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China's Thriving Catholics: A Report From Beijing's South Cathedral

China's Thriving Catholics: A Report From Beijing's South Cathedral | Anthony E. Clark, Ph.D. | Ignatius Insight | August 20, 2008

Editor's Note: Dr. Anthony Clark, assistant professor of Asian history at the University of Alabama, recently arrived in Beijing, China, to spent four months as director of the University of Alabama Chinese Language and Culture Program in the capital of China. During his time there, he will be writing a series of short articles for Ignatius Insight about Catholicism in China. The following piece was written just a few days after his arrival in Beijing. For more about Dr. Clark, see his bio at the end of this article.

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While the world is focused on the Olympics here in China's capital, the faithful still gather in impressively large numbers to attend Mass at one of Beijing's most beautiful churches, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, popularly called Nantang (South Cathedral).

Read the entire article...

The Vatican that Dan Brown built

Or, more accurately, the replica of the Vatican built for the filming of Dan Brown's fantasy/romance novel, Angels & Demons. See pictures here (thanks, Sandra). No word if the replica is being built based on accurate information about the actual Vatican or if it relies on Mr. Brown's error-filled descriptions of Rome and the Vatican.

• Does Dan Brown know how to use a map? (June 23, 2008)

WYD '08 least attended, best organized

So reports Andrew Rabel for Inside The Vatican magazine:

After week long celebrations, the final Mass of World Youth Day 2008 was celebrated by Pope Benedict in extraordinary fashion with the attendance a little over 400,000 persons at Randwick Racecourse and Centennial Park, which was a splash of color with the flags of people from over 100 countries represented.

This means that the 23rd World Youth Day had the smallest crowd attendance in another country. (Previously that record was set by Denver in 1993 with a tally of 500,000 people, and there are no recorded figures for Buenos Aires in 1987.)

However, in the opinion of many overseas journalists this was the best organized, and certainly the most innovative, being held in winter among other reasons. According to Fr Matthew Gamber SJ of Chicago, "I have been to several WYD’s, and this was by far the best. Cologne a few years ago was a bit of a disaster in terms of logistics".

This year’s event was completely 21st century in the online nature of registrations and accreditation of other professionals, and before the event Cardinal Pell had launched http://www.xt3.com, a way WYD pilgrims could socially interact with each other, to which thousands had signed up for in just a couple of weeks.

The Stations of the Cross held through the streets of Sydney at some of its prominent landmarks, was for many the highlight of the six day event also drawing strong accolades in comparison to previous ones at other WYD’s.

Today’s Mass began in a spectacular way with helicopter fly over by the Pope and then a motorcade in his Popemobile.

This took place after 200,000 people slept the night out in the cold following the Evening Vigil at the racecourse.                                                                                     

Read the entire piece.

Short term forecast: Intermittent blogging with limited online visibility

I may not be a weatherman, but this two-week forecast should be trustworthy.

From now through the end of the month I won't be posting as much here on Insight Scoop and on Ignatius Insight. I have a number of projects that need to be handled, and I will be giving three talks at the 2008 Frassati Society of Young Adults Conference in Lafayette, Indiana, on July 25-27. Then I'll be gone a couple of days on the annual family camping trip.

Not that I'll be completely silent, but it will be more of a murmur than the sort of unrelenting hollering and carrying on you have come to expect, appreciate, and enjoy. I plan to be back at it with renewed vigor and more sophisticated clichés in early August. And, no, I am not spending this time watching baseball, catching up on past "Oprah" episodes, and going to every beer festival within a hundred miles. Really, I'm not. Trust me.

Agnostic Australian blasts "sneering secularists," defends Catholic Church

I've only caught a fraction of the Australian coverage of Benedict XVI's visit, but I've noticed that some of it is openly hostile. Gerard Henderson, executive director of the Sydney Institute, comments in the Sydney Morning Herald on the hostility:

The sneering secularists in our midst oppose all the Judeo-Christian beliefs. However, Catholicism cops much of the ridicule because it is universal and the strongest of the Christian faiths. In Australia the sneering secularists - a combination of proselytising atheists and Green Left Weekly reading leftists - have indicated their opposition to the Pope on the occasion of his visit to Australia for World Youth Day. Hence the formation of the NoToPope Coalition.

