Religious faith in Communist China, I: The Catholic church: an eyewitness report:
Myers, James T
RELIGIOUS FAITH IN COMMUNIST CHINA, I The Catholic church: an eyewitness report JAMES T. MYERS IT WAS COLD as we set out by bicycle before dawn for a forty-five minute ride across town to the...
...The new Chinese Constitution, recently adopted, states quite plainly, "No religious affairs may be dominated by any foreign country...
...As soon as one Mass was completed, a new priest appeared on the altar and a new Mass begun...
...Father Joannes told me that there were four priests at the church plus the bishop, and altogether more than forty priests in Shaanxi (not to be confused with Shanxi) Province...
...There are only about two dozen foreigners in this province of twenty million people and there was no reason to expect that any outsiders would attend the Mass...
...IN CHINA you soon become sensitive to the fact that there are many questions better left unasked...
...He had spent time at the University of Chicago and had taught Thomist philosophy at Catholic University in Latin...
...There are, to be sure, priests who have steadfastly maintained loyalty to Rome...
...The Catholic church, because of its ties with Rome, became a special target as the worst remnant of Western "imperialism...
...They stay in special hotels, shop in "Friendship Stores," and see only carefully selected attractions...
...There is one further point to be noted...
...Foreigners are deliberately shielded from contact with any Chinese but their guides and interpreters, and the fact that there are plainclothes policemen at the door of the Beijing (Peking) Hotel to keep Chinese out, goes unnoticed...
...The Eastern Church (Dong Tang) occupies the site where the house of Father Adam Schall stood and where he died in 1666...
...Our host was a young Kazakh from the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office...
...In addition to the church government there is a Council of Bishops (also elected), and the Patriotic Catholic Association...
...When I raised the subject of the difficulties I had in meeting him, he said gently, "Forget all that...
...On the wall were a crucifix, several religious pictures, and a printed calendar of church events...
...The official state ideology is determinedly atheistic, so that even should religion be tolerated, it would scarcely be encouraged...
...The worshipers were of all ages...
...He asserted his belief that if the Vatican recognized the People's Republic the Chinese church would have no trouble re-establishing ties with Rome...
...It was locked...
...Someone else said there had been a church near the Friendship Store...
...Everyone in China seems to know of his existence but no one here is willing to produce him...
...There was Professor Tian...
...I was greeted by a kindly old gentleman who told me that he was a priest and had, upon ordination as a Franciscan, taken the religious name Joannes...
...They have the look of survivors: cautious, and on guard around foreigners...
...He told me his church was full for worship services...
...L: I didn't know you were so interested in religion...
...Whatever the government intends by allowing the remnants of the church to operate under closely controlled conditions, the result is that people are once more publicly worshiping God, praising Jesus Christ and reading the Holy Bible, which is now being printed and distributed...
...He emphasized several times that he loved his country and his church and stressed the pride that he and other Chinese felt that the oppression of imperialism had been lifted from China...
...Although both the first and second Chinese Constitutions promised the "freedom to believe in religion," they also stressed "freedom not to believe in religion and to propagate atheism...
...But the relaxed policy toward religion may, in the end, be two-edged...
...As Friday arrived I learned that Wang was ill and had asked Li to set up the meeting...
...The priesthoods of the older priests (the vast majority of Catholic clergy in China) would span the anti-Japanese war, the Chinese civil war, and since 1949, the various on-again, off-again policies of the government of the People' s Republic...
...One of the most interesting questions to consider is why the government permitted the churches to reopen at all...
...A few stories from travels here and there: Huhhot, Inner Mongolia - Mongolia was never the most fertile ground for Christian missionaries who were in competition with Islam, Buddhism, and Sino-Tibetan Lamaism, but the Belgian fathers of the Immaculate Heart of Mary made it their special ministry...
...I casually asked the mullah if there was a Catholic church in the city...
...Father James Lin greeted us and served tea in a small reception room on the ground floor of the rectory...
...They were nuns who had been in jail for more than a decade...
...As I write, there is to be a month-long "war on sloth...
...As for his French, he had taken his Doctorate at the Sorbonne...
...The majority of priests in China were ordained before 1949...
...Men were on the left and women on the right of the church...
...He wore no pectoral cross, but a large gold ring with red stone was on his right hand...
...The present building, the fourth Nan Tang, dates from the beginning of the twentieth century...
