China – Vatican News

We followed with enthusiasm the news about an important meeting at the Vatican about the presence of the Church in China. Following the two-day review of its China policy last January, the Holy See said it wished to "overcome misunderstandings of the past" with Beijing, which ended relations with the Vatican more than 50 years ago.

From the news:

China welcomes Vatican olive branch
(Click this to Link to BBC News)

BEIJING, China (AP) -- China's state-backed Catholic church Monday welcomed a newly announced Vatican initiative to repair ruptured relations with Beijing and said a promised letter from the pope to Chinese Catholics could be helpful.

Three times as many believers in China
(Click this to Link to Epoch Times)

AsiaNews reported that an official Chinese government-sponsored survey shows that the number of religious believers is three times that previously estimated by the government.The first substantial survey on faith conducted by two university professors and published on government media shows that Christianity is the religion that has grown the most over time.Three hundred million Chinese people now believe in a religion, according to the survey which also revealed that 31.4% of those aged 16 and above considered themselves to adhere to some religion. The data was based on research conducted on a sample of 4,500 people
Those working on the report said the religion that has seen the biggest growth is Christianity: 12% of believers, or 40 million people, declared that they were followers of Christ. In 2005, Beijing said there were 16 million Christians while there were around 10 million in the late 1990s, always according to government statistics.The average age of believers has dropped: around two-thirds of those interviewed were aged between 16 and 35 while only 9.6% were 55 years or more.

China's Guangzhou goes Gothic again
(Click this Link to Catholic News)

The historic gothic Sacred Heart Cathedral in the Chinese southern city of Guangzhou reopened after two years of renovation as authorities release official figures showing that China's population of religious believers has reached 300 million, including 40 million Christians.The Cathedral is inspired by Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral and which is the only granite Gothic church in mainland China. Fr Joseph Gan Junqiu, has recently been approved by the Holy See and the Chinese government as bishop-elect of the Guangzhou diocese.

The Pastoral Bible in Vietnamese

The Pastoral Bible Foundation (PBF) has been helping for several years in the translation of the Pastoral Bible in Vietnamese. This version has now been published. It incorporates the latest Vietnamese translation of the Bible and all the pastoral commentaries of our edition.

Visitors

An old friend, Fr. José Marins, repeated often “may the apostles be friends”. In this shared mission for China we have met old and new friends and together we are creating a network that multiplies our apostolic endeavors.

Fr. John Zhang. He is one of the most prestigious and influential priest in China. He is the director of Faith Press, the largest Catholic publishing house in China, and publishes three times a month a newspaper with more than 50,000 subscribers. This newspaper reaches all the parishes in China, and many places abroad. He also started Jinde Charities (.www.jinde.org) with a variety of social services. He is particularly interested in the spiritual formation of pastoral agents. Because of these he is well recognized in China and abroad.

Our relationship with Faith Press goes back several years ago when we offered them the translation and publication rights of our books into Chinese. We discussed the possibility of teaming up for new pastoral projects.

Fr. Dennis Rochford, msc. He comes to the Catholic University of Macau (IIUM) as Dean of Theological studies in preparation for the theological courses that IIUM wants to start this coming October, offering a systematic training for seminarians from China. Religious congregations are also expected to send their seminarians for a six year training. Since the very beginning of our arrival in Macau the Claretians have maintained a close contact with the university and plan to work together in this project.

Fr. Paul Chan Tsun Wai, SJ. This Jesuit priest specializes in spiritual formation mainly for priests and sisters in China. He has a full schedule of retreats the whole year long. He is also connected with several catechetical centers in China and after knowing our work and the books that we have published –some of them already in Chinese– he is very interested in teaming up with us.


Carol and Colin Tan. Colin is a retired lawyer who taught at the diplomatic school in Beijing and now counts with several Chinese friends who are ambassadors in several countries. Carol, his wife, has worked for many years at Stanford University in USA. They live part of the year in Zhuhai, our neighbor city from Macau and they come for Sunday Mass. Once I mentioned that we were looking for a young Chinese web designer and a couple of days later I received an email telling me that some friends were visiting them and their son Zhao Yuan Yi. She writes: “Zhao Yuan Yi, is going to graduate from Guang Zhou Agriculture University in June this year. His major is Web Designer. He is an outstanding student with honor at the University. His designed Logos have won several awards. The last one was received from Taiwan University in 2006.” Sid and myself went across the border to meet them. Here they are:

We have already given some assignment to Zhao Yuan Yi and hopefully he will begin working with us after his graduation this June.

