Pope Francis has agreed to fire two Roman Catholic bishops associated with the “underground church” in China, replacing them with stooges of the state-controlled church.
Why? He wants the Vatican to have better relations with China.
It’s an astonishing development from a pope who seems to take great pleasure lecturing the world on morality. In fact, it’s a complete capitulation to evil.
In effect, he is handing over authority to name leaders of his church to a tyrannical government that insists on controlling almost every aspect of the lives of its citizens – including the way they worship and practice their faith.
He has willingly delivered his persecuted flock over to evil.
It’s unconscionable. It’s cruel. It’s barbaric. It’s immoral. It’s wicked.
I have been critical of this pope in the past, and I’m gratified that many Catholics have stood by me in those dissents. But this action is simply beyond the pale. It’s hard to imagine even secular leaders currying favors with China by handing over millions of the innocent faithful into the clutches of totalitarian Communist fiends.
The pope, always a favorite of the international press because of his penchant for political correctness, has astonished even the elite media, which, at least has a sense that China has no tolerance for anything it does not control absolutely.
About half of the 10 to 12 million self-professing Catholics in China worship in state-approved churches run by apparatchiks of the authoritarian Beijing government, while the other half risk their livelihoods and arrest for worshipping underground.
“On a scale of evil from one to 10, this was a 10 … absolute evil,” said China expert Steven Mosher about the decision. “Crosses are currently being ripped off the top of churches, and home church leaders are being arrested and tortured. … Any political party that will kill 400 million of its own unborn citizens … will stop at nothing to achieve its goals.”
One underground church leader put it this way: “Everybody, and I mean everybody, knows someone who was murdered, or tortured, or disappeared to defend the principle that was just abandoned.”
This pope attacks Donald Trump for using his explicit constitutional prerogative to manage immigration in his own country, yet he yields his own authority to name bishops of his church. It’s a staggeringly hard thing to comprehend.
Beijing has so far appointed seven bishops Rome opposes, while there are at least 30 underground bishops still operating without the government’s approval but with Rome’s blessing. How would you like to be one of those 30 or more bishops after this surrender?
By the way, this “deal” was in the works through 18 months of negotiations.
China's most senior Catholic has blasted the Pope for a potential rapprochement between the Vatican and Beijing comparing it to striking a deal with Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former bishop of Hong Kong, said any agreement the church makes with China would be 'betraying Jesus Christ' amid a thaw in more than six decades of bitter relations.
The state-controlled China Catholic Patriotic Association still controls the church and controversially appoints bishops without any input from the Vatican meaning sermons could be marred with rhetoric from the Communist Party.
And Cardinal Zen, 84, said that at any agreement where Beijing would have a hand in approving clergy would be 'a surrender'.
'Maybe the pope is a little naive, he doesn't have the background to know the Communists in China,' Zen said at the Salesian school in Hong Kong where he teaches.
'The pope used to know the persecuted Communists (in Latin America), but he may not know the Communist persecutors who have killed hundreds of thousands.'
'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,' Zen told the Guardian.
And should a deal be struck and the government still able to appoint Bishop's of their choice the Cardinal said the gospel preached will be still be influenced by the Communist Party.
'It's only the impression of freedom, it's not real freedom, the people sooner or later will see the bishops are puppets of the government and not really the shepherds of the flock.'
'The official bishops are not really preaching the gospel. They are preaching obedience to Communist authority,' said Zen who has been outspoken about the lack of political freedom and religious liberty in China.
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