Generally speaking, Chinese people have never been known for being very religious. In fact, Confucius did not encourage religious belief or belief in the supernatural at all. Instead, he taught a kind of humanism which would require every man and woman to focus their eyes on this earthly life. In the Analect! Confucius said: "If one does not understand life, how can one understand death?"
But through the centuries Buddhist monks and Christian missionaries have made millions of converts in China to their respective religions. There is also a large population of Chinese in Northwest and Midwestern China who are Moslems and have practiced that religion for centuries. And throughout most of China's history, it has been known for religious tolerance and freedom, free of the religious strife more common in the West. Only after 1949, when the Communist regime took power in the mainland, did pervasive religious persecution take place.
With specific reference to the Catholic Church in China, the earliest effective missionary was Jesuit Priest Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), who brought his mission to the Chinese in the 16th Century. He was able to gain favor and protection from Emperor Shentsung of the Ming Dynasty, and remained in China to evangelize the Catholic faith until his death.
About 200 years later, by 1808, it was estimated that there were already some 200,000 Roman Catholics in China. When the Communists came to power on the mainland in 1948-49, the Church estimated its flock at 3,274,000.
The Communists treated the Catholic Church members as they did all other religious groups; they denounced their faiths as superstitions, and persecuted them with imprisonment, torture, and sometimes even death. Religious freedom no longer was a guaranteed fact of life. Even worse, those who were Christians—Catholics and Protestants alike—were also suspected of being foreign spies, and their activities were often condemned as "counter-revolutionary." Consequently, after the foreigners were expelled, the Chinese believers had to suffer whatever cruel penalties the Communists wanted to impose on them.
Father Laszlo Ladany's The Catholic Church in China, documents many such cases of Communist persecution. The most notorious ones are those of Bishop Ignatius Kung of Hankow in Hupeh Province, and Bishop Dominic Tang of Canton, Kwangtung Province. Kung was arrested in 1953 with a large number of Chinese priests on charges of spying. Tang was arrested in 1958 and kept in prison without trial for 22 years. At the same time, many Catholic nuns were accused of "murdering children," while foreign missionaries were unceremoniously expelled.
Later, during the Cultural Revolution, virtually all religious houses of worship— Buddhist temples as well as Christian churches—were closed or converted to other uses. No compensation whatsoever was given to the various church authorities.
For window-dressing purposes only, the so-called "patriotic" churches were sponsored and orchestrated by the Communist government. Those who did not join the "patriotic" churches, such as Kung and Tang, were branded as "counter-revolutionaries" or foreign agents. They had no recourse but to suffer the indignity of being sent to prison without trial or even a hearing.
According to Ladany, Chou En-lai in 1956 invited 38 leading Chinese Catholics to attend a confusingly named "Preparatory Conference for the Preparatory Committee of the so-called Catholics' Patriotic Association." Soon afterwards, in 1957, more than 200 of its affiliates were formed. Persecution of those churches that maintained connections with Rome began at the same time.
In addition to the documented cases of Communist persecutions of Catholics on the mainland China, this book also reveals—probably for the first time—the Vatican's continuous attempts in recent years to re-establish "normal" relations with the same regime that had carried out extensive persecutions of its Chinese faithful.
To appease the Communists in Peking, the Vatican even lowered its representation in Taiwan to a charge d'affaires in the late 1970s. But in spite of this gesture and a trip by at least three Cardinals—two Europeans and one Filipino— to the mainland to carry messages for the Pope, nothing was achieved.
Since Ladany is a Jesuit priest from Hungary who has been associated with Chinese Catholics first on the mainland (1940-49) and then in Hongkong for more than 40 years, he certainly qualifies as an authority in this field. He bolsters his account and analyses with a broad range of published official Communist sources to support his claims. Like his earlier monumental study on The Chinese Communist Party and Marxism, published simultaneously by the Hoover Institution in the U.S. and the Christopher Hurst Co. in Great Britain, this work demonstrates a thorough understanding of the nature of Communist development in China. It also shows that he has no illusions about any genuine religious freedom evolving in mainland China as long as the Communist Party is in control.
Ladany's book is a timely warning to readers who may believe that the attitudes of the Communist leaders in Peking toward religion have changed. He says: "The difference between the rule of a dictator and Communist rule is that whereas the first uses drastic measures it rules only over the body; Communist rule on the other hand is more subtle; it pretends to be democratic, socialist; it holds elections. But it attempts to extend control over the soul of man."
This assessment, like the whole book, is essential to understanding the truth of religious life under a communist form of government—a form of rule that by its own definition must be against the establishment and practice of religion. —(Dr. Chiang is a senior researcher-reporter specializing in Asian affairs with Time magazine).