Cardinal John Tong Hon hopes the new Chinese leadership that will be elected later this year in Beijing will engage in “a sincere dialogue” with the Catholic Church and the Holy See. He told this to journalists after taking possession of his titular church in Rome on Sunday morning, April 22.
“I hope there will be dialogue. No problem can be resolved except through a sincere dialogue, where a win-win solution can be achieved. We hope and pray for improvement in dialogue with the new leadership”, the bishop of Hong Kong stated.
Asked about the ordination in Sichuan province, south-western China, on April 19, where an excommunicated bishop participated in the ordination ceremony of the new bishop of Nanchong (who had the pope’s approval), Cardinal Tong described this as “unfortunate.”
“We must always safeguard our principles”, he said. There are two important requirements for the ordination of a Catholic bishop, he explained: first “the candidate to be bishop should be approved by the Holy Father to safeguard the unity of the Church” and, second, “all the bishops involved with the consecration (of a new bishop) must not only be valid, they must also be legitimate”, in other words they must be in communion with the pope.
“The mixing of illegitimate with the legitimate is wrong, and should not be allowed”, he stated. “I hope this won’t happen anymore in the future, and that anyone the one who committed the offence on this occasion should repent and submit a request to the Holy Father for pardon”, he said.
On becoming a cardinal, the seventh Chinese cardinal in Church history became a member of the Roman clergy and Pope Benedict assigned him, as his titular church, Santa Maria Regina degli Apostoli alla Montagnola (“Mary, Queen of the Apostles”), not far from the basilica of St Paul’s outside the Walls. Built in the early 1950s by the Society of Saint Paul, the church has the status of a minor basilica and over 30,000 parishioners.
After the traditional ceremony of kissing the cross on entering the church, the cardinal was given a very warm welcome by the parish priest, Father Mario Conti. Then he concelebrated mass, in Latin and Italian, with local priests and others who had come with him from Hong Kong.
Cardinal Tong, in his homily, presented himself to the congregation of some two-hundred people, including many Pauline sisters and a splendid choir. He briefly traced his life’s history from his birth in Hong Kong, 1939, to his flight to mainland China with his family when the Japanese invaded the city and his ordination in Rome in 1966, and his work in Hong Kong as priest, bishop and now cardinal.
He recalled, in particular, how in 1980 he was assigned to develop a program of the Hong Kong Church “to show concern for and keep contacts with the re-emerging Church in China”, and this work led him to visit China and the Catholic Church there “over 100 times”.
As bishop of Hong Kong - a city of 7 million people with 540,000 Catholics (two-thirds are Chinese), and now cardinal of the universal Church, he said he has four major concerns.
His first concern is evangelization. He sees a need for “the first” and “the new evangelization” in Hong Kong and hopes the Year of Faith (2012-2013), will give “new impetus” to the Mission of his Church which has 6,000 new baptisms (half of them adults) each year. He hopes for a growth not only in numbers but also in “the quality” of their faith.
His second concern is to promote vocations to the priesthood and religious life, while the third is to provide for the needs of the non-Chinese Catholics in Hong Kong (including many Filipinos), who need the Mass in English and other facilities.
Cardinal Tong then focused at length on his fourth concern: the Church in Church. Recent popes have “entrusted” to the Hong Kong Church “the role of being a bridge between the Church in China and the Universal Church”, and Pope Benedict “encouraged me to carry on this role.”
Since China re-opened to the world in the late 1970s, he said, “Its economy is moving very fast towards greater freedom and its progress is quite visible”, but “the policies on Religion remain strict”. And “although there is only one Catholic Church in China, she must face not a few difficulties: the main ones are the control by the government authorities, the limited freedom of action, and the disunity among the faithful who need reconciliation.”
Then in words that re-echoed his speech to the College of Cardinals last February, he described the situation of the Church in China with three simple adjectives: “wonderful, difficult and possible”.
It is “wonderful”, he said, “not only for the vitality of the Church and for the growth in numbers (from 3 millions in 1949 to 12 millions today), but also for the marvelous examples of courage and zeal by her members both in the past and at present”. They “live in situations similar to those of the early Church”, he said, “and the Holy Spirit raises in them the evangelizing spirit of the two disciples of Emmaus and the courageous witness of the early apostles.”
It is “difficult” because “the Church in China lives in very difficult situations”, he said. “The Chinese Government pushed towards creating an autonomous National Church, and through the Patriotic Association tries to achieve this objective, even by means of repressive ways.”
The Church in China’s situation “seems depressing”, he said, “Especially if we consider that there are some illegitimate bishops and a dozen among faithful bishops and priests still in prison”. But, “it is not desperate, since the Lord is present and active”.
On the contrary, it is “possible”, because “the Church in China is still open to great possibilities”. He said such optimism “is founded upon the strong courage the Lord inspires in many Catholics for defending their faith”.
He revealed how a bishop friend in the mainland, who had endured “the turmoil” from 1951-79, assured him that the efforts by the Government “to increase its control (of the Church) will definitely not work; rather they will cause the Church to become more aware, more united”, and told him: “The future is bright; we must quietly await God’s grace. The time for this is not very close, nor is it far away”.
Cardinal Tong, concluded by asking his new parishioners “to pray” for their fellow believers in China “who are suffering”.