...He had heard of it...
...The church seats five hundred...
...When our host came to see me we had a brief but intense session about not being allowed to visit the church or contact the priest...
...None of this is especially surprising in view of the Marxist orientation of the Chinese government...
...We found the iron gates at the street in front of the church locked and made our way around the block to the rear of the church...
...Professor Tian arrived at the appointed time...
...He seemed uneasy about our plans and announced that he would be staying in the hotel with us...
...All the news stories and reports I had heard or read led me to expect to see a handful of old Chinese women practicing the religion of their youth...
...He soon reported back that Professor Tian had agreed to meet me at the end of that week...
...They would like to organize their own small seminary...
...All of the Protestant denominations were forced to combine into a single "Patriotic" Christian Church...
...Recently there was a nationwide "Socialist Courtesy and Ethics" month...
...Why, I asked him, is this such a big deal...
...Professor Tian told me much the same story about the Catholic church that I had heard from other priests...
...He told me not to be upset, that I would get to see Professor Tian...
...This does not mean, of course, that the road ahead for Chinese Christians is going to be anything but difficult and arduous...
...The authorities seem to have an almost pathological fear of the power of the church not kept under a tight rein...
...This man might be a Catholic...
...I wonder why you are so frightened by a few powerless people who worship God...
...He seemed more grateful to the government than other priests I had met...
...I was greeted by Father Anthony Liu who showed me around the church and grounds...
...Beijing (Peking) - Beijing is the only city in China at present in which there is more than one Catholic church open...
...Look," he said, gesturing around the room, "we can furnish our house...
...The mosque has been functioning again since the end of 1980 and although repairs are still being made, the prayer services at mid-day and on Friday were full...
...In many ways the meeting was quite unsatisfying...
...During these years, in order to live, the bishop and his priests organized a small factory where they made pails which they sold to the government...
...Both priests were glad, and somewhat surprised, to be alive and back at their church...
...Indeed, there is almost as much written in the press these days about "Socialist Spiritual Civilization" as there is about economics...
...The third Nan Tang, like the Gong Tang, was destroyed by the Boxers...
...During the Cultural Revolution he and the other priests were "sent away" to the countryside and imprisoned...
...I told him that it was intolerable and a violation of the Chinese Constitution...
...We can only speculate...
...Many, he said, were in prison longer than he...
...The only possible explanation for the presence of so many young people in the church is that they had been instructed at home during the years when the churches were closed and the priests scattered...
...In fact, I didn't know why...
...I heard from several people that he had suffered terribly...
...I had heard that Mass was offered on Sunday and I wanted to see what the government's new policy of religious toleration had brought to Chinese Catholics in Taiyuan, this north China city of two million inhabitants...
...One day a small child came up to him on the street, took him by the sleeve and began to make the sign of the cross over and over...
...Would it be possible to speak to him...
...L: You can just go see him yourself...
...Following his directions I found the gate at the street which led me into the small church courtyard...
...This man must be very dangerous, or I must...
...According to Bishop Zhang, the Patriotic Association is a separate organization...
...L: Don't you say that to me...
...But one has the impression that everything is not all right...
...When they travel by train they enter the station through a separate entrance...
...They seated me in a small room with sofa and chairs and we chatted in Chinese while tea was served...
...While it took me two days to find the church, it had taken him two weeks...
...The atmosphere was anything but warm...
...He speaks Chinese with a heavy accent...
...She brought us to the bishop's office, a modest-sized room with an unfinished wood floor, two wooden desks and several slipcovered chairs...
...The church in Taiuyan owns property from which it receives rental income...
...The difficulties I encountered in meeting Father Tian are only an insignificant sample of the uneasy relationship which exists between the church and the Communist leaders in China...
...What can be made of this restoration of public worship, and what exactly is the condition of the Catholic church in China today...
...Following the establishment of the P.R.C...
...The following morning I went to Li's office determined to press the issue...
...M: I am sure Professor Tian lives no more than one hundred yards from where we're standing...
...Add foreigners to the equation and the fear becomes paranoia...
...The Nan Tang is the central church of Chinese Catholicism...
...They spent nearly the entire Mass on their knees and were clearly not putting on a performance for anyone's benefit...
...Gong Pinmei, Bishop of Shanghai, now more than eighty years of age, has been in prison continuously since 1955...
