Same vision

Pope Francis is the best known Jesuit in the world today, He’s the first member of the Society of Jesus, organized by Saints Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier and companions in 1542, to be elected pontiff. Francis has been invited to address the US Congress. And many Filipinos hope that when he visits South Korea this year, he’ll make a side trip here to meet Yolanda victims.

The news item, on a lesser known Jesuit appeared last week, below the fold in the inside-pages, of a few papers: Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang, of Shanghai, a leader of China's underground catholic community, died March 15. He was 96.

Fan served in prison after he and other priests were arrested in 1955 during a government crackdown. From 1958 to 1978, Fan was imprisoned in Qinghai province. Among other things, his work included carrying corpses to the cemetery, reported the Asian church news portal UCANews.

He refused to recognize the Chinese government-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association when it was established. Officially, China claims there are 23 million Christians about 11 million are Catholics. “The real number is somewhere between 60 to 130 million”, the Economist estimates.

An underground priest immediately said mass for Bishop Fan after he died. Shanghai refused permission that the funeral Mass be held at St Ignatius Cathedral. Instead, it allowed rites for Bishop Fan to be limited to an open courtyard at the funeral home

Chinese Catholics are divided between two communities. One group refuses to “render to Caesar the things that are God’s”’ and therefore, remained underground. The other is one that the Vatican accepted with some compromises to continue its existence. Both are faithful to the pope. Both face persecution from Chinese authorities, as have other Christian denominations.

“The more persecution, the more the church grows,” said Protestant Pastor Samuel Lamb in 1993. He died in 2013, age 88. His 20 years of jail and forced labor followed an earlier two-year sentence. Some 30,000 people attended his memorial service. Police constantly pressured Mr. Lamb to comply with official doctrine and register with the government. He always refused, as did Joseph Fan.

The latest US State Department report on religious freedom notes: “In China, religious affairs officials and security organs detained, arrested, or sentenced to prison a number of religious adherents for activities reportedly related to their religious beliefs and practice.

Government continued to strictly regulate the religious activities of Uighur Muslims. Authorities sentenced one Uighur Muslim to ten years in jail for selling “illegal religious material”. It  harassed or detained Catholic clergy not affiliated with the government “Catholic Patriotic Association,” including auxiliary Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daquin; and indicted seven house church Christians accused of being members of a banned group, “the Shouters,” a charge they denied.

Progressively more repressive government actions and religious policies occurred in Tibetan areas, including intense official crackdowns at monasteries and nunneries .resulting in the loss of life, arbitrary detentions, and torture.

Tibetan monks, nuns, and laypersons increasingly sought to express despair and dissent by self-immolating, often at or near a monastery, usually resulting in death. There were reportedly 83 self-immolations in 2012.  

Born in 1918, Bishop Fan was baptized a Catholic in 1932, joined the Society of Jesus in 1938. Fan was named Shanghai bishop by John Paul II in 2000. But he was refused recognition by the Communist Party organization overseeing the church in China.

To worship openly in China, Catholics are required to join the official China Patriotic Catholic Association, which has five million members. Tensions repeatedly surface with Rome because the state-directed organization insists on naming bishops without Vatican approval.

Bishop Fan was arrested together with Bishop Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei of Shanghai and other priests in 1955. After his release in 1978, he taught at a high school in Qinghai. 

Security police arrested him again on numerous occasions, and ransacked his flat. In 1992, the accounts of the entire Shanghai underground church were closed down, along with many of the Bishop's personal accounts, including the bishopric. The Bishop of Qinghai ordained him Coadjutor Bishop of Shanghai on 27 February 1985, while the bishop was in jail.

When Bishop Fan was placed under house arrest, another priest, Aloysius Jin Luxian, was named as bishop. When Bishop Jin died, his intended successor was Thaddeus Ma Daqin, but he has not been seen since being taken into custody in 2012.

Filipinos know the Jesuits from the schools they’ve established, their missions in Mindanao and scientific work. Padre Faura is named after an astronomer who established the Manila Observatory. Miguel Selga, SJ, continues to be referred to for his work on Philippine climate changes. And the historian Horacio de la Costa became the first superior of the Society in the Philippines.

Jesuit critics abound. “According to ancient lore, the wind and the devil were walking together one day. Then, the devil suddenly disappeared into the Gesu which is the Jesuit church in Rome. The devil has not come out again. And the wind is still waiting outside.”