A cardinal who compared the Vatican’s concordat with China to a deal with Adolf Hitler has just been arrested. Yet Pope Francis does not seem to care.
The most senior Catholic cleric in China delivered a sobering warning five years ago. When news broke that the Vatican was negotiating a secret concordat to give the Chinese Communist Party a role in appointing Catholic bishops, Cardinal Joseph Zen warned that the deal would be “betraying Jesus Christ.”
“Maybe the pope is a little naive; he doesn’t have the background to know the Communists in China,” Zen told the Guardian Unlimited in November 2016. “You cannot go into negotiations with the mentality ‘we want to sign an agreement at any cost,’ then you are surrendering yourself, you are betraying yourself, you are betraying Jesus Christ. If you cannot get a good deal, an acceptable deal, then the Vatican should walk away and maybe try again later. Could the church negotiate with Hitler? Could it negotiate with Stalin? No.”
Seventy-five years after the Holocaust, the Vatican is turning a blind eye to an authoritarian regimes attempt to exterminate an ethnic minority.
That is the assessment of British human rights activist Benedict Rogers. In a July 29 Foreign Policy article, Rogers recounted how the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote a letter to the Chinese ambassador in London, comparing the plight of the Uyghurs in Communist China to that of Jews in Nazi Germany. Children have been taken from their parents and sent to state-run orphanages. Women have been sterilized. And drone footage shows Uyghur men, kneeling and blindfolded, waiting to be loaded onto trains.
Twenty-three nations have condemned China’s human rights abuses. But the Vatican has remained surprisingly silent considering that Pope Francis is hailed as an advocate for the oppressed.
The pope has condemned the United States government for temporarily separating the children of illegal immigrants from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. And he has spoken out against the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a U.S. police officer, saying, “We cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form.” Yet when it comes to Communist China, he has turned a blind eye. He has not uttered a public prayer for the Uyghurs, the Hong Kongers, the Tibetans, the Falun Gong practitioners, or any other group persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party. Why?
According to Benedict Rogers, Pope Francis may not be allowed to criticize China’s treatment of the Uyghurs under the terms of a “secret concordat”between the Vatican and Beijing.
Two years ago, the Vatican asked Bishop Peter Zhuang Jianjian and Bishop Joseph Guo Xijin to step down and make way for two new bishops approved by the Chinese government. This was a prelude to a deal between the Roman Catholic Church and the Communist Party of China. The text of this deal remains secret, but we know it gives an avowedly atheist regime a direct role in appointing Catholic bishops. And it may mandate the pope’s silence on Communist human rights abuses.
Before this deal was signed, about half of China’s 10 to 12 million Catholics worshiped in underground churches that refuse to recognize Communist control over their faith. The other half worshiped in government-managed churches run by clergy appointed by the Communist Party of China. The deal was supposed to be a strategic compromise in the name of Catholic unity, but no Catholic clergy have been released from prison. Instead, several more have disappeared since the deal was signed.
The last British governor of Hong Kong is warning that the Vatican is making a mistake by cozying up to China just as it is slipping back into the most hard-line dictatorship since Mao Zedong. And retired Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen has said signing a deal with Communist China is analogous to signing a contract with Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin. Yet Vatican officials still plan on renewing their deal with China.
“The provisional agreement with China expires in September of this year and we must find a formula; we must see what to do,” Italian Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli said on an Italian television network. “We are trying to look toward the future, and we are trying to give to the future of our realizations a deep and respectful basis, and I would say that we are working in this sense.”
In summary: Pope Francis turns a blind eye to China’s egregious human rights abuses while praising Catholics who kneel at Black Lives Matter protests in the United States. This shows that human rights are not his primary concern. Instead, he is trying to accomplish a geopolitical goal.