So far the award for the leading sneerer goes to The Age columnist Catherine Deveny. Writing on June 18, she declared: "It's official. The Catholic Church is fully sick. And so is George Pell." Apparently this was some kind of joke. She depicted World Youth Day as a "week of prayer, trust exercises and rosary bead trading". And Deveny went on to advise that, since the Pope will be celebrating Mass at Randwick racecourse, "all the Bernadettes and Gerards will be able to chill out with The Main Dude". It is inconceivable that The Age would have run a similar article mocking Islam and slagging off all the Aishas and Muhammads.

Although a professing agnostic, I was brought up a Catholic and attended a Catholic school where I received a fine education. Like all organisations, it had its strengths and weaknesses. Yet I retain admiration for the priests involved in my upbringing. Most were fine, intelligent men who gave up material pleasures - including sex and family life - for the God in which they believed. I readily acknowledge that some of the cleverest men and women I have met, or read about, were believers in one of the great religions. They do not warrant mockery.

Read the entire column.

CALive: "Catholicism in Present-Day China"

My good friend Dr. Tony Clark will be on Catholic Answers Live today to talk about Catholicism in China. Tony, who teaches Asian history at the University of Alabama, has spent a lot of time in China and neighboring countries and will be teaching in Beijing this fall. He is currently finishing work on a book on the Catholic martyrs in China; it contains a wealth of information from a number of archives and libraries (including the Vatican Secret Archives and the Papal Library) that has never before been translated into English. I've been reading the manuscript and it is an impressive combination of scholarship and moving meditation on the lives and deaths of saints (today, by the way, is the feast day of 120 Chinese martyrs).

Tony will be the guest on the first hour of Catholic Answers Live (3:00-4:00 Pacific). You can listen to the program online from the calendar page, or download the archived show in a day or two from the same page.

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles:              
      
• Two Chinese Churches? Or One? | An Interview with Fr. Daniel Cerezo | Dr. Anthony E. Clark
• Two Weeks in the Eternal City: From the Vatican Secret Archives to the Basilica of St. Charles Borromeo | Anthony E. Clark
• Catholicism and Buddhism | Anthony E. Clark and Carl E. Olson       
• On Writing A History of Christianity in China | Preface to Christians In China: A.D. 600 to 2000 | Fr. Jean-Pierre Charbonnier

Repeat mindlessly: "It's only a novel. It's only a novel."

Which doesn't adequately explain why people are still spending good money to fly to Paris to pursue the ever elusive, ever beguiling "secrets" of The Da Vinci Code. From The Boston Herald, more proof that cockroaches have nothing on the Coded Craziness when it comes to living long and dying hard:

They arrive at the Louvre with dog-eared copies of “The Da Vinci Code,” favorite passages highlighted with yellow ink.

“They all want to know which parts of the book are true,” said Massachusetts native Ellen McBreen, who has taken thousands of da Vinci decoders on private tours of the world-famous art museum.

It includes stops at the “Mona Lisa” and the inverted pyramid, both of which figure prominently in the book.

McBreen said her clients range in age and background, but they share a common fascination with the idea that history is fluid.

“The idea that history isn’t set in stone is really exciting to people,” said McBreen, 37, a Harvard-trained art historian.

Especially people like McBreen, a post-modern sophist who is making money off of people who have allowed their brains to turn into mush. Have any of these people heard of the following: books, libraries, critical thinking, logic, encyclopedias, (gulp) the internet? Do you really need to travel to Paris to be told, "Uh, actually, Dan Brown got nearly everything wrong. If you would have read The Da Vinci Hoax, you could have saved yourself some dough."

For more, see this article I wrote in March 2005:

The Humanae Vitae Conference, August 9th

The St. Anthony of Padua Institute and the Diocese of Oakland, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, are hosting Humanae Vitae: Cornerstone of the Culture of Life Bay Area Conference, August 9th.

Sponsors include: the Ignatius Press, the Knights of Columbus, Catholics for the Common Good, Immaculate Heart Radio.

On August 8th, 2008 there will be a pre-conference banquet at St. Margaret Mary's Church in Oakland featuring Ralph McInerny, PhD who will give a keynote address, followed the next day, August 9th 2008 by an all-day conference at St. Mary's College in Moraga, featuring speakers Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, Janet Smith, Fr. Brian Mullady, and more.

