The majority of the Catholic clergy and laity believe, along with all their compatriots, that only the socialist system can make China a wealthy nation. Through increasing the productive pow- ers and getting rid of the polarization of wealth, a socialist soci- ety can achieve its goal to make all wealthy. This is the only system that fits the Chinese situation and is not contradictory to Catholic social teaching. In the last century, especially in the last20 or so years, the local churches and all the Catholic laity have participated in the socialistic development of the nation, and ac- tively been involved in social beneficiary activities. According to the needs of society and the conditions of the local churches, many charitable organizations have been set up, such as medical centers, handicapped children center, social services, helping the poor and school dropouts, "Hope‘ schools and other centers for special skills trainings, free medical checkups, helping areas af- fected by natural disaster and volunteer programs, etc. The church has extended a helping hand to those in need. These people"sgood words and deeds truly witnessed the love and virtue of allChristians.
In the summer of 1998, three rivers in China, the Changjiang, Neijiang and Songhuajiang, flooded many places. In order tohelp the people in the disaster areas, the Catholic clergy and la- ity from 13 different provinces and autonomous cities, such as Beijing, Chongqing, Henan, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, collected more than 3,490,000 Yuan and 360,000 items of cloth- ing for the relief services. In Hubei Province, the under the lead- ership of Bishop Tong Guangqing, the Catholic Church collected15,000,000 Yuan. In 2001, when some areas in Inner Mongolia suffered snowstorms, the Beijing diocese provided medicine and food worth 150,000 Yuan. In terms of helping school dropouts to return to class, Shanghai diocese offered 1,000,000 Yuan to build four Hope Schools in Guangxi, Hubei, Hebei and Jiangxi provinces. Guangzhou Diocese responded to the call of the Women"s Association to establish a Catholic Education Founda- tion to help dropouts in Gansu Province. Meanwhile, this foun- dation gives scholarship for excellent students.
In 20 years, the local churches collected a lot of money to erect hospitals, clinics, recovery centers, seniors‘ homes, kinder- gartens, handicapped children"s orphanages, etc… All these fa- cilities showed the true nature of the Catholic Church in society. In Shenzhen, a Lay Catholic Volunteer Association was formed with about 100 members to visit nursing homes and orphanages periodically and bring the inmates money and gifts. They also have a free clinic for soldiers and those who have been wid- owed. In Liaoning diocese, in order to help the local people out of poverty, the church in Jinzhou established a scientific training center. They imported a good kind of young goose from France and invited experts to train the farmers in the right way to raise them, as well as other skills such as growing vegetables or fun-gus in greenhouses. This was welcome greatly because it helped the people materially.
Many dioceses took the advantage of having so many ex- perts in foreign languages, professionals and medical experts; they established foreign language schools and evening schools for special trainings, which trained many good people for soci- ety. For instance, Wuhan diocese has a Kang Fu Medical Col- lege; Beijing diocese has its Xiangbo School; Shanghai diocese has Guangqi computer School.