NEW YEAR PRAYER

We share with you our prayer for this year:

May God make your 2007 a happy one!

Not by shielding you from all sorrows and pain,
but by strengthening you to bear it, as it comes;

not by making your path easy,
but by making you sturdy to travel any path;

not by taking hardships from you,
but by taking fear from your heart;

not by granting you unbroken sunshine,
but by keeping your face bright, even in the shadows;

not by making your life always pleasant,
but by showing you when people
and their causes need you most,
and by making you anxious to be there to help.

God's love, peace, hope and joy to you
and your family for the year ahead.

Visit of Fr. Domingo Moraleda, Director of ICLA

For the past 10 years ICLA has served the Church of Asia and, in a special way, the Church in China. Many Chinese priests and sisters have graduated from ICLA and gone back to China. At present there are about 40 Chinese students attending ICLA courses in Manila.

The Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia (ICLA) is a center for higher ecclesiastical studies, directed by the Claretian Missionaries. ICLA offers Masteral Degree in Theology of Consecrated Life, Spirituality, Missiology and Biblical Studies.

It facilitates and promotes research, reflection and discernment on congregational charisms, essential values of consecrated life, new spiritualities, mission, initial and on-going formation processes, emerging forms of consecrated life, inculturation and interreligious dialogue.

During this visit we looked for ways to better coordinate efforts between ICLA and Claretian Publications Macau for a more efficient ministry to the Church in China.

Consolidating our presence in China

The last days of December we concluded the official incorporation of our Congregation in Macau, China. Since religious congregations cannot officially register as such, we followed the path that is allowed, incorporating it as an association. Fr. Paco Carín came from Beijing to sign the documents. It was a good occasion to evaluate with him the work of the year and to make some projections. Indeed we had many “good news” during our first year in China and surprises keep coming. We need to be ready.

A few days later, on January 6, Bishop José Lai, the Bishop of Macau came to bless our apartments – property of the Diocese – and had dinner with us. The Congregation has now finalized negotiations with the Diocese for the purchase of these three apartments. One more step to further consolidate the Claretian presence in China.

One more collaborator: Divine de Leon

Divine has been working with Claretian Communications in Manila for many years. Her talents are a plenty, especially in organizing marketing programs and her ability at the computer makes the work of preparing internet pages look easy. You can see her work at www.bible.claret.org.

She is now here for a full time commitment to our China mission. And her main work is… well, marketing and Web pages. We are now placing the accelerator on some projects that have been in the making for a long time. May we invite you to take a short tour to one of these projects? It is the Concise Bible in English and Chinese, and in English mp3. So far, only the New Testament is posted and you can find it at www.bible.claret.org/bibles (go to Concise Bible). There will be much more to come.

Chinese Pastoral Resources on the Web

With our limited access for the formation of evangelizers in China we wonder all the time how we can be more relevant…
what is possible for us to do…

One project for 2007 is to gather on a web page an easily accessible index where all available pastoral resources for China can be found. Fr. Paco Carín will be the main coordinator of this project.

Donation of Books for the National Seminary in Beijing

Four hundred titles, which are about a thousand books, are already on the way to the Beijing National Catholic Seminary.

We have selected the best English books published and distributed by Claretian Publications in the Philippines and the cargo is finally on the way to Beijing today. A number of seminarians can already read English, so this is another way to contribute for the formation of seminarians and pastoral agents.

More on PARISH LIBRARIES

You will remember that we presented this project before www.macauclaret.org/. These past days we helped two more parishes to start their parish library. Fr. Huang Yudao, the coordinator of the project, writes:

Two parishes: one is Nanguan Church in Gaoyi County, and Yifeng Church in Longyao County bought some books from Faith Press, the books of Nanguan Church cost ￥2,578.64, and Yifeng bought ￥2,450.64. We are trying to buy books from Guangqi Press and Sophia Press now.


For those interested to help, we are accepting donations for this project. We have contacted Missio München and they are accepting donations for this particular project. If you want to help this project you can do it by writing to us or by using a special Missio Bank account; here is the Bank address:

Auch Spenden sind nötig:
MISSIO - München
Konto 2144069
BLZ 75090300
Kennwort: Bibeln für China 57285