HONG KONG (UCAN) -- Pope Benedict XVI's pastoral letter to Chinese Catholics, which outlines Church principles and emphasizes the importance of unity, made 2007 an unusual year for the China Church.

The letter, publicly released June 30, deals with issues such as the Vatican's willingness to dialogue with China over Church territorial jurisdictions, reconciliation within the China Church, state agencies' control of Church life, the different circumstances of Chinese bishops, and the pope's authority in appointing bishops.

It also contains guidelines for pastoral life, including concelebration of Mass with clergy in the government-sanctioned "open" Church, and announces the end of special privileges given to the "underground" Church since the 1980s.

The long-awaited letter was first mentioned in a press release after the "China summit" at the Vatican Jan. 19-20, 2007, chaired by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state. Five Chinese bishops from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and officials from Vatican offices involved in China Church matters took part in the meeting.

While the papal letter repeated the Vatican's willingness to continue "respectful and constructive dialogue" with Beijing, it also addressed the most serious and urgent problems facing the China Church, which are linked to the fundamental principles of the divine constitution of the Church and of religious liberty.

Just before the papal letter was released, Beijing authorities gathered about 80 "open" Church bishops and leaders in Beijing. They advised the Church leaders to receive the coming letter "with calmness" and reiterated the importance of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA).

The letter says "the principles of independence and autonomy, self-management and democratic administration of the Church," to which it refers in a footnote as part of the CCPA statutes, "is incompatible with Catholic doctrine." Through most of his letter, however, the pope refers simply to "state agencies" rather than the CCPA directly.

Many mainland Catholic websites carried the letter on June 30, immediately after its release, but the government ordered them to remove it and even shut down some of the sites. Nonetheless, many dioceses distributed copies of the letter to Catholics, some of whom studied it in groups.

When the CCPA celebrated its 50th anniversary on July 25, with a vice premier and top government officials present, 37 bishops were among the 300 Catholic delegates who attended the function in Beijing.

Within four months of the papal letter's release, two cardinals -- Jean Baptiste Pham Minh Man of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Keith Michael Patrick O'Brien of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh archdiocese in Scotland -- visited China one after the other, meeting government and CCPA officials as well as open Church leaders.

In mid-October, the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China included the word "religion" in the party constitution for the first time since it was drafted in 1921.

The 19th paragraph of the constitution's General Program section says: "The Party strives to fully implement its basic principle for its work related to religious affairs, and rallies religious believers in making contributions to economic and social development."

Meanwhile, the China Church continues to face leadership crises, as about 40 dioceses still have no bishop.

In 2007, five new open Church bishops were ordained after the papal letter was released, all with papal and Chinese government approval. They are Coadjutor Bishop Paul Xiao Zejiang of Guizhou, ordained Sept. 8; Bishop Joseph Li Shan of Beijing, ordained on Sept. 21; Bishop Francis Lu Shouwang of Yichang, ordained on Nov. 30; Bishop Joseph Gan Junqiu of Guangzhou, ordained on Dec. 4; and Coadjutor Bishop Joseph Li Jing of Ningxia, ordained on Dec. 21.

Seven elderly bishops from the open Church and four from the underground Church community, which rejects government-approved administrative structures for the Church, died in 2007. One of them, underground Bishop John Han Dingxiang of Yongnian, Hebei, died on Sept. 9 while in detention.

Several underground prelates remain in detention including Bishops Cosmas Shi Enxiang of Yixian and James Su Zhimin of Baoding, whose dioceses are in Hebei.

Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo of Zhengding was released 11 days before Christmas, but government officials warned that he would be taken away to attend "learning class," Church sources told UCA News.

Bishop Joseph Wu Qinjing of Zhouzhi diocese in the open Church structure in Shaanxi province, whose episcopal status is not recognized by the government, has been confined to the minor seminary of neighboring Xi'an diocese since November. Before that he was "being kept" for several months for "learning" from mid-March, local Church sources told UCA News.

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