Hongkong: Kirche und Gesellschaft im Ubergang: Materialien und Dokumente (Hong Kong: Church and society in transition: Materials and documents) (review)

As Bernard Hung-Kay Luk laments in his contribution to this volume, the Catholic Church in Hong Kong has a relevance that is not adequately reflected by the infant state of the research on this topic. Not only is Hong Kong the largest Chinese diocese, but the Catholic Church is also the largest single religious group in Hong Kong, with approximately 250,000 members (not counting the more than 100,000 mostly Catholic Filipinos who work in Hong Kong). The church has a political influence, however, that goes significantly beyond its membership numbers (in political participation as well as in political representation under the British government—see the chapter by Puhl), and it is one of the major providers of social services in Hong Kong (accounting for about one-fifth of social services). Indeed, these social services are described by many of the contributors to this volume as the main emphasis of the church, an emphasis that illuminates and explains the close relationship the church used to have with the Hong Kong government, which provided up to 60 percent of the funds for Caritas, the largest Catholic social institution in Hong Kong. This historical cooperation and the fact that the Hong Kong diocese has traditionally functioned as a bridge between both the official church and the Catholic "underground" church explains the great importance that the Catholic leadership in Hong Kong places in maintaining a close relationship with the Chinese government, a relationship described by a majority of the volume's authors in guardedly hopeful terms.

This book is part of a series of German-language publications of the China-Zentrum documenting the state of religion in China, and of Catholicism in particular. In 1993 the China-Zentrum, under the leadership of Roman Malek, S. V.D., published Religion im heutigen China: Politik und Praxis, the German version of Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice, by Donald E. MacInnis (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1989), with a subsequent volume in preparation. This was followed in 1996 by the massive reader "Fallbeispiel" China: Ökumenische Beiträge zu Religion, Theologie und Kirche im chinesischen Kontext ("Case study" China: Ecumenical notes on religion, theology and church in the Chinese context). And planned for the end of 1999 was a publication on the Church in Macao. This complements the China-Zentrum's bimonthly news service China heute, in which many of the essays and documents in the volume under review were first published.

Although the main focus of this book is the Catholic Church and its preparation for the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic, it contains a wealth of information that bears relevance even after July 1, 1997. Some of this information, especially the economic data (see the chapters by Kwok and Karhausen) and some of the speculation on the situation following July 1, is of minor historical significance; however, the book offers a valuable collection of general information on the Catholic Church in Hong Kong, which, as the editor remarks in his introduction, is the only collection of its kind to appear in German. Protestant churches in Hong Kong are mentioned in only a very few of the contributions, despite the volume's somewhat misleading subtitle Kirche und Gesellschaft im Übergang (Church and society in transition).

The book is divided into five parts: (1) the history of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong, (2) the current situation of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong, (3) a collection of documents about the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, (4) essays on the perspective of the Catholic Church after the handover, and (5) documents on partnerships with the Hong Kong diocese.

Only eight of the forty-nine essays and documents in this volume were written specifically for this publication; most of the others are translations from...