Abstract:When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power in 1949, it knew that consolidating its position would be difficult as Chinese society was fractured and war-torn. Yet, in its revolutionary project, the CCP did not want to simply consolidate power, it wanted to form subjects loyal to the state alone. In achieving such deep state penetration, the CCP suppressed all groups that stood in its way. One such group deemed "counterrevolutionary" was the Shanghai Catholic community. Time would show that the CCP wanted nothing less than to dismantle the Catholic Church in Shanghai, and replace it with a puppet church that answered only to the party. Shanghai Catholics, on the other hand, did not wish to stage a confrontation with the government, but only to safeguard their religious liberties. Even despite mounting state pressure, the Shanghai Catholic community resisted the CCP for over six years. How were they able to succeed where so many other groups had failed? Indeed, this is the question that I ask in Church Militant: Bishop Kung and Catholic Resistance in Communist Shanghai (Harvard University Press, 2011). This panel discussion is simply an introduction to one aspect of that larger, recently-published work. For the purpose of this discussion then, I would like focus specifically on the secret and underground methods Catholics used to counteract what they perceived to be the unjust demands of the state. I would also like to compare these methods to those used by the other groups that are presented in this panel. The church did not use clandestine methods alone. In fact, while the Catholic community still had relative religious freedom, it was able to operate in the open. But as state pressure mounted, parts of the church were forced to submerge. What then were Catholics doing that was secret? Even today in China we have the existence of what commentators call the underground Catholic Church. What about this underground church? One could argue that underground Catholicism has a long history in China. Some aspects of the underground church hearken back to earlier times. Eugenio Menegon has chronicled earlier expressions this underground Catholicism: Clandestine actions, secrecy, blending into the local population, abandoning one's relatives, hiding in secret underground chambers, and complete commitment. Indeed, these are the perennial markers of underground Christianity in China. The emergence of an underground church in the 1950s followed this age-old pattern. But it did so with a modern twist, a twist which found its expression as the Shanghai Catholic community tried to counteract the CCP's own ambitious plans for China. |