Wong won’t get a second chance to see His Holiness. Not now. Last week Beijing denied a request from the pontiff to visit Hong Kong, delivering a bitter disappointment to the largest Chinese-speaking diocese in the world. After 1949, when communists took over China and decreed atheism the law of the land, thousands sought haven in the British Colony of Hong Kong. The Catholic community in Hong Kong swelled in waves from several thousand to more than 225,000 today. Then, in 1997, the British handed Hong Kong back to China, which promised to leave the territory free to govern itself for 50 years. Now, amid growing signs that Beijing intends to exert its say over Hong Kong law and finances, the ban on the pope comes as the most direct and personal threat yet to Hong Kong freedoms. “In the future,” says Man Lung, 32, a Hong Kong religious scholar, “we will expect more and more contradictions between what we’ve been promised and what we really get.”
China’s Communist Party has long had poor, even hostile relations with the Vatican. Catholic missionaries, who began arriving in China as early as the 16th century, were later vilified by the communists as the first wave of Western imperialism. In the 1950’s, Beijing set up its own official “patriotic” church, whose members are forbidden from reciting the Nicene Creed, which mandates belief in one church. But the Vatican continued to maintain diplomatic ties to the nationalists, the communists’ defeated rivals, who had fled for Taiwan. Beijing said last week that, given the dispute over Taiwan, it would be too “complicated” to receive the pope.
Taiwan is not the only complication, though. Millions of Chinese still privately revere the pope, which presents a threat to the waning moral authority of the communist party. In recent years some bishops of the “patriotic” church have been secretly ordained by the Vatican. Three million members of the official church are outnumbered perhaps two to one by followers of underground parishes, which are loyal to Rome. At a time when Beijing has launched a major crackdown on the Buddhist movement called the Falun Gong, the last thing the government wants to see is a stampede of Catholics to Hong Kong. “Chinese Catholics have been cut off from the outside for so long that they would flock to see the pope,” says Anthony Chang, a Hong Kong priest with close ties to the official Chinese Church.
Church fathers in Hong Kong have long dreamed of spreading Vatican teaching to the rest of China. Bishop Joseph Zen, 67, is a native of Shanghai who came to Hong Kong in 1948, and has struggled to cultivate good relations with Beijing. “The bishop for years told us not to say bad things about the church in China so that we could keep a channel open to go back and enlighten them,” says an older Hong Kong priest. In the early 1990s, Beijing allowed Zen permission to return to Shanghai, where 2,000 Catholics showed up hoping he would perform the Roman Catholic mass. “He was so happy,” says the priest. “But then the government wouldn’t let him do it.” Today, Beijing won’t even let Bishop Zen visit other parts of China.
The sense of loss is particularly acute among older Catholics who can remember the pope’s last visit to Hong Kong. In 1970, when the territory was under British rule, the pontiff made a brief stopover, addressing thousands of followers in a sports stadium. Now, many Catholics are disappointed that the new Hong Kong authorities acquiesced to banning the pope, without a word of protest. Before that, the government had refused to grant public exhibition space to a major Roman Catholic celebration next year. That decision was reversed under pressure from a Catholic citizens lobby, but no one expects Beijing to change its stand on the pope. One devout woman, requesting anonymity, says she’s praying for a miracle: a papal visit.
Younger believers are equally at odds with Beijing, but not always for the same reasons as their elders. The spiritual hierarchy and mystery that draws their parents to the church is not for them. “We are more interested in the content of our faith,” says Mary Yuen, 33, a Catholic leader who organizes seminars on human rights and poverty. She sees the church the way many Latin Americans do, as a vehicle for social progress. When Hong Kong barred the Beijing dissident Wang Dan from entering its territory in May, she supported young Catholics who protested. But Yuen will not be rallying youths for the pope. “I don’t need an idol,” says Yuen, whose politics put her at odds with both the Vatican and Beijing.
Some clergy fear Beijing is already trying to force a more “patriotic” church on Hong Kong, too. Several months ago, says a local priest, Beijing pressured a multifaith delegation, including Buddhist, Islamic and Catholic leaders, not to attend a papal conference in Rome next year “because it would have made Hong Kong look subordinate to the Vatican.” Even Bishop Zen can’t hide a sense that his flock is under siege. “We’ve had 50 years of freedom,” he jokes, a bit wanly. “We should at least be able to have another five.” Beijing willing.