Visit the conferences website for more information about the program, the speakers, the talks, and registering for the event.

On a related note, Human Life International is asking for folks to take the Humanae Vitae Pledge:

This July will mark forty years since Humanae Vitae, and Human Life International has launched the Humanae Vitae Initiative to make Catholics aware of the grave dangers of the contraceptive lie and to try and undo the terrible damage done by the dissenters of Humanae Vitae. On July 25, 2008, our president, Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, plans to hold a major press conference where he will announce the release of two documents to show support for Humanae Vitae: a "Statement of Affirmation," signed by clergy and theologians and a "Humanae Vitae Pledge of Support," signed by the laity. We need you to help HLI conduct a nationwide effort to get as many of our fellow Catholics as possible to take the Humanae Vitae Pledge to help rebuild our beloved Catholic Church here in the United States! So please fill out the pledge below, and encourage other Catholics to do the same!

Go here for more information.

Some "anti-Roman Catholic" Protestants in Australia...

...are congratulating themselves on being willing to smile and endure the approaching World Youth Day '08:

As a Sydney Protestant I consider it an honour that our city is to host World Youth Day. Protestantism is a protest. Our protest is against the enormity of the claims of the Roman Catholic Church.

Some people are born as Protestants. They are anti-Roman Catholic because of their own tribal roots. They have no belief other than that Roman Catholics are wrong. But Protestantism is not tribalism. It is the belief in the sole authority of the Bible. The Bible explains to us that salvation is only by the generosity of God. This salvation comes through Christ alone, and is received by faith without any works on our part. All is to the glory of God alone.

So we protest against Roman Catholic claims to authority. We object to the Pope claiming to be the Vicar of Christ. We reject all claims to authority that imply the insufficiency of scripture. We reject any implication that Jesus's work on the cross was insufficient or is received by more than faith or requires some other mediator. ...

I will not be welcoming the Pope, going out to see him or waving a flag. Given what I have said, the Pope wouldn't expect me to. But I am certainly not going to pray for rain on his parade. Remember, our Lord said that our Father in heaven sends sun and rain on all - as the Bible puts it the "just and unjust" alike. This is God giving secular support. We should want our Government to do the same.

Read the entire piece.

The author? Phillip Jensen, the Anglican Dean of Sydney.

One interesting thing about admitting you are a protester of the Catholic Church is that you implicitly admit the Catholic Church was around before Protestantism. And then you study a bit more and find out that the Catholic Church was around before the New Testament was written and the canon of Scripture was defined. And then? Well, ask Thomas Howard. Or (now Fr.) Dwight Longenecker. Or Monsignor Ronald Knox. Or J. Budziszewski. Or Chesterton and Newman and...

Not, of course, that I mean to rain on anyone's protest.

The official commemorative book on Pope Benedict’s 2008 apostolic visit...

...will be available June 20th:

Christ Our Hope: Pope Benedict XVI's Apostolic visit to the United States

Hardcover, 145 pages.

This is the Official Commemorative book on Pope Benedict’s 2008 apostolic visit to the USA April 15 – 20. This lavishly illustrated, large-size edition, has dozens of fabulous photos of all the papal visit venues during his historic visit, with inspiring, informative commentary on the various papal events, and also includes the texts all the Pope’s addresses, homilies, and his prayer at Ground Zero.

This beautifully produced, high quality coffee-table book is a deluxe edition for all those who want to have a keepsake treasure of this powerful six day visit to the USA by Pope Benedict who won the hearts and minds of countless people with his inspiring words and gestures of love, truth, hope and compassion.

From his first stepping off the Shepherd One plane in Washington, to his White House visit and warm exchange with President Bush, the moving, festive Masses in two baseball stadiums, his inspiring address to the United Nations, his talks to U S Bishops, Catholic educators and to youth, and deeply moving visit to Ground Zero, the many memorable moments of Pope Benedict’s apostolic journey are captured in moving pictures and words in this collector’s edition.

Lavishly illustrated with dozens of inspiring photos!
Includes all the Pope's talks and homilies!
Large 8.5 x 10.5 coffee-table size

See sample images and learn more about the book.