Taiwan's Catholic Cardinal Paul Shan will make a historic visit to
China this year in the first contact between Catholics on the two sides
in more than 60 years, the organiser of his trip said on Tuesday.
Shan,
who was born 88 years ago on the mainland, is expected to hold a joint
mass with Shanghai Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian in June, said organiser
Chou Chin-huar.
He is also scheduled to visit universities in
Shanghai and Xiamen to promote his fight against lung cancer, said Chou,
head of cancer charity the Chou Ta-Kuan Foundation in Taipei.
In
his native city of Zhengzhou in central China, Shan will visit his
family tombs and hold a "dialogue of life" with Taiwan's hi-tech firm
Foxconn, which has been plagued by a spate of employee suicides in
recent years.
"This will be an ice-breaking trip as Catholics on the two sides have not been in contact before," Chou told AFP.
"We
have been working very hard for this trip to take place," he said,
adding that the visit was set after a meeting between Shan and Wang
Zuoan, head of China's Religious Affairs Bureau, in Taiwan last year.
However, Shan's week-long trip will not include Beijing due to "political sensitivity," Chou said.
The
Vatican and China have not had formal diplomatic ties since 1951 when
the Holy See's recognition of Taiwan sparked anger in Beijing.
The
Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association does not acknowledge the
authority of Pope Benedict XVI and is fiercely opposed to the
"clandestine" Catholic Church clergy loyal to the pontiff.
China
has about five million Catholics who worship at Communist
Party-sanctioned "official" churches, while up to 11 million reportedly
worship at "underground" churches not sanctioned by the government.
A
brief war of words erupted between Beijing and the Vatican in December,
with China rebuffing criticism by the pope of its curbs on practising
Catholics and of the state-sanctioned Chinese church.