Fr. Couture: China is very complicated. The French have a saying: C’est du chinois (“It's all Chinese”), which is a colloquialism for something that is difficult to understand. It's not just the Chinese language, which is very elaborate. For us who come from the West, it is difficult to understand them, but its religious situation is also very delicate and difficult. The underground Catholics truly believe that they have been betrayed and abandoned by the authorities of the Church. I have been told of several incidents: priests who come from Europe, visiting a clandestine seminary and spending a few hours there without giving any donations or material support; then the same priests go to the Patriotic seminary, in the hands of the government, and there they spend weeks, giving them money, goods, etc. And in another diocese, if I am not mistaken, a Patriotic priest was nominated, with the approval of the Vatican, head of the clandestine Church, because there was no bishop there. You see how great the confusion is. It is as if a conciliar priest was nominated to become the head of a district of the Society. That, in Europe, would not last long, I think.

As for other difficult situations in China, in certain dioceses you have two bishops: one Patriotic bishop and one clandestine bishop. In two dioceses in particular, there are even three. One Patriotic priest said—and it is well known in these dioceses—“when the underground bishop dies, the Patriotic bishop will take his place.” The Patriotic bishop is nominated auxiliary bishop by the Vatican. The Patriotic priests say so themselves. I heard from friends who went there that there are certain Patriotic priests who are starting to say the traditional Mass now. Consider all the subtleties, the degrees of confusion: it is all quite complicated.

There are traditional priests who are official members of the Patriotic Church without having the membership card of the party. They say the traditional Mass whereas the underground priests say the New Mass. I know a young Patriotic priest who says the traditional Mass every Sunday. He was asked: “Which bishop do you name during the Canon of the Mass?” He candidly answered: “I name the legitimate, underground bishop.” This is a priest in the Patriotic Church! So he does not even name the bishop who ordained him, he names the underground bishop. He even said, to those who were present and could hear him: “In a few days there will be an ordination for the Patriotic Church, and the young priests will be ordained by the Patriotic bishop. But the same day, they will go to see the clandestine bishop in order to be reordained.” This is common practice there; it is enough to give you a headache. So we do not know what to make of it any more.

So, there is all this confusion in addition to the feeling that they have been abandoned. Further, doubt exists about the validity of ordinations done in the Patriotic Church by bishops recognized by the Vatican. There is a clandestine bishop who wrote a study on the episcopal consecrations of the Patriotic bishops. The bishop concluded in favor of the invalidity of these consecrations. It is not enough for Rome to say, “Okay, we absolve you, we approve you”, in order to validate an ordination. If the bishop is invalid, all the priests he ordains are invalid as well. And, as I was saying a moment ago, the young priests who are ordained by the Patriotic Church go to get re-ordained by the underground bishops. There is even a bishop who says he has received bishops of the Patriotic Church who wanted to be reconsecrated. There is a doubt as to the validity of the ordinations and consecrations in the Patriot Church. There is massive confusion.

So, how is it that Rome, by making a sign of the Cross (as I would say), approves an ordination or a consecration? That does not solve the problem. That makes it worse, because by doing that, Rome gives its placet, its blessing, to situations that put into question the validity of the consecrations. It is not enough to say “yes” for it to be valid; it has to be redone.

Fr. Couture: Certainly. We have to be very discreet in our apostolate in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Middle East. We have to be careful. We are really a small handful of faithful. In India, there are still martyrs. There are religious men and women, even priests, who are burned alive or shot dead in front of their convents, orphanages, or churches, which are also burned and destroyed. This happens almost every month. There was a message that circulated a few months ago throughout the whole world, a call for help, for prayers from some Catholics in northern India who were being persecuted violently. And there is the famous incident with the elephants in 2009 in the state of Orissa, in India.

Yes, could you give us your understanding of the events?

Fr. Couture: Well, I do not know all the details, but according to the story, in 2008, angry mobs came into a Catholic village, and killed and persecuted Catholics. I believe they even burned churches and orphanages. The following
year, on the same day, a herd of wild elephants came out of the forest, went into one of the village, and came to attack the houses of those who had terrorized and persecuted the Catholics, but avoided the Catholic homes. It is almost scriptural, like the story of the bears with the prophet in the Bible (4 Kg 2:24). But this time it was in India recently. The archdiocese of Colombo, Sri Lanka, published the story and you can find it on their website [http://www.archdioceseofcolombo.com/news.php?id=851].

