{"id":1053,"date":"2006-06-15T23:11:30","date_gmt":"2006-06-15T23:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/the-china-syndrome.html"},"modified":"2006-06-15T23:11:30","modified_gmt":"2006-06-15T23:11:30","slug":"the-china-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/the-china-syndrome.html","title":{"rendered":"The China Syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Weigel’s latest column:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Some light was cast on the complexity of all this during a recent conversation I had with one of China\u2019s most prominent Catholic laymen (who, for reasons of prudence, must remain anonymous). He confirmed that there had been a significant grassroots rapprochement between members of the PCA and members of the underground Church, as he confirmed that many PCA bishops had made submissions to Rome and now prayed publicly for, and in communion with, the Pope. This reconciliation, which was part of John Paul II\u2019s China strategy, is detested by the Chinese regime; the recent episcopal ordinations and installations, which took place under duress, were in part an effort to reinsert wedges between PCA Catholics and underground Catholics.<\/p>\n

My interlocutor made two other important points. First, in his view (which he believes Pope Benedict shares), no deal with the Beijing regime is better than a bad deal \u2014 and a bad deal, in these circumstances, means a deal in which the government\u2019s role in the appointment of bishops is unacceptably intrusive. Second, and despite the regime\u2019s ritual rants about Christianity-and-colonialism, Catholicism is immensely attractive in China because the Chinese people associate Christianity with modernization, with a more decent society, and with a better way of life. <\/p>\n

All of which prompts the thought that a Vatican that \u201cthinks in centuries\u201d can well afford to bide its time in dealing with a regime that is only fifty-seven years old \u2014 a regime that, on my friend\u2019s analysis, may unravel in the next decade or two. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Weigel’s latest column: Some light was cast on the complexity of all this during a recent conversation I had with one of China\u2019s most prominent Catholic laymen (who, for reasons of prudence, must remain anonymous). He confirmed that there had been a significant grassroots rapprochement between members of the PCA and members of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe China Syndrome - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/the-china-syndrome.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The China Syndrome - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"George Weigel’s latest column: Some light was cast on the complexity of all this during a recent conversation I had with one of China\u2019s most prominent Catholic laymen (who, for reasons of prudence, must remain anonymous). He confirmed that there had been a significant grassroots rapprochement between members of the PCA and members of the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/the-china-syndrome.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-06-15T23:11:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The China Syndrome - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/the-china-syndrome.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The China Syndrome - Via Media","og_description":"George Weigel’s latest column: Some light was cast on the complexity of all this during a recent conversation I had with one of China\u2019s most prominent Catholic laymen (who, for reasons of prudence, must remain anonymous). 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}