October 1, 1999
ON MY MIND / By A. M. ROSENTHAL
St. Joseph's Murder
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The beginning of the amateur video
shows the first day of worship in the
handsome new church -- the congregation taking communion from the
Catholic priests. The film is dated
Feb. 14, 1999.
Then it flows without a break into a
section filmed April 27, 1999. The film
lurches as the person with the camera, sometimes hiding in a building
across the street, struggles to show
what remains of the church.
A metal dinosaur appears. Its huge
black iron head tears out windows,
smashes great holes into walls. What's
that continuing thump-thump in the
background? No explanation until laborers are seen with sledgehammers
pounding floors into splinters. The
head continuously crashes itself into
what had been St. Joseph's Roman
Catholic Church, in Fuzhou, province
of Fujian, People's Republic of China.
Built over five years with the muscle and love of the worshipers, and
dollars and coins of their relatives in
America, the church in one day has
become rubble.
I got and saw the film on Wednesday, while hundreds of top American
and European business executives
were attending a Shanghai "economic
forum," sponsored by Fortune and its
owner, Time Warner, with the blessing and manipulation of the Politburo,
to celebrate the 50th anniversary of
Mao's victory, and the decades of
despotism by massacre that followed.
Everything pertinent to trade was
on the agenda, except the rights of
Chinese. The C.E.O.'s and company
presidents, and Fortune and Time
Warner, either judged these rights to
have no value in any balance sheet,
were foot-kissing the Politburo, or
both.
My disgust turned to shame for
America when I read Seth Faison's
story in The New York Times about
how the head of Time Warner, which
also owns CNN, gave the Chinese
President a bust of Lincoln and
praised him for his parlor trick of
reciting the Gettysburg Address!
The chief of the American International Group, an insurance giant, said
it was not human rights China needed,
but food. Chinese do have enough
food, but I invite the insurance man to
a dinner that will include a dish sometimes served to Chinese political prisoners -- rice in a toilet bucket.
I would give each executive a cassette of the murder of St. Joseph's.
But I promised not to show it around,
because Chinese police could identify
congregants who walked sorrowfully
in the rubble.
Anyway, the foreign executives
know what is going on, how Chinese
Catholics and Protestants are arrested and beaten if they do not say the
right prayers in Government-registered churches under Government-approved bishops. St. Joseph's would
not register with the Communist Religious Affairs Bureau.
Even without the cassette, the executives know, they know. They just do
not give a damn.
I am asked why I write often about
religious persecution of Christians,
since I am a Jew, and not even religiously educated. One simple reason
is sufficient: sufferings of the religious are as painful as of the secular.
But there is another -- neither religious nor secular freedoms will flourish where one is denied. Only if religious and secular Americans grasp
that will a human rights movement
exist in America that can protect
them all.
Many people buoyed me when I
wrote, particularly John Cardinal
O'Connor. He sustains all who struggle for freedom, sometimes without
the enthusiasm of his peers. Among
Catholic, Protestant and Jewish clergy in America, some speak up against
religious persecution abroad -- and
some look away.
When I was an apprentice reporter
covering sermons for $3 a Sunday, I
did not appreciate assignment to St.
Patrick's, now Cardinal O'Connor's
seat. Two collection plates were presented, one before you could get down
the aisle. But I will never again duck
two collections, not at St. Patrick's.
St. Joseph's was destroyed because its congregation and priests
refused to submit themselves to
Communist domination. And so were
16 other churches in and near Fujian.
No film has surfaced except of St.
Joseph's. Some views are shown at
www.freechurchforchina.org.
One day there will be cameras,
lots, when St. Joseph's and the others
reopen in freedom. Cardinal O'Connor will be there; guaranteed. So will
other Americans who understand
that Chinese really want more than
rice and chains.