Word: vaticans
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Among Roman Catholics, tensions have arisen from a split between the "Patriotic" church bodies, which obey government demands to reject all ties with the Vatican, and an underground group that remains loyal to the Pope. Hundreds of priests roam the countryside offering clandestine Masses. In the past year, dozens of these clergymen have been jailed, along with Bishop Peter Joseph Fan, 76, of Baoding, who was sentenced to ten years for ordaining underground priests...
...their separate denominations and unite under the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (T.S.P.M.), which was founded in 1954. The name signified that the government-sponsored churches were "selfsupporting, self-governing, self-propagating," and thus free of any foreign influence. A similar Patriotic Catholic Association, begun in 1957, broke with the Vatican...
Despite the tensions, long-range prospects for unity are better among Protestants than Catholics. Pope John Paul, for his part, has made friendly overtures and is prepared to go to great lengths to reach an accommodation. Vatican officials indicate the Pope would be willing to accept the 41 Patriotic Catholic bishops, whom the Chinese installed without papal approval. He would also probably agree to withdraw the Vatican's diplomatic recognition of Taiwan. But neither the Peking regime nor the Patriotic Catholic hierarchy shows any interest in negotiating...
This week the Vatican is issuing a long-expected document that clearly challenges liberation theology and brands it in its more extreme forms as a perversion of the Christian message. Upholding the primacy of traditional Catholic teaching, the document aims at alerting "the faithful to the deviations . . . damaging to the faith and to Christian living produced by forms of liberation theology that uncritically borrow Marxist ideas." It declares that Marxism holds out the false hope that a revolutionary society will be a just one, while itself creating new forms of oppression. Those who aid such revolutions, it says, "betray...
...decree is bound to disappoint and anger the leftist fringe of Roman Catholicism, especially in Latin America. It comes in the very week that Brazil's leading spokesman for liberation theology, Father Leonardo Boff, is due in Rome to undergo interrogation on his writings. The Vatican also faces a decision on what to do about the liberation-minded priests in Nicaragua, including Father Cardenal, who last week defied a church deadline for quitting government posts. The unusual haste with which the document was printed also indicates that John Paul wants to clear the air before next month, when...