...He knew the general location and whenever he had a chance he would wander around and look...
...Probably so...
...I asked if there was a Catholic church in Urumchi...
...Guangzhou (Canton), Guangtong Province - The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is possibly the most beautiful Catholic church in China...
...I have catechism classes for the children...
...their whole lives...
...All of the renovations, paintings, and decorations had been made by the local Catholic community...
...The present church is the third to be built on this site, the second church having been destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900...
...Inside, the church is a jewel...
...L: But we have to be alert to foreign religious propaganda...
...of the local clergy...
...I was told by an "expert" guide that the former church had become a food-processing plant, and that Catholics were allowed to hold worship services only on special feast days such as Christmas, although unofficially they might hold "meetings...
...You don't need me...
...All were ordained before 1949 but one, ordained in 1967...
...These things can't be decided by just one person," he replied...
...Do you know this person...
...It is a beautiful building with all of its turn-of-the-century furnishings intact, somehow protected during the Cultural Revolution...
...My American friend asked him who had given this order...
...The church in China today is governed by a council composed of bishops, priests, and lay people...
...There are presently no seminaries open for religious study in Taiyuan - although a Catholic seminary recently opened in Shanghai with more than thirty students - so that a young man wishing to enter the priesthood would have to be tutored privately...
...The conversation went something like this: M: Have you arranged for me to meet Professor Tian...
...I was utterly captivated...
...He seemed totally in control, even, in a curious way, over those who would control him, and he was at peace...
...Other than these observations, he showed little interest in discussing changes in the church since Vatican II...
...This was no showpiece church, no Billy Graham in Moscow...
...We should also remember that the Chinese Catholics I met are all free...
...I told him that it made them look ridiculous and he agreed...
...I found the church by spotting the "Patriotic Catholic Association" sign at the gate of a factory...
...This is the same story I heard everywhere...
...The Church of the Immaculate Conception was built in 1905 by Franciscan priests...
...The Chinese government has acknowledged, through the adoption of a number of different policies and campaigns, the failure of their ideology to meet the "spiritual" needs of their people...
...The Secretary wasn't happy, but said it was the first he had heard of the matter...
...A man with Father Tian's background and education was obviously in exile at this remote provincial university teaching elementary French...
...It was an extraordinary and deeply moving experience made all the more so by the fact that my American companion and I were the only foreigners in the JAMES T. MYERS is an associate professor in the department of government and international studies at the University of South Carolina with a special interest in Chinese politics...
...Like others, I had heard stories about the underground church in China, but to see this obvious public manifestation of that church was indeed unexpected...
...We set out by bicycle in search of the famous Qing Dynasy mosque built about 1690...
...After pleasantries were exchanged, the old man seated himself at one of the desks to take notes...
...As a part of the government's recent policy of moderation, the churches, temples, and mosques have been allowed to reopen and some, though not all, church property has been returned...
...I began with some simple questions about church administration...
...It is built on the site of the house where the great Jesuit Father Matteo Ricci lived and where he died in 1610...
...Nan Tang was reopened in 1974, long before any of the other churches in China, but it was open only to foreigners...
...All of this points to a deep spiritual malaise, to a spiritual void which the government is attempting to fill with slogans and campaigns...
...M: Indeed...
...The national level, made up of representatives of provincial councils, is supposed to meet every four years...
...By the time I returned from Beijing several weeks later, I again told Li that I wanted to meet Professor Tian, and once again nothing happened...
...During the Cultural Revolution Father Joannes had spent more than ten years in jail, their bishop thirteen years, and Father Josephus more than fourteen years...
...The Mass was celebrated in Latin, the priest facing the altar...
...He responded by pointing to a steeple with cross close by...
...I replied that he knew quite well that I did not but had been trying to meet him for some time...
...I went there but found nothing...
...The bishop indicated that most of the larger villages have churches which are now restored and Masses are conducted regularly...
...The following day a Travel Service guide assured me the church was closed...
...Men outnumbered women...
...We can buy religious pictures...
...I wondered who had summoned him...
...The church interior was not destroyed during the Cultural Revolution...
...Parts of northern Shanxi Province where I lived were occupied by the People's Liberation Army as early as 1947 and the pressure on the church in the rural areas begun even before "Liberation" in 1949...
