ARTICLES
SEPTEMBER 2001 ARTICLES
Contents © 2001
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Renounce the Pope!
In Prison with Cardinal Kung
By Maggie Garcia
Philip Watt is a gentle, soft-spoken man. His gracious demeanor belies the steely determination to survive that runs through his very being; a trait that he had to call upon many times in order to survive China's brutal slave labor camps. Watt said he was arrested because "I and a few friends would talk about what was going on with the Cultural Revolution. I worked at the Shanghai Cable Company. The authorities said that we were counter revoluntionaries." Watt said that many people were imprisioned for basically talking about the Cultural Revolution.
During his imprisonment, Watt came particularly to admire of one of his cellmates, Cardinal Ignatius Kung, though he wasn't familiar with the story of the widely admired man whom the Chinese prison officials particularly despised. The Chinese Communists imprisoned Cardinal Kung in 1955 for refusing to renounce the Holy Father. Thirty years later, he was released and placed under house arrest because the Communists feared that he could still cause trouble with his unwaveringly loyalty to the pope.
When recounting his story to an audience of human rights activists late last June in Westwood, Watt said that he had been an Episcopalian, but that the heroic loyalty to the Holy Father that the imprisoned priests had shown and their love of the Catholic faith impressed him so much that he decided to convert to the Catholic Church. "In the cell next to me, there was a Catholic priest. I asked him simple questions about our situation," said Watt. "He replied by telling me that parable of the servants and talents; some servants were using their talents and others weren't. He wanted to use his."
After being released from prison, Watt said that he looked for some of the priests he met, but was unsuccessful in finding them. "Many of the priests were in prison for more than 30 years," he said. Watt said that when he was in prison with Cardinal Kung, he never saw the cardinal complain about his imprisonment.
"In the prison, every three or four days, he was allowed to take a walk," Watt said of Kung. According to Watt, in spite of the hatred that the Chinese prison officials had for Cardinal Kung, "he was treated a little different because of international pressure." Watt said that when President Nixon visited China in the 70s, he made it a point to ask about Cardinal Kung. "After Nixon visited China, high ranking Chinese officials told him, 'Nixon is asking about you. We'll let you go, if you cut off your relationship with the pope.'" Cardinal Kung, though, refused their offer, said Watt.
Cardinal Kung died last year in Connecticut, where he lived with his nephew Joseph after leaving China in 1985.
Watt recalled several instances where Catholic priests showed their heroic efforts to keep true to their Catholic faith, in spite of the Communists' harsh treatment. "A watchman told one priest, Father Zhang, that he would allow him to eat normally and give him more food if he gave up his religion, but he refused." Watt told his audience that the priest was held in handcuffs for nine months and had to eat with his mouth like a beast. "I was in handcuffs for one month," said Watt. "At first you start to itch, but you can't scratch yourself. After three or four days, the itching is gone but the pain [of the handcuffs] is still there." Watt said that, although Father Zhang was released from prison at the same time as he was, the elderly priest was arrested again in 1981 and died in the labor camps in his late 80s.
Watt told his audience of how brutal the police were during the persecution of the Catholic Church in China during the 1950s and how, in spite of the looming police presence, many priests showed an unwavering faith in Christ. "Father Daniel Yen was arrested in China in 1955," said Watt. "When he was arrested he was told by the police, 'All of you guys are now in my hands'. Father replied to him, 'yes but we are all also in God's hands.'" Watt said that Father Yen died in the Chinese prison camp.
During an interview with me, Watt spoke candidly about his thoughts on China's policy towards the Catholic Church and religion in general. "The Communists want to eliminate religion," he said. "Because of this, they want to manage the Catholic Church. Just one word about revealing your faith can cause you trouble. One of my friends, a Muslim, was fasting. The Chinese officials brought him food and told him to eat. He refused to eat and later he disappeared for two or three months." Watt told me about a twelve-year-old girl who was expelled from school because she was caught talking about religion and fasting.
Watt said that he stayed in the same prison with Cardinal Kung until 1975 when he was transferred to a labor camp in the Quinhai province. He was held there for five years until the end of 1979 when he was released by the counter-revolutionaries. "At that time, there were all of these counter-revolutionaries that decided that they had made a mistake, and they released me," said Watt. "They never apologized for my imprisonment, but they released me. I then went to Shanghai with my parents." Watt later went to Hong Kong where he lived five years before coming to the United States in 1985.
Joseph Kung of Cardinal Kung Foundation in Connecticut emphasized that his uncle had gone to jail in 1955 because "he was asked to denounce the Holy Father. Cardinal Kung knew that he was going to go to jail when the Communists came into power," he said in a telephone interview. Kung said that the situation in China is getting worse and the Communists are growing bolder in their persecution of the Catholic Church. When asked why this was the case, Kung said that too often tourists will attend Mass at a Patriotic Association church rather than attend Mass at a genuine Catholic church. The Catholic Church is banned in China and Catholics meet secretly to celebrate home Masses. The Patriotic Association is the official shadow church of the Communists government.) Kung said that when foreigners attend Mass at a Patriotic church, the Chinese government gets the message that foreigners see no difference between the two churches. "How can this be?" he asked. "The Catholic Church was founded 2001 years ago by Jesus Christ and the Patriotic church was founded in 1957 by the Communist government."
Kung said that this is what has caused the recent crackdown on the Catholic Church in China. " Such actions create a boldness in the Chinese government," he said. "A priest was sent to prison recently because he refused to register with the Patriotic Association." Kung added that being ordained a priest in an underground church is grounds for being arrested. "The significance of this arrest is that the Communist are now openly arresting priests for not joining the Patriotic Association. That's the message they are now sending to Catholics in China. Kung said that because so many people are going to Patriotic Church in China, the Chinese government feels it can attack the underground Church and no one in the international community will protest. "When President Clinton was in China, three or four years ago he didn't go to a house church, he went to a Patriotic church. Recently, Cardinal Etchegaray became the first Roman Catholic Cardinal to openly celebrate Mass in a Patriotic Association church."
Kung said that when public figures like former President Clinton and Cardinal Etchegaray embrace the Patriotic Church, it gives a message to the Chinese government that there are no consequences for persecuting the Catholic Church in China. "Furthermore," he elaborated, "Cardinal Tomko was quoted recently as saying that there are two groups in the Church in China, one is the underground Church and the other is the Patriotic Church, and they are one church. How can this be?" he asked. "The Patriotic Church was created in 1957 with the purpose of destroying the Roman Catholic Church founded by Christ."