Pope Pius XII Foreign Relations After World War II - China

China

For centuries, access to the people of China was difficult for the Catholic Church, because it did not recognize the ancient local Confucian customs of honouring deceased family members. The Vatican regarded these as religious exercises which conflicted with Catholic dogma. As a result, the Church made little progress in China. Within months of his election, Pope Pius issued a dramatic change in policies. On December 8, 1939, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith issued at the request of Pius XII new instructions, by which Chinese customs were no longer considered superstitious but rather an honourable way of esteeming one's relatives, and therefore permitted by Catholics.

The Government of China established diplomatic relations with the Vatican within a short interval. The Papal degree changed the ecclesiastical situation in China in an almost revolutionary way. As the Church began to flourish, Pius established a local ecclesiastical hierarchy and received the Archbishop of Peking, Thomas Tien Ken-sin, SVD, into the College of Cardinals. The establishment of Mao Zedong's communist regime in 1949 put these early advances on hold and led to the persecution of thousands of clergy and faithful in China.