中国的天主教徒与教会的道德见证
迈克尔·R·蓬佩奥
在习近平的专制统治下，中国的人权状况严重恶化，尤其是对宗教信仰者而言。可信报道揭露了中国共产党在新疆对穆斯林实施的强制绝育和堕胎计划，对天主教神父和平信徒的虐待，以及对基督教家庭教会的攻击——所有这些都是“中国化”运动的一部分，旨在让上帝屈服于中国共产党之下，同时将习近平本人奉为一位超凡的神灵。现在，中国人民比以往任何时候都更需要梵蒂冈的道德见证和权威来支持中国宗教信仰者。
梵蒂冈外交官本月将与中国共产党对口官员会面，商讨续签教廷与中国已生效两年的临时协议。该协议的条款从未公开披露；但是教会希望通过与中国政权就任命主教（当地社群中信仰的传统管理者）达成协议，从而改善中国天主教徒的状况。
两年过去了，很明显，中梵协议并没有保护天主教徒免受中国共产党的迫害，更不用说中共对基督徒、藏传佛教信徒、法轮功信徒和其他宗教信徒的可怕对待。美国国务院2019年的宗教自由年度报告中张广军神父的故事提供了一个说明性的例子，他因为拒绝加入中共管理的中国天主教爱国会而遭到殴打并“失踪”。可悲的是，他的经历并非个例。中共当局继续关闭教堂，监视和骚扰信徒，并坚持中国共产党是宗教事务的最高权威。
作为2018年协议的一部分，梵蒂冈将忠诚度尚不清楚的中国神父和主教合法化，使一直信任教会的中国天主教徒感到困惑。许多人拒绝在国家批准的敬拜场所敬拜，因为他们担心，如果暴露自己是虔诚的天主教徒，会遭受与他们目睹的其他信徒在中国当局日益咄咄逼人的无神论下所遭受的同样虐待。
在香港，当地政府最近强行实施了北京规定的《国家安全法》，这让人们担忧中国共产党将使用同样的恐吓手段和国家镇压宗教信徒的全部工具来对付宗教信仰者。香港在维护人类尊严和人权方面最突出的声音往往来自天主教徒，所以毫不奇怪，像香港的“民主之父”李柱铭以及直言不讳的媒体大亨和民主倡导者黎智贤这样的著名天主教徒，仅仅因为倡导基本自由这一“罪名”而被捕、监视和骚扰，而北京为1997年收回香港主权承诺过会保护这一基本自由。我认识这两个人，可以证明他们的善良和真诚的心。他们对上帝，对所有上帝的儿女以及对和平、自由和繁荣的中国的奉献是不可否认的。
许多国家与美国一起表达对中国政权加速侵犯包括宗教自由在内的人权的反感。去年，22个国家致信联合国人权理事会，谴责中国共产党将100多万维吾尔族穆斯林，哈萨克族和其他少数民族拘押在新疆所谓的“再教育营”中。包括来自世界各地民主国家议员在内的“对华政策跨国议会联盟”对中国共产党“正在上演的暴行”表示痛惜。美国国务院一直在为中国和世界各地的宗教自由发出强有力的声音，并采取措施让那些侵犯信教者权利的人为他们的所作所为负责。我们将继续这么做。
教廷有着独特的角色和责任，让世界关注到侵犯人权的行为，尤其是像北京这样的极权政权犯下的罪行。在20世纪后期，教会的道德见证力量帮助激励了那些将中欧和东欧从共产主义中解放出来的人，以及那些挑战拉丁美洲和东亚专制和威权政权的人。
今天，对中国共产党也应运用这一同样的道德见证的力量。梵蒂冈第二次大公会议和教皇约翰-保罗二世（John Paul II）、本尼迪克特十六世（Benedict XVI）和方济各（Francis）教导说，宗教自由是第一民权。团结是天主教社会教义的四大基本原则之一。面对中国共产党无休止地迫使所有宗教团体屈服于该党的意志和极权主义计划，现在，梵蒂冈应该强有力地、坚持不懈地传达教会对世界关于宗教自由和团结的教诲。
教皇方济各于2013年说“基督徒必须以善回应恶，像耶稣那样把十字架背在自己身上”。历史教给我们，极权政权只能在黑暗和沉默中生存，他们的罪行和残暴不被人注意和评论。如果中国共产党设法使天主教会和其他宗教团体就范，藐视人权的政权就会有恃无恐，而所有勇敢的宗教信仰者抵抗暴政的代价将会上升，他们尊崇上帝高于当下的独裁者。我祈祷，在与中国共产党打交道时，教廷和所有相信照亮每个人生命的神圣火花的人，都会听从耶稣在《约翰福音》中的话“真理必叫你们得以自由”。
迈克尔·R·蓬佩奥系美国国务卿。
原文发布：https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/09/chinas-catholics-and-the-churchs-moral-witness

The human rights situation in China has deteriorated severely under the autocratic rule of Xi Jinping, especially for religious believers. Credible reports have exposed the Chinese Communist Party’s program of forced sterilizations and abortions of Muslims in Xinjiang, its abuse of Catholic priests and laypeople, and its assault on Protestant house churches—all of which are parts of a “Sinicization” campaign to subordinate God to the Party while promoting Xi himself as an ultramundane deity. Now more than ever, the Chinese people need the Vatican’s moral witness and authority in support of China’s religious believers.
