I would call to our readers’ attention an article in the July/August issue of the Atlantic about Bishop Jin Luxian of Shanghai. The article is an extremely favorable portrait of Bishop Jin, who languished in prison for many years, like Cardinal Kung, but then after his release, began to cooperate with the Communist government and became a member of the Communist-approved episcopal hierarchy. The rationale for this collaboration with the Communists, which the author, Adam Minter, seems to have swallowed hook, line, and sinker, was that millions of Chinese Catholics were in need of the sacraments, a need which the underground Church could never hope to meet. Thus, even though it meant disobedience to Rome and, as far as I can see, latae sententiae excommunication, Bishop Jin agreed to the Communists’ terms and carried on his episcopal ministry.

Mr. Minter wasn’t entirely obliviously to the worry that some might have: did not Jin compromise himself morally by cooperating with the Communists? Minter makes the case that Jin didn’t cross any moral lines - excepting those of canon law (which Rome wasn’t too concerned about anyway) - and that Jin’s policy was only to go so far with the Communists and no farther. But what illustrations of this admirable philosophy does he provide? Not that Jin protested against China’s one child policy or against government provided on-demand abortion or against other gross human rights abuses or against the goverment’s crushing of political dissent. No, apparently, Jin was just fine with all of those things - or, at least, he felt that it was better to keep quiet and continue to provide the sacraments. What does Minter alledge in Jin’s favor, as an example of “not crossing the line”? Only this:

During one of our interviews, Jin contrasted himself with the outspoken Joseph Zen, who has become a well-known agitator against the CPA since taking over as archbishop of Hong Kong. “You cannot speak out as a bishop in a Communist country,” Jin says. “I can’t freely speak like Zen, because I must protect my diocese.” Withholding criticism of China’s religious authorities and their policies is perhaps the greatest compromise that the open-Church bishops choose to make.

At the same time, there are lines that Jin won’t cross. In the early 1990s, for instance, he was offered the chairmanship of the government-organized Chinese bishops’ conference, but declined the overture because he thought it would compromise his independence. The role was later assumed by Beijing’s Bishop Fu Tieshen, who, after his death in April 2007, was widely criticized for being little more than a mouthpiece for the Communist Party.

That’s the line he won’t cross? Taking an even more prominent position in the Chinese Catholic hierarchy, where he would be even more of a mouthpiece for the government? How he is not now a mouthpiece for the government, I cannot make out. He speaks for them by not being able to speak against them when their actions in contradiction of the Faith and the natural law should give him words for a thousand sermons.

Still, he has been a good bishop in the Spirit of the Second Vatican Council: to him Chinese Catholics owe a vernacular translation of the Mass and the opportunity to fulfill the Mass obligation on Saturday nights. All of these reforms Bishop Jin introduced into mainland China. He is also one of these folks who continues to feel the tension between eastern and western philosophy - like that Japanese cardinal who keeps agitating for Vatican III.

Thus far, I’ve spoken critically of Bishop Jin, but I should also say that this article did help me to consider the plight of Chinese Catholics and the choices their priests and bishops must make. One can’t be wholly unsympathetic to Bishop Jin and his ilk if one is sympathetic with the actions of Archbishop Lefebvre. I am certainly not saying that the two cases are exactly parallel, but they have some similarities. Both involve disobedience in the carrying out of ordinations, violations of the letter of the law in the hope of achieving an end which is putatively in the eternal interests of the law-giver (Rome).

Still, I can’t say that I’m impressed by Bishop Jin. Throughout the article, he says the West underestimated the staying power of the Chinese Communists. While the West and Rome were hoping that Chinese Communism would collapse, Jin and others were getting on with life as it had to be lived under a hostile regime. Yet I want to shake him and say: “But the Chinese Communists can’t be here to stay and we should be working for the collapse of that regime!”

Again, though the situations aren’t altogether similar, consider Poland and John Paul II. The Communists hoped that they would get someone in Karol Wojtyla who was submissive and silent; or maybe they read Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange’s assessment of Wojtyla’s work at the Angelicum: “Writes much, says little.” (Best line ever.) But in the end, he said more than enough against the Communists of Poland! He had the advantage of being able to work from outside Poland on a world stage, but if the Chinese Catholics had united their resources, they might have been able to do something similar (though different in degree). The Cardinal Kung Foundation is one example. Yet Bishop Jin and Cardinal Kung were of two different camps and so their energies were split. And what Cardinal Kung could accomplish was certainly limited by Jin’s cooperation with the Communists: how effective could Kung’s appeal to the world be when many Chinese Catholics acted as though everything were just dandy?

Finally, I want to make a couple points about the article itself. It seemed to me that the article was written by someone who had little knowledge of the Catholic Church. First of all, even though we are in the midst of a good bit of media attention on the old Mass in the build up to the motu proprio, Mr. Minter tells us nothing about which Mass Chinese Catholics had available to them and at what dates. Presumably, in China of all places, the “reforms” of Vatican II didn’t sweep in overnight! I’m curious to know when they received the Novus Ordo Missae in Latin - because they were using Latin for the Mass until Bishop Jin produced a vernacular translation in 1989 (officially authorized by the Communists in 1993). Second, Mr. Minter refers to the “Synod of the Eucharist.” It’s the Synod on the Eucharist. This is a minor point, but made me wonder how much understanding Mr. Minter had of Catholic issues in general.