Pope Francis urged Chinese Catholics to be “good Christians and good citizens” on Sunday, as he used his visit to Mongolia to help alleviate tensions between the Vatican and Beijing.
Following a liturgy in front of Mongolia’s small Catholic population in Ulaanbaatar, Francis switched his attention to officially-atheist China, some of whose residents had flown in for the pope’s visit.
The 86-year-old pope was flanked by Hong Kong’s incumbent bishop, Stephen Chow, and its bishop emeritus, Cardinal John Tong Hon, who joined him in sending “a warm greeting to the noble Chinese people.”
“To the people I wish the best,” said the pope. “To Chinese Catholics, I ask you to be good Christians and good citizens.”
The spontaneous remarks were Francis’ latest attempt to calm China’s Communist government, which is concerned about the Church’s presence in the nation.
Francis appeared to deliver a more subliminal message on Saturday, telling a meeting of Catholic missionaries that governments had “nothing to fear” from the Catholic Church.
“Governments and secular institutions have nothing to fear from the Church’s work of evangelisation, for she has no political agenda to advance,” said the pontiff, without mentioning China explicitly.
The pope had two things in mind when he chose to visit Mongolia, a huge, lonely country situated between China and Russia.
On the one hand, the expedition demonstrated the Jesuits’ determination to deliver the Church’s message to isolated, underserved communities where Catholicism is new and unfamiliar.
However, a bigger strategic, geopolitical goal has loomed over the trip: mending frigid relations with Beijing.
In the crowd at the mass held in a newly built ice hockey arena was a Chinese woman who had travelled from the northwestern city of Xi’an.
Telling AFP it was “rather difficult to come here”, she described how the two organisers of her group’s pilgrimage had been detained back in China.
“Let me tell you, I feel so ashamed to hold the (Chinese) national flag,” she said.
“But I need to hold it and let the Pope know how difficult it is for us.”