The Zen of President Bush

What Does the Prayer Really Say ^ | June 21, 2007 | Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

[Frank Sheed]

21 June 2007

The Zen of President Bush

CATEGORY: SESSIUNCULUM — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 9:52 am

This is a really interesting story in the WaPo about President bush and one of WDTPRS’s favorite cardinals, H.E. Joseph Card. Zen Ze-Kiun.   Biretta tip to Argent   o{]:¬)

A Chinese Cardinal Meets the Real Bush

By Robert D. Novak
Thursday, June 21, 2007; A23

On May 31, President Bush met for 35 minutes in the private living quarters of the White House with Cardinal Joseph Zen, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Hong Kong, in an event that was not announced and did not appear on his official schedule. Their meeting did not please the State Department, elements of the Catholic hierarchy and certainly not the Chinese government. But it signifies what George W. Bush is really about.

In Hong Kong, Zen enjoys more freedom to speak out than do his fellow bishops in China proper, and he has become known as the spiritual voice of China’s beleaguered democracy movement. Since Hong Kong was handed over to Beijing by the British government in 1997, he has increasingly called for both religious freedom and democracy in China. Consequently, the China desk at the State Department in Washington and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing contended that, for the sake of Sino-American relations, it would be a bad idea for the president to invite the cardinal. So did some of Zen’s fellow cardinals.  [Like…. who? Which cardinals? See below…]

So, why did the president invite him? The fact that no news of the session leaked out for two weeks indicates that this was no political stunt to revive Bush’s anemic poll ratings. The president got divided counsel from his advisers regarding the impact the meeting would have on China’s rulers. As he nears the end of a troubled presidency, Bush as a man of faith places the plight of the religious in unfree countries at the top of his agenda.

Pope Benedict’s decision last year to place the red hat of a cardinal on Joseph Zen Ze-kiun at age 74 was not popular among advocates of a negotiated settlement between the Vatican and the Chinese government. For the past decade, Zen has been an increasingly vigorous and even strident advocate of democracy for China.

The suggestion that Zen conclude his three-week visit to 14 North American cities with a meeting in the White House came from presidential speechwriter Bill McGurn. One of the most conservative White House aides, McGurn had become acquainted with and impressed by Zen during his time as editorial page editor of the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review.

McGurn’s advice did not please the State Department, which contacted the politically well-connected Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, [That figures.  The picture is much clearer now.] the former archbishop of Washington. According to Hong Kong sources, McCarrick advised that it might be better if the U.S. government worked through the regular Vatican diplomatic corps.

Clark T. Randt Jr., the U.S. ambassador in Beijing, also weighed in against a Bush-Zen meeting. Randt is an old China hand who has spent 30 years in Asia as a lawyer-businessman and is fluent in Mandarin. He is referred to as "Ambassador Squish" by pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