China hopes for better relations with Vatican

China today congratulated newly-appointed Pope Benedict XVI and said it hoped Beijing’s strained relations with the Roman Catholic Church could improve during his tenure.

“We hope under the leadership of the new Pope, the Vatican side can create favourable conditions for improving the relationship between China and the Vatican,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement.

China’s officially atheist government broke ties with the Vatican in 1951 and said it would consider opening relations only if the Vatican cut links with rival Taiwan, which split with the mainland in 1949 amid civil war.

Qin said relations between the two sides could improve under two conditions.

“The Vatican must cut off its so-called diplomatic relations with Taiwan, acknowledging the People’s Republic of China is the only sole legal government representing the whole of China,” he said.

Secondly, the Vatican “must not intervene in China’s domestic affairs, including not intervening in domestic affairs in the name of religion,” Qin said.

China’s Catholic Patriotic Association and Catholic Bishops’ Conference today also sent a joint message of congratulations to Pope Benedict XVI, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

“Give thanks to the almighty God for choosing you as the representative of Christ on earth, the heir of Saint Peter,” the message was quoted as saying. “It is our earnest hope that you would enhance the Sino-Vatican relations for the sake of the salvific work of Jesus Christ.”

The China Patriotic Catholic Association regards the Pope as a spiritual leader and follows Vatican teachings, but rejects the Vatican’s role in church operations and appoints its own priests.

The association claims 4 million followers, but foreign experts say as many as 12 million more worship in unofficial churches loyal to the Vatican. In some areas, unofficial church members are routinely harassed and their leaders arrested.

The Vatican is the only European government that has official relations with Taiwan. China still claims the self-ruled island as its territory and refuses to have any official contact with governments that recognise its rival as a sovereign country.

China demands that Catholics worship only in churches approved by a state-controlled church group that does not recognise the Pope’s authority.

The state-sanctioned China Patriotic Catholic Association didn’t send a representative to the Pope John Paul’s funeral, citing the dispute over Taiwan.