diplomatic relations with Beijing.

In two interviews with the South China Morning Post and I-Cable TV of Hong Kong, the Archbishop Lajolo had also spoken of "informal contacts," underscoring that "while authorities at the highest level are showing a desire to normalize relations, there are people pulling in the opposite direction at intermediate levels."

Taiwan

His comments came on the occasion of the March 24 consistory in which Bishop Joseph Zen of Hong Kong was made a cardinal.

In the interview Sunday with China Daily, reported also in today's People's Daily, Ye Xiaowen wondered if the Vatican is ready to accept the two conditions set by Beijing.

For over 15 years, China has been demanding that, as pre-conditions, the Vatican break its ties with Taiwan and refrain from "interfering" in the country's internal affairs.

"We can establish diplomatic relations with the Vatican very soon," Ye said, "if the two principles are accepted. … But it is very hard for us to do so if the principles are violated."

The Holy See, as stated by Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano and Archbishop Lajolo, has already said that the nunciature in Taipei is actually the one to Beijing, having been transferred there following the expulsion of the nuncio in 1951 and Mao Zedong's refusal to readmit him to China in 1952.

The most delicate problem is interference in China's internal affairs, which for Beijing also includes the right to name Catholic bishops.

"Must stick to"

Ye insisted that China wants to have its say on nominations. "We have always been appointing and consecrating our own bishops," he said. "This is what we must stick to."

At least 80% of bishops in the official Church are in communion with the Holy See and the few who are not, such as the archbishop of Beijing, are rejected by the faithful and marginalized, according to AsiaNews.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong said that Beijing and the Vatican could re-establish diplomatic relations by the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Reuters reported.

"I think it's a very reasonable target," the cardinal told the agency. "The process may be long and it may be short. It depends on how they [China's leaders] open their way of seeing things."