...Father James had been at the Cathedral for forty-one years...
...It was with something more than amazement then that I found the church full...
...That explosion of revolutionary violence unleashed an inordinate amount of latent hostility and frustration which have been difficult to bring back under control...
...But he only teaches introductory French...
...China is in theory a "multi-class" state which is only at this stage "building socialism...
...I replied that we could speak Chinese...
...The church was forced to sever ties with Rome and by the mid-1950' s the few foreign priests who had not fled China were occupied in hard physical labor or in jail...
...huge crowd of Chinese, who were deeply involved in their worship...
...Father Joannes also told me that four new priests had been ordained since 1980, all men in their forties who had been studying for ordination before the Cultural Revolution...
...I had no idea that there would be any problem...
...Some twenty years or more...
...He introduced a second elderly priest as Father Josephus...
...There are others who are not...
...China is a police state...
...I saw women with tears in their eyes returning from the confessional and people with tears streaming down their faces after receiving Holy Communion...
...Most Western visitors pass through China in a carefully controlled pipeline...
...The Chinese authorities have resorted to a number of different strategies to deal with the resulting frustration, discontent, and, more potentially damaging, with disillusionment and cynicism...
...Three days later Little Chen beckoned me to the Foreign Affairs Office...
...He was surprised and overjoyed that he wasn't killed or allowed to die in his small prison...
...This seems to refer to the fact that many Chinese do not practice the same degree of self-control as prior to the Cultural Revolution...
...The remainder of church income is derived from voluntary contributions...
...This association is not the church per se and does not administer church affairs...
...I see," he said, "you are from Shanxi University...
...The church in China is financed much as it is in the West...
...Yes, but it is closed...
...It was completely gutted and converted into a warehouse during the Cultural Revolution...
...You do not care to arrange this introduction...
...The new policy toward religion is almost certainly linked to China's turn toward the West...
...The speed with which they were able to get back into operation seems to have depended on how badly wrecked the church buildings were, the strength and dedication of the local Catholic community, and the condition (scattered, imprisoned, etc...
...He stressed the fact that Chinese Catholics should work extra hard for national construction so that other Chinese could see that they were good people...
...In any case, the new policy remains a calculated risk...
...The evidence gathered over a number of years in several different countries seems to suggest that Communist political systems cannot in fact meet those spiritual needs, and wherever the state has stepped aside and permitted the churches to operate, they have not only survived but flourished...
...Only a handful of worshipers left after the end of the first Mass, the majority choosing to stay for the second Mass as well...
...At a side altar several women were fixing paper flowers and polishing candlesticks...
...Our female guide took up her post at the other desk to observe...
...Both priests were imprisoned for more than twenty years before the restoration of "religious freedom" in 1978, and both have now been re-arrested...
...He was wonderfully warm and directed me to the Catholic church some distance across town...
...He never thought he would live, never thought he would "see a day such as this...
...I was fortunate as an exchange scholar possessing passing fluency in Chinese to be able to travel freely and extensively without a China Travel Service Guide...
...in 1949 the Christian churches were subjected to intense pressure...
...Thus, in theory, many patriotic groups and associations are presently involved in the task of socialist construction...
...Is there not freedom of religion in your country...
...L: These matters are sensitive...
...We bicycled over to find a beautiful Belgian-style church...
...Perhaps you know my old teacher Father Tian who now teaches foreign languages there...
...M: What does that have to do with anything...
...This process was disrupted during the Cultural Revolution, but much of the property has now been returned...
...MOST OF THE CHURCHES in China have been open again since the end of 1979...
...I managed to locate a priest, Father Andrew, who agreed to admit us...
...The consequences of such activities can only be imagined...
...His Chinese was absolutely standard...
...There are fourteen priests assigned to the Diocese of Huhhot of whom eight are at the church, the others working in nearby villages...
...The next day at noon Mass the church was nearly full...
...When I mentioned some of the changes which have taken place in the Roman Catholic church in recent years...
...The following day I took the issue to the Secretary of the University Communist Party Committee...
...Yes, but he couldn't tell me...
...There are no priests attached to the church but Masses are said on Sundays by priests from the Nan Tang (Southern Church) Cathedral across town...
...It might be possible but he couldn't take me...
...Later that afternoon Little Chen came to my room...
...M: Where does he live...