Uki Goñi is an Argentine author whose research focuses on the Vatican’s historic role in organizing “ratlines” to help Nazi criminals escape to Argentina. In a 2015 editorialfor the New York Times, he wrote that you couldn’t understand Pope Francis without acknowledging that his worldview was shaped in Juan Peron’s Argentina. That is why Pope Francis often warns about the “excesses of capitalism” while expressing sympathy for communism and other forms of socialism. He ascribes to the sort of Catholic socialism that was practiced in Argentina during Juan Peron’s presidency.
“If you were to read one of the sermons of the first fathers of the church, from the second or third centuries, about how you should treat the poor, you’d say it was Maoist or Trotskyists,” Francis said in 2010 when he was still archbishop of Buenos Aires. So while the pope disagrees with China’s atheism, he seems more sympathetic to China’s Maoist economic system than he is to America’s free-market system. And this fact is key to understanding the geopolitical rationale behind the Vatican’s China deal.
Suppose Pope Francis wanted to defeat American capitalism. To do so, he would need to convince Catholic nations across Africa, Europe and Latin America to adopt a more socialist way of running their economies. And what better way to accomplish this than a deal with the world’s leading Communist economy? This deal with China is part of the Vatican’s long-term campaign to achieve full diplomatic relations with Beijing, a vital step toward restructuring the world economy.
Biblical passages such as Revelation 17 reveal that a powerful religious entity will rise in the end time and become the guiding force over a great economic powerhouse that intoxicates all nations with its wealth and splendor. Revelation 18:3 says, “For all the nations have drunkthe maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”Notice that these merchants are not only active in Europe and Latin America, they are merchants of the Earth doing business in all nations.
The religious entity referred to in Revelation 17 and 18 is headquartered in Rome. So atheist China is not going to lead the world’s new economic order. But atheist China will ally with a revived Holy Roman Empire to replace the current Anglo-American economic system.
The people of Rome once referred to the Chinese as the people of Cathay, after the Khitans on northern China. Both the Old Testament books of Isaiah and Ezekiel mention these people as Kittim. The Kittim form an end-time trade relationship with Tyre, which refers to the commercial heart of the Holy Roman Empire (Isaiah 23; Ezekiel 27).
Anyone concerned about the type of deals the pope is making with totalitarian dictatorships needs to understand the soon-coming alliance between “Catholic Europe”and “Communist China.”Both powers are prophesied to be instrumental in America’s downfall!
The Holy See admits that “extremely painful situations” are not solved, but claims it is too early to assess the effects of the deal.
With a short press release, the Vatican informed that the secret agreement with China was renewed the same day it expired, October 22, 2020, for an additional period of two years.
A comment appeared in the Vatican daily “L’Osservatore Romano,” claiming it is too early to assess the long-term effects of the deal, and that the COVID-19 crisis paralyzed several local and national situations.
The article mentioned the opposition by “some sector of international politics,” alluding to the United States, and answered that the agreement is religious rather than political.
The Holy See, it said, regards the fact that today in China there are no longer “schismatic” bishops, as all the bishops of the Catholic Patriotic Association are in communion with the Pope, as a religiously significant result.
The text also acknowledges that “extremely painful situations” remain among Chinese Catholics, that the Chinese government should “guarantee a better exercise of religious liberty,” and that the path that may lead to real progress risks to be “long and difficult.”
It is an allusion to the conscientious objectors who refuse to join the “Catholic Patriotic Association.” While not encouraging them, the Vatican stated in 2019that they should be “respected.” Instead, they are harassed and jailed.
The text of the agreement remains secret.
The former bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen, has labeled the Vatican’s extended deal with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a “complete defeat” for faithful Catholics.
“With the protection of this agreement, the government forced the people from the underground to join the Patriotic Association… which is objectively schismatic,” Cardinal Joseph Zen told AFP this week, adding that the underground community has “practically disappeared” as a result. “That’s not victory, that’s a defeat — complete defeat,” Cardinal Zen said.
On Thursday, the Holy See Press Office announced the renewal of the 2018 Sino-Vatican agreement on the appointment of bishops for another two years, citing its “great ecclesial and pastoral value.”
