Scottish cardinal calls for unity of Chinese Catholic communities

Published: 2007-11-06

LONDON (CNS) -- A Scottish cardinal has told Chinese Communist Party officials there is no need for a patriotic association in their country. Cardinal Keith O'Brien of St. Andrews and Edinburgh said he told the officials the overwhelming majority of Chinese Catholics wanted to be united in one church community under the authority of the pope and did not want to be working through the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. The patriotic association acts as a liaison between registered Catholics and the Chinese government. The cardinal made his remarks in a late-October visit to China during an hour of discussions with Ye Xiaowen, the director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, and deputy director Wang Zuo'an. "I was saying that in every country in the world Catholics are regarded as being patriotic and loyal to their country as they are to their religion," the cardinal told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview Nov. 2.

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