...There are fifty-six bishops, each equal in rank to the others, each with the power to ordain priests...
...We can all read the meaning of that provision...
...He had given me the runaround for weeks, lied to me, and insulted my intelligence, all without showing the slightest remorse, embarrassment, or understanding of why I should be upset...
...You know why," he said mysteriously...
...Did he know where the church was...
...He wore the standard blue tunic (known in the West, but not in China, as a "Mao jacket") and a blue cloth worker's cap...
...There were many small children and a sizable percentage of those present was teenagers and young adults...
...Bishop Zhang volunteered that he thought the changes are a bad idea, especially the practice of using laypersons as Eucharistic Ministers...
...Fairly early in my stay I had the opportunity to spend several hours with the Bishop of Taiyuan whose residence is at the Church of the Immaculate Conception...
...It reopened at the end of 1979 after being closed for nearly fourteen years as a result of the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution...
...We didn't talk about those who are still in prison...
...The entire interior of the building had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution...
...Begun around 1860 and consecrated in 1863, the magnificent Gothic structure was designed and built by the French...
...Although they knew I am Catholic, and were unfailingly polite, it was painfully clear they would have preferred not to receive our visit...
...It is a huge building and will accommodate three thousand souls...
...M: What are you afraid of Mr...
...I was accompanied only by an American colleague...
...It seems unlikely that they would be rejected by their flock in favor of no Mass and no Sacraments in order for them to assert the authority of the Holy Father in Rome...
...He pointed to the ceiling, indicating that it had come from a higher level...
...The reports had been partially true...
...Only in 1979 were they permitted to admit Chinese Catholics...
...Xi'an, Shaanxi Province - Everyone in this ancient capital of China assured me that the church was closed...
...I disagreed...
...I saw Li at the end of the day and asked him when I was to meet Professor Tian...
...He was ordained forty-five years ago as a Franciscan priest...
...You just ask Little Chen (a translator) to help you...
...Even before the Cultural Revolution closed the churches in China for nearly a decade and a half, the life of the church in China was extremely precarious...
...he asked, as if he had heard nothing of the matter previously...
...In fact it is inconceivable that reunification with Rome should ever be permitted under the present system...
...At last I went to the Chairman of the Foreign Languages Department (call him Wang) to see if he could arrange a meeting...
...I asked if there was possibly a priest at the closed church...
...Amnesty International recently issued an "urgent action" appeal on behalf of two Chinese priests and a bishop...
...L: I don't know...
...I was constantly being told that the "social order is not good these days...
...The difficulty with learning anything useful in China is access to information...
...Approximately two hundred of the faithful attend Mass which is celebrated once each Sunday...
...I don't think he speaks English," Li said...
...The experience was unexpectedly moving...
...The key to China's policy of the "Four Modernizations" (the modernization of agriculture, industry, science, and national defense) is Western technology and Western - particularly American - assistance...
...Everyone seemed to know the words without the benefit of hymnals, and even the smallest children knew the proper rituals of behavior...
...At one point during the Eucharist there rose a sort of responsorial chant...
...We had barely exchanged pleasantries when another Chinese professor arrived unexpectedly...
...Speaking no Chinese, the American nodded his head at the gesture and the boy led him to the little reception room and Father Josephus...
...All of their small community of nuns had also been imprisoned...
...He promised to look into the matter and we parted...
...Many Chinese priests suffered the same fate, and several of the most "un-reconstructed" have spent all but a few brief periods of the last thirty years in jail...
...I decided to try to find the church on my own but a respiratory illness put me to bed...
...The Red Guards could just kill you any time they wanted...
...He said there was a church nearby, but it was a ji du jiao ("Christian," that is, Protestant) church, not a tian zhu jiao (Catholic) church...
...I suggested that, as Professor Tian taught French, the interview could be conducted in that language...
...Why is this matter so difficult...
...We agreed to meet in my room at seven-thirty that evening...
...Bishop Zhang is a short, plump man, nearing seventy...
...The pastor greeted me, told me that his was a former Baptist church...
...He survived, he said, "two years on the ground" with only the clothes on his back, never knowing from one day to the next if he would be killed...
...No one but I said anything that could be construed as critical of the Chinese political system...
...The Chinese government may, in the words of the ancient Chinese proverb, finally come to realize that it is riding a tiger from which it cannot dismount...
...Everything is original...