Earlier this year, Cardinal Zen declared that while the Vatican seeks compromise with the CCP, they want “complete surrender.” In his ongoing criticism of the Vatican’s rapprochement with the CCP, Zen has insisted that Pope Francis is “naïve” in dealing with a country about which he knows little.
“The pope doesn’t know much about China. And he may have some sympathy for the Communists, because in South America, the Communists are good guys, they suffer for social justice,” Zen told the Catholic News Agency (CNA). “But not the Chinese Communists. They are persecutors.”
“So the situation is, humanly speaking, hopeless for the Catholic Church: Because we can always expect the Communists to persecute the Church, but now [faithful Catholics] don’t get any help from the Vatican,” he said.
“The Vatican is helping the government, surrendering, giving everything into their hands,” Zen said. Last December, Zen saidthat the pope’s policies in dealing with the CCP are “killing” the underground Church in that country.
“Unfortunately, my experience of my contact with the Vatican is simply disastrous,” the cardinal said, noting his particular distress over the Vatican’s deal with Beijing.
“A secret agreement, being so secret you can’t say anything,” Zen said of the deal. “We don’t know what is in it. Then the legitimization of the seven excommunicated bishops. That’s incredible, simply incredible.”
“But even more incredible is the last act: the killing of the underground,” he said.
China’s most famous “civil rights activist” has joined the chorus of critics who have “denounced” the recent deal between the Vatican and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a “betrayal”of Chinese Catholics.
In an op-ed, Chen Guangcheng, a blind scholar and human rights advocate, used the harshest language todescribeChina under communist rule, calling it an “extraordinarily dictatorial and authoritarian nation” where many kinds of freedoms that are taken for granted in the West are “routinely and often violently repressed.”
“Human rights activists and lawyers disappear and are tortured, while alternative political parties are crushed,” he said. “Calls for justice are met with the iron hand of the state.”
Because of his firsthand knowledge of the “brutality” of the Chinese communist state, Chen said he watched the Vatican’s rapprochement with China take shape with “intense shock and dismay.”
“What we currently know of the agreement is that the Vatican will cede selection of bishops in China to the Communist Party,” he said. “In exchange, the CCP will recognize the pope as the official head of the Catholic Church, and regular relations between the two states will be renewed.”
The Vatican’s acceptance of these terms “is a slap in the face to millions of Catholics and other faithful religious people in China who have suffered real persecution under the CCP,” said Chen, who was arrested in 2005 and detained for years for exposing China’s “forced sterilization” of women to carry out its one-child — or two-child— policy.
“Over the past decade, the CCP has been aggressively attacking underground Catholic and Protestant house churches, first going after banned religious symbols and dismantling crosses,”he said. “More recently, they have been destroying churches openly.”
The CCP has been “arresting priests, threatening congregants, and searching churches and places of worship,” Chen wrote. “Many have disappeared and been tortured while under the regime’s control, refusing to relinquish their beliefs to a degraded, intolerant political party, and proving the power of their faith.”
In his essay, Chen contends that the CCP only allows certain religious practices and churches as “a façade of religious freedom to satisfy the West,” while in reality, it despises religious believers and uses the “concessions” to gain ever tighter control over its citizens.
The CCP is even preparing its own “edition” of the Bible, titled “The Chinese Christian Bible,”Chen said, whose purpose is “to force its socialist, secular values into the text while presenting a fiction of religious tolerance to the outside.”
The Vatican decision to “cede”selection of Catholic bishops to the CCP is “simply preposterous,” he added, and the agreement is “a blatantly political move designed only to serve the CCP’s interests.”
The pact represents a major “decline” for the Vatican, but more importantly, it equates to “bowing before evil, of selling God to the devil,” he argues.
“This will become yet another shameful episode whose stain the Catholic Church will be unable to cleanse,”Chen warns.