It is interesting to see that today the Good God uses, just as He has in the past, the animals and sometimes the elements as well. I am referring to the tsunami in 2004. What was not spoken of in the media, but what we learned on the spot in Sri Lanka, is that two days before Christmas in 2004, the advertisements on the buses and billboards, all throughout the country, but especially in Colombo, in the Catholic communities, there had been a message placed: “Isn't Baby Jesus stupid and weak?” Just after Christmas, they got their answer. Out of the forty thousand deaths in Sri Lanka, thirty-five thousand were Buddhists. Certain temples in southern India were completely washed away, temples where curses are made. (For example, if you have a competitor who settles in your city, you go to the temple, pay the monks, and they will curse your competitor!) One temple simply disappeared.

God is not mocked. There is a God, and Scripture tells us that the elements and creation serve the Creator. Sometimes the Good God uses them. Of course, there are innocent people who perish, as happens everywhere, in war, etc. But divine justice is still there and it exists.

Fr. Couture: The tsunami took place last March 11th. Until that day, we had no faithful in the village. A week later, I baptized a young lady whose family came from a village near Fukushima, twenty kilometers from the nuclear plant. The village was swept away by the receding waves. It was a Buddhist village, nevertheless. Well, thanks be to God, the parents of this young lady survived; only their house was damaged. It is a tragedy for Japan; they had terrible fears. They thought the plant was going to explode. Moreover, we had serious reports from very good sources saying that it was going to explode. But it did not explode, thanks be to God.

There is certainly some good that will come of it. Perhaps there will be conversions. Someone in France contacted us for this project and offered to give a miraculous medal to all those who survived the tsunami. Thanks to that young lady who came from the village, we will try to go there in September to meet the townspeople. We will give out miraculous medals so that they may thank the Blessed Virgin that they are still alive, thank the Good God, and place themselves in the hands of the Blessed Virgin.

The Japanese are really very, very grateful, and very expressive of this great virtue of gratitude. We sure need to learn from them how to be grateful. If you give them ten cents, they will make a deep bow, and their gratitude is very genuine and authentic. Now we hope that we will be able to help them once things calm down a little bit. It is still a little risky for the time being. We are going to try to help them in their plans to build something to lodge families that have lost everything. We have a few thousands Euros that have already arrived, and we hope to see, in the coming months, how we can help them.

It is difficult since the people have been evacuated from their villages, as there is still a risk of radiation. They have returned to their families or relatives, and they would like very much to go back to their villages, but they do not know where to go: “Should we go back, should we not?” They are not really sure.

Often, we have adult baptisms, as we had this year. It is a great joy to see these souls coming to the Faith.

So we ask for prayers for Japan, and if you wish to help materially, please contact us, and we will see what we can do.

Speaking of those opportunities to help, which the faithful have in addition to prayer, you have come to the United States with a book that you are trying to promote, the story of a Chinese woman who was incarcerated by the Marxist regime. It is a very beautiful story divided into chapters that are easy to read. How did you come to know this person and how can the book help both your work, Tradition, and Catholics here in the United States?

She wrote this extraordinary account saying, “My twenty-six years in communist prison were the best preparation to be a member of the Society of St. Pius X, the best novitiate for me.” Her book, which is now in its second English edition, has just been re-printed recently by the Society in Korea. This book is now being translated into French and Spanish also. It tells her story, which is very simple, as you say, in very beautiful chapters.

She had converted at the age of sixteen. Seven years later, she was arrested because of the Legion of Mary. In Mao Tse-Tung’s eyes, the Legion of Mary was the vanguard of the Catholic Church in China. The story of the Legion of Mary in China is really extraordinary. Bishop Riberi, who was the Apostolic Nuncio in 1948, felt the revolution coming, and before Mao’s take over in 1949, he sent for an Irish priest, who had already founded the...

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