...ONE OF THE POINTS of confusion in the West concerns the Patriotic Catholic Association of China...
...There are ten priests who share the Masses at Nan Tang and Dong Tang...
...As it happened, I had heard that there was an "ex-priest," whose name I did not know, teaching in the Foreign Languages Department, and I had tried to meet him without success...
...The reopening of the churches, and of the Buddhist temples and Moslem mosques, was certainly a part of this effort...
...Priests and bishops are all too wary...
...He was a fine-looking old gentleman, as neat and well groomed as the other priests I had met...
...I also think that Westerners who visualize a huge underground church loyal to Rome and refusing to receive the Sacraments from renegade"patriotic" priests, are engaging in wishful thinking...
...Saint Francis of Assisi Church had not been converted into a food-processing plant, but a plant had been built in front, blocking any view of the facade...
...It made my conversation with Tian more than a little awkward...
...When I returned from the Urumchi trip I told the head of the Foreign Affairs office (let's call him Li) that I would like to meet Professor Tian and ask him some questions about the organization of the Catholic church in China...
...He brightened when I mentioned the Catholic seminary in Shanghai...
...Another aspect of the shift in policy may be related to what the Chinese refer to as the "social order...
...Amnesty International is also seeking the release of fourteen other Catholic priests and lay people who have been arrested "for the expression of their religious beliefs...
...There was a mesmerizing calm, magnetic gentility about him...
...Most of my encounters with Catholic clergy occurred when I was alone or in the company only of another American...
...In the end, what conclusions can we draw from the renaissance of public worship in China...
...Masses are celebrated on Sunday at seven a.m., noon, and seven p.m., and on weekdays morning and evening...
...These associations are semiofficial links with the government and although the priests and bishops may be members, the Patriotic Association is kept separate and distinct from the administration of the affairs of the church itself...
...This was the first time since I have known Li that I have seen him show anger...
...He recently spent five months in the People's Republic as the head of an exchange delegation...
...I asked him why there was such a problem...
...Rumors to the contrary, the church is alive and functioning in Xi'an...
...But the "patriotic" priests are the same priests with whom the Chinese Catholics have grown up...
...In a nearby crafts store I asked the elderly manager...
...The reopening is at least partly for our benefit...
...Father Andrew said that in the past the church had a cemetery but now all of the dead were cremated...
...The councils are elected democratically and on the provincial level meet once each year...
...Everything is free now...
...On the question of the relationship between his church and the church of Rome, Bishop Zhang repeated the official position of his government: As long as Rome recognizes Taiwan (the Republic of China) no relationship is possible with the church of Mainland China...
...I tried to walk out three times, but Li wanted to salvage the situation...
...Full Communism will come only much later...
...It reopened in 1979...
...L: You can meet this person...
...Li promised to look into the matter, and that was the last I heard of it...
...When I arrived Father Josephus had already begun...
...I met an American at the Sunday Mass who was living in Xi'an teaching English...
...RELIGIOUS FAITH IN COMMUNIST CHINA, I The Catholic church: an eyewitness report JAMES T. MYERS IT WAS COLD as we set out by bicycle before dawn for a forty-five minute ride across town to the Church of the Immaculate Conception...
...Anthony asked where I was living...
...During the course of our conversation Fr...
...Recalling this and considering the difficulty I had meeting him, there were many questions I dared not put to him...
...M: I see...
...The state will never encourage and embrace their activities...
...His English was perfect, and we conversed in that language...
...All of the altar furnishings are new and are rather crude compared to the graceful beauty of the building...
...A middle-aged woman instructed us to park our bicycles and follow her...
...Yet I had the feeling that this man had mastered his situation...
...It was volunteer labor which put the church back into operation after the change in government policy...
...Urumchi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region - Four days out of Huhhot by hard sleeper train we arrived in the capital of Xinjiang, the end of the line, the most inland city in the world...
...He assured me it was not closed, had priests and a bishop, and sent me off with a "God bless you" in English...
...It had no effect...
...It was this movement, the last great revolutionary upheaval led by the aging Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966, which unleashed the radical furies that took ten years finally to bring under control...
...It was to attempt to answer these questions that I visited churches and spoke with priests and bishops wherever I could find them while traveling widely during a recent five-month stay in the People's Republic of China...
Vol. 110 • October 1983 • No. 17