Last September, the Vatican announcedthe signing of a “provisional agreement” with China on the naming of bishops, without specifying the exact terms of the accord.
“The deal was touted as a first step toward restoring diplomatic relations between the two parties, but critics have complained that ceding authority on the naming of bishops simply emboldened the Chinese Communist Party to harsher persecution of those who will not bow to the secular power.”
Pope Francis attempted to “assuage” the doubts of Chinese Catholics and others concerned with the deal by writing a letteron September 26 to Catholics and China and “the universal Church,”urging them totrusthim.
The government body that controls the Catholic church in China says it is investigating the selection of a bishop who cut his ties to the group as soon as he was ordained, in an embarrassment to Beijing that could deepen its rift with the Vatican.
Shanghai’s auxiliary Bishop Ma Daqin announced that he was leaving the Catholic Patriotic Association at the end of his ordination ceremony on Saturday, saying he wished to devote himself fully to his duties as bishop.
The move marked the biggest public challenge to Beijing’s control over the Catholic clergy in years. The Vatican does not recognize the Catholic Patriotic Association and says the Chinese church should take its orders directly from Rome.
Ma’s announcement was greeted with applause by hundreds of worshippers in Shanghai’s Cathedral of St. Ignatius, the seat of one of China’s largest, wealthiest and most independent dioceses. But he has not been seen since.
Ma, 44, was reportedly being held in isolation at a seminary. The Shanghai diocese said he had applied for and received permission to go into retreat beginning Sunday.
The Patriotic Association issued a two-sentence statement late Wednesday saying it was investigating violations of regulations in the selection of bishops in relation to Saturday’s ordination.
Patriotic Association spokesman Yang Yu refused to provide further details on Thursday, saying to do so “might affect or influence public opinion”about an ongoing investigation. “It is not convenient to release the details now,” Yang said.
In Rome, a spokesman said Thursday that the Vatican had no immediate comment on the latest developments in Ma’s case. However, in a note Tuesday, the Vatican appeared to take a conciliatory approach, saying his ordination was “encouraging and is to be welcomed.”
Hong Kong-based Catholic activist Anthony Lam said China’s response to Ma’s announcement would make reconciliation between the sides even harder. The onus is on Beijing to explain its actions, he said. “Obviously the event will cause problems in the process of normalization of the China-Vatican relationship,”Lam said.
The government’s options in Ma’s case appear limited. Barring him from his open episcopal duties could strengthen the status of the underground church that operates alongside the open church in most areas in defiance of government control. Allowing him to operate outside the Patriotic Association, however, would amount to a major surrender of authority.
Ma’s ordination had marked a notable case of cooperation between China and the Vatican, which have no formal relations and disagree bitterly over who has the right to appoint bishops. China demands it do so independently, while the Holy See says only the pope can make such decisions.
In Ma’s case, the pope had issued its approval of Beijing’s selection of him to take over as auxiliary, giving him day-to-day control over the Shanghai diocese and placing him next in line after 96-year-old Shanghai Bishop Jin Luxian.
Such agreements had been common in past, but Beijing has in recent years moved to assert its authority by acting independently. Last Friday, it appointed a new bishop in the northeastern city of Harbin who did not have papal approval and was immediately excommunicated by the Vatican.
China has an estimated 8 million to 12 million Catholics, around half of whom worship in underground congregations. China’s officially atheistic Communist Party ordered Catholics to cut ties with the Holy See in the 1950s, and persecuted the church for years until restoring a degree of religious freedom and freeing imprisoned priests in the late 1970s.
Renunciation of the Patriotic Association by priests in the open church is not unusual, although most such declarations are done in private. In addition to causing frictions with the Vatican, priests complain that taking part in the group’s activities is a major drag on their time, requiring frequent attendance at political meetings and wasting large amounts of public funds on banquets, official cars, travel and bureaucracy.
Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun takes part in a protest over religious freedom on mainland China
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