A cheap emblem, a suffering Church

The opening of a letter sent to me some days ago (quite a few days ago, in fact):

Dear Friend of the S—

Your throat tightens as someone speeds up behind you, weaving in and out of traffic. What will you do? Give in to fear? Or pray?

It seems like a simple decision. But fear or anger can take over in a moment of crisis. It's best to be prepared.

Nothing can prepare you for such frightening moments on the road like membership in the S— Auto League. That's why millions of Catholics have joined and committed themselves to safer driving through the Auto League since 1955.

...When you join, you'll become an apostle of safe travel on our busy roads.

In addition to supporting the modest cost of Auto League membership materials, your gift enables us to help poor families served by the S— Southern Missions and helps provide inspirational and devotional materials – free of charge – to hospitals, prisons and many other places where God's people desperately need your help.

You'll notice, I've enclosed a dashboard emblem of the S— with this letter. It is a "no obligation" gift to you for considering my offer to join our special apostolate. ...

I glance at the cheap, plastic emblem. It's not too shabby an image of S—. I happen to like devotion to S— very much. I like holy images, and hang holy cards in my cars, remembering how my Nonna used to affix stickers in Nonno's cars, Volto Santo di Gesú, proteggimi! (Holy Face of Jesus, protect me!) The exhortation to prayer and temperance in driving appeals to me.

I turn the emblem over. On the back is a sticker: MADE IN CHINA.

A recent news story from the AP:

The Vatican lashed out [4th May 2006] at Beijing, announcing the excommunication of two bishops who were consecrated by China's state-controlled church without Pope Benedict XVI's consent.

(This is an important issue to the Catholic Church. The popes have been fighting for a clergy independent of government intervention for at least a millenium; think of King Henry kneeling in the snow outside the palace of Pope Gregory. The Church is allowed to conduct its own business and nominate its own bishops everywhere except places like China.)

Benedict's first major political clash since his election as pontiff a year ago dimmed hopes for any reestablishment soon of official ties between the Holy See and Beijing that ended after communists took control of China in 1949.

Also automatically excommunicated for defying the pope were the bishops who performed the ordinations in separate ceremonies this week, according to a provision of church law cited by Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

...

The Vatican said that according to its information, ``bishops and priests have been subjected -- by institutions outside the church -- to strong pressures and threats, in order for them to take part in the ordinations that, because they were not approved by the Vatican, are illegitimate and go against their conscience.''

Catholics are hardly alone in this. Communism had a disastrous effect on China, and the Communist Party has abandoned the economic theory in favor of a fairly unrestrained capitalism. As I understand it, the only residues of Communism in China today are the government's official atheism and the trademark Labor and Reform camps work camps, and the routine reports of brutal treatment of farmers and workers who protest corrupt officials' thievery and poisoning of their land. I have read in Catholic newspapers that a large, underground Catholic Church thrives in China, but the Vatican desires to legitimize this.

I try not to buy things made in China because of this. Unfortunately, the same American government that claims its desire to promote democracy has made it virtually impossible to find items that are not made in China.

The reason given by Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Bush for embracing China ever since the late 80s was that China would open, and it would become more democratic, open, and free. Has it really become so? And why are American religious groups are becoming customers of China's parody of free markets?