Vatican diplomats are meeting this month with their CCP counterparts to negotiate the renewal of a two-year-old provisional agreement between the Holy See and China. The terms of that pact have never been publicly disclosed; but the Church’s hope was that it would improve the condition of Catholics in China by reaching agreement with the Chinese regime on the appointment of bishops, the traditional stewards of the faith in local communities.
Two years on, it’s clear that the Sino-Vatican agreement has not shielded Catholics from the Party’s depredations, to say nothing of the Party’s horrific treatment of Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong devotees, and other religious believers. The State Department’s 2019 annual report on religious freedom provides an illustrative example in the story of Father Paul Zhang Guangjun, who was beaten and “disappeared” for refusing to join the CCP-run Patriotic Catholic Association. Sadly, his experience is not unique. Communist authorities continue to shutter churches, spy on and harass the faithful, and insist that the Party is the ultimate authority in religious affairs.
As part of the 2018 agreement, the Vatican legitimized Chinese priests and bishops whose loyalties remain unclear, confusing Chinese Catholics who had always trusted the Church. Many refuse to worship in state-sanctioned places of worship, for fear that by revealing themselves as faithful Catholics they will suffer the same abuses that they witness other believers suffer at the hands of the Chinese authorities’ increasingly aggressive atheism.
In Hong Kong, the local government’s recent imposition of a Beijing-mandated National Security Law raises the specter that the Party will use the same tactics of intimidation and the full apparatus of state repression against religious believers. Hong Kong’s most prominent voices for human dignity and human rights have often been Catholics, so it is no surprise that prominent Catholics like Martin Lee, the “father of democracy” in Hong Kong, and Jimmy Lai, an outspoken media baron and promoter of democracy, have been arrested, spied on, and harassed for the simple “crime” of advocating the basic freedoms Beijing promised to protect in exchange for regaining sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. I know both men and can attest to their goodness and sincerity of heart. Their devotion to God, to all God’s children, and to a peaceful, free, and prosperous China is undeniable.
Many nations have joined the United States in expressing revulsion at the Chinese regime’s accelerating violations of human rights, including religious freedom. Last year, 22 nations sent a letter to the U.N. Human Rights Council to denounce the CCP’s detention of more than a million Uyghur Muslims, ethnic Kazakhs, and other minorities in so-called “re-education” camps in Xinjiang. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which includes legislators from democracies around the world, has deplored the Party’s “unfolding atrocities.” The State Department has been a strong voice for religious freedom in China and around the world and has taken steps to hold those who abuse the faithful responsible for their actions. We will continue to do so.
The Holy See has a unique capacity and duty to focus the world’s attention on human rights violations, especially those perpetrated by totalitarian regimes like Beijing’s. In the late twentieth century, the Church’s power of moral witness helped inspire those who liberated central and eastern Europe from communism, and those who challenged autocratic and authoritarian regimes in Latin America and East Asia.
That same power of moral witness should be deployed today with respect to the Chinese Communist Party. The Second Vatican Council and Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis have taught that religious freedom is the first of civil rights. Solidarity is one of the four foundational principles of Catholic social doctrine. What the Church teaches the world about religious freedom and solidarity should now be forcefully and persistently conveyed by the Vatican in the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s relentless efforts to bend all religious communities to the will of the Party and its totalitarian program.
Pope Francis said in 2013 that “Christians must respond to evil with good, taking the Cross upon themselves as Jesus did.” History teaches us that totalitarian regimes can only survive in darkness and silence, their crimes and brutality unnoticed and unremarked. If the Chinese Communist Party manages to bring the Catholic Church and other religious communities to heel, regimes that disdain human rights will be emboldened, and the cost of resisting tyranny will rise for all brave religious believers who honor God above the autocrat of the day. I pray that, in dealing with the Chinese Communist Party, the Holy See and all who believe in the divine spark enlightening every human life will heed Jesus’s words in the Gospel of John, “The truth will set you free.”
Michael R. Pompeo is U.S. Secretary of State.