China Church commission holding 2nd meeting at Vatican

(March 30, 2009) The Vatican Commission for the Catholic Church in China started a 3-day plenary session on Monday. The Vatican said the March 30-April 1 session will review "some aspects of the Church's life" in the light of Pope Benedict XVI's 2007 letter to Chinese Catholics and "in particular to reflect on important and current religious questions." The letter acknowledged the difficulties Chinese Catholics have faced with their government as well as among themselves, while encouraging reconciliation between the "underground" and government-approved "open" Church communities. It also stressed that "the principles of independence and autonomy, self-management and democratic administration of the Church," as seen in China, are incompatible with Catholic doctrine.
This is the second plenary session of the commission since Pope Benedict established it in 2007 to study questions of major importance related to the Church there. The Vatican did not spell out what specific aspects of the Church's life would be reviewed, nor did it reveal what religious questions would be discussed.
China forced its Roman Catholics to cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, shortly after the officially atheist Communist Party took power. In China, worship is allowed only in government-recognized Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which does not recognize the Pope of Rome as their head and appoints its own priests and bishops.