When I was visiting family in Peking a few years ago we went to Mass at the Wangfujing Church dedicated to St Joseph. I naturally assumed that this was run by the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. This was the English Mass but it was a little surprising that an American priest was saying it. I knew that members of the CPCA are in an invidious position and that the situation is not as simple as a simple split between the outlawed Catholic Church and the schismatic CPCA. It is more like the distinction which existed between the Church of England and the Catholic Church at the the beginning of Elizabeth I's reign (right at the beginning there were still Catholic Bishops, but she removed them pretty quickly) than that at the end. Nevertheless it is one thing for a native Chinese to schismatize in an attempt to get along under the crushing tyranny of the People's Republic of China, quite another for a foreigner to do so. After all this priest was free to leave.
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