Or better yet, how does a Catholic priest do his duties in China, where Catholicism is supervised by the state?
His is a tale of chances. Of perseverance and grace. And of necessarily toeing the line.
“There are many things I’d love to share with you but I’m not at liberty to discuss [them] right now,” Fr. Francis, 46, told BusinessWorld over coffee in a Starbucks in Quezon City.
“But what I can say is I have been the recipient of so much grace.”
It was 2008. Fr. Francis arrived in China after volunteering to serve the expat community in Tianjin, the fast-growing coastal city located some 100 kilometers southeast of Beijing.
“A foreign priest, who was also a Vincentian, used to say the Mass during the first and third Sundays of the month for the expat community,” Fr. Francis said. “The foreigners were growing in number, but this priest was busy with his nonprofit work, and so [he] asked for a volunteer to serve this community full-time.”
Fr. Francis belongs to the Congregation of the Mission , also known as the Vincentians, which was founded by St. Vincent de Paul in France in 1625. The community of priests and brothers has been in the Philippines for more than 150 years, and famously runs Adamson University.
The Vincentians are bounded by the mission to evangelize to the poor.
This means being ready to go anywhere in the world where they are needed, not unlike the first band of priests who composed the Congregation. They were in China as early as 1699, joining other missionaries who were there earlier like the Jesuits.
“Tianjin has a rich history of missionary work,” Fr. Francis says.
St. Joseph’s Cathedral stands in the middle of the city, a visual respite from the mushrooming modern buildings around it. It provides succor to the Catholics -- even non-Catholics -- in Tianjin, but its ministers must carefully make sure that it does not court the displeasure of Beijing.
In China there are two “branches” of the Catholic Church -- there is the Catholic church regulated by the government and the church that has chosen not to fall under its control. The former, popularly called the “Patriotic Catholic Church,” has submitted to the government’s system of registra-tion and monitoring. The other, popularly called the “underground church,” has not and must act clandestinely. Its priests cannot say mass in public, for instance, nor make conversions.
“The bishops are normally appointed by the pope,” Fr. Francis says, explaining the difference between the two. “But the Chinese government prefers to choose its own [bishops].”
The church in China
The history of Catholicism in China is as turbulent as the rising superpower’s. It started with the Franciscan friar, Blessed John of Montecorvino, who arrived in 1293 and found favor with the Mongol Genghis Khan, who conquered China. No one assumed his work, however, after he died in 1328.
The Jesuits followed in the 17th century, led by Matteo Ricci, who studied the Chinese language and culture, and, because of his knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, was invited to the Forbidden City by the emperor. The Jesuits were followed by the Franciscans, Dominicans, Vincentians, Benedictines, and others.
Then came the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. A group of peasants, called “Boxers” for engaging in martial arts and other physical activity thinking these practices made them impervious to bullets and swords, wanted to rid China of foreign influences. A massacre of Christian missionaries, Christian converts, and foreigners ensued, culminating in an order given by the Dowager Empress for all foreigners to be killed. An international force composed of British, Russians, French, Italian, Germans, Japanese and Americans, who wanted to protect their interests in China, subdued the rebellion.
In 1949, the Communist Party came to power and established the People’s Republic of China. It expelled the Catholic missionaries from the country and cut its ties with the Vatican.
The Cultural Revolution, launched by Mao Zedong to purge counter-revolutionaries from the Communist Party and to quash the “four olds” -- old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas -- swept through China in 1966. Church activities were banned, priests and nuns were sent to prison, and churches were shut down or demolished.
The Revolution ended 10 years later, and with the reopening of China to the world in 1979 by Deng Xiaoping, Catholicism as well as other religions, again flourished.
But the Chinese Catholics, estimated around 12 million at present, are rent by division, with some remaining faithful to Rome , and others adhering to the rules set by Chinese government.
This is changing, however. Pope Benedict XVI issued a letter in May 2007 urging reconciliation among China ’s Catholics. The pope also said he was open to “concrete forms of communication and cooperation” with Chinese authorities.
Fr. Francis tells of a breakthrough, in the case of the Reverend Joseph Li Shan, who was installed as Beijing’s bishop in September 2007.
“The Beijing bishop was approved by both the Chinese government and the Vatican. So we’re slowly opening the cracks.”
He’s got the “chops”
Fr. Francis, himself, is a unique case. He’s got the “chops,” the seals on official documents, which permit him to administer openly to the expat community in Tianjin. He is therefore, officially aligned with Rome but also officially sanctioned by the Chinese government to administer to his flock.
“With the chops, I can administer openly as a Roman Catholic priest to the English-speaking community of Tianjin,” he says. “Naging ‘official’ ako (I became ‘official’). I have friends who were there first, but I, the ‘new kid on the block,’ from a developing country, got the permission.”
This was because Fr. Francis came to China at an opportune time.
Beijing was hosting the 2008 Olympics, and Tianjin was the venue for football. A priest who could speak English was needed to administer to the international athletes. That was how he got the chops.
“I came exactly 100 days before the Beijing Olympics. Fireworks greeted me,” he recalls, laughing.
He needed a visa to be able to stay in China, however. And so, accompanied by a Filipino friend, he applied at one of Tianjin ’s universities -- one that specializes in teaching foreign languages to Chinese students -- as an English instructor.
Fr. Francis came armed with a master of arts degree in creative writing from Emerson College in Boston and a master of science degree in mass communication from Boston University. He finished grade and high school at the Ateneo, philosophy courses at the seminary and other college subjects at the Adamson University.
The university was hiring only native speakers of the language to teach English, but admitted him upon seeing his credentials, which included proficiency in the language and teaching writing to college students in the US. Holding a working visa, he teaches at the university on weekdays and says masses at St. Joseph ’s Cathedral on Sundays.
It is at the Cathedral where most of his story takes place.
Unity in diversity
Having never ministered to a parish before, Fr. Francis was confronted not only by a community seeking spiritual guidance but also a multitude of cultures with various expectations. And all these against a backdrop of a country hurtling towards development at breakneck speed, leaving its own people questioning where this is all really leading to.
“I have never been a parish priest, and I became part of one whose members are of different nationalities,” he says.
Looking at the sea of people who attend his Masses -- Africans, Europeans, Americans, Latin Americans and Asians -- he says he often thinks to himself, that truly, “this is the kingdom of God.”
But not only Catholics attend the service; also the non-Catholics and the non-Christians, even the Chinese, who have their own priests and masses.
“People rediscover their faith in China. There are things one takes for granted at home, but when one comes to China, where things are not so free, then one values those things more,” Fr. Francis says. “One sees faith and freedom in a new light.”
“People from traditionally Catholic countries like Mexico are rediscovering their faith in China. I have received letters from non-Catholics saying they’ve found a home in the Cathedral. Once in a while, a Buddhist attends the mass, while two Muslims attended the past two Christmas Eve masses.
“So you see, I am a Roman Catholic pastor, with a Roman Catholic, non-Roman Catholic and non-Christian flock,” he marvels. “How many priests can boast of this kind of congregation, and of all places, China! I have been blown away by the circumstances.”
In the Philippines, Fr. Francis had been working at the Institutional Development and External Affairs (IDEA) office of Adamson University where he thought up of the university’s ADD YOU tag used in school promotions. He also handled classes on Media and Ministry at the St. Vincent School of Theology in Tandang Sora, Quezon City. He confesses that working as a missionary never crossed his mind until the opportunity -- or call -- came.
“I regard myself as a reluctant missionary but I have been the recipient of so much grace,” he repeats, pointing out his assignment is hardly the easiest.
“If you’re a Filipino pastor, ministering to Filipino Catholics, you know basically know what to do,” he says. “But here, you have to deal with different sensibilities, and you have to exploit the wonderful universality of what we believe in as Catholics in order to appeal cross-culturally.”
“Some like happy songs during Mass, while others prefer solemn ones. This is due to what they were used to in their native countries.
Some have a charismatic bent and I know of someone who attended the Tridentine Mass in Latin back home,” he said.
“I therefore have to give something that is ‘very Catholic,’ which should be received well by many people.”
Demonstrating just how “cross-cultural” his environment is, he says that at one point his altar server was a student from Poland; his chief catechist was a Singaporean while another catechist was an American; and his hospitality ministers were an Indian and an Italian.
“My organist is a Filipino, [the person] organizing the choir is a Nigerian and the conductor is a Sri Lankan,” he adds.
Relations with the Chinese
Approachable and affable, he has also made a “breakthrough” with his Chinese hosts.
“Two weeks before Christmas last year, I received a phone call from the Public Safety Bureau -- the police -- here in Tianjin. The man spoke in English and addressed me by my Chinese name, Shi Fu Xiang,” he said.
The police wanted to discuss with him ways to control the Chinese crowds who normally troop to the Catholic churches during Christmas to see the Nativity scene. The Chinese see Christmas as foreign event and want to experience as much of it. In Tianjin, the streets near the Cathedral are normally cordoned off to accommodate the crowds.
“I was nervous when I got the phone call. But the man said I should not be,” Fr. Francis says. “And true enough, when we met at the Cathedral -- the interpreter who called, his superior and a third man -- they came with assurances the midnight Mass for the English-speaking community will go smoothly, with promise of crowd control. Their visit turned out to be a courtesy call. That was when it hit me: Wow, I’m legit!”
Thriving though he may be in China, the self-doubts never cease.
“When I became a pastor, many of my shortcomings surfaced. So why did God pick me? It’s a question I don’t have an answer to. But I was sure I wanted my life to have meaning. I wanted to have work I could live and die for,” he says.
“I just trust that God is good. And it’s good to have this uncertainty,” he shares. “Because if you have doubts, if you have uncertainties, yet you continue to believe, then that is true faith because it has been tested and it has been strengthened.”
An Irish Vincentian he wrote to before coming back to the Philippines last year told him that “the fact you have questions, points to me you are in the right place.”
And he is. “It has been wonderful, I am quite happy where I am,” Fr. Francis says, breaking into a big smile. “My original contract was one year, and I’m now on my third.”
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