A senior Vatican official said a week-long visit to China gave him hope that the Chinese Catholic Church was moving toward unity and that dialogue with Communist authorities would increase.
In an interview with Vatican Radio on September 25, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who is head of the Vatican’s Jubilee committee, said he was happy to find devotion to Pope John Paul II among Catholics of the government-approved Church during his September 13-21 visit – a fact which, he said, “in no way diminishes my recognition of the heroic fidelity of the Church in silence” in China.
Following his attendance at a September 14-16 Beijing conference on religions and peace, Cardinal Etchegaray met with Government officials and leaders of the Government-approved Church. He also celebrated Mass at a Marian shrine near Shanghai – the first public Mass by a Vatican cardinal since the 1949 communist revolution – and visited patriotic Church seminaries in Beijing and Shanghai.
Prior to his trip, the Vatican said the cardinal, who had visited China twice before, was travelling in a personal capacity and was not entrusted with any diplomatic mission.
In the Vatican Radio interview, Cardinal Etchegaray said he had expressed deep disappointment to his Chinese hosts that he was not allowed to meet with members of the underground Church.
