Religion: The Church in China

Some churchmen are trying to spread the notion that the Chinese Communists are really being kind to Christians. A fortnight ago, Anglican Bishop K. H. Ting of Chekiang appeared at the World Council of Churches meeting in Hungary (TIME, Aug. 13) to say that Christian churches in Communist China are free. The Chinese people, said Bishop Ting, have come to regard Communist rule as “an act of God and a demonstration of His love.” Last week brought further evidence of just how “free” Christianity is in Red China. After keeping him prisoner for five years, the Communists released Henry Ambrose Pinger, Roman Catholic Bishop of Chow-tsun and a Franciscan missionary in China for 30 years. He was the last American Roman Catholic bishop to be released from prison by the Reds. In Hong Kong, Nebraska-born Bishop Pinger, 59, told reporters about his experiences.

For four years he did not even know the charge against him. Day after day, for the first five months, interrogators took turns questioning him in two-hour shifts, during which he was never allowed to sit down. He was moved 15 times in those four years, from prison to prison and cell to bedless cell, with from six to 13 cell mates. During the first year there were only two meals a day of bread and vegetables. Bishop Pinger’s Bible and rosary were confiscated. “There is freedom of religion in the new China,” his warders told him, “but not for prisoners.” They lectured him severely whenever they caught him praying: “I soon learned to pray without showing any outward signs.”

Before his release, ailing Bishop Pinger got a 25-day “cultural tour” of Red China, but he remained unimpressed. As for the clerics who have made their peace with the regime, he is sure they are insincere or misled: “I am fully convinced that the Chinese Communists aim for the ultimate and total destruction of the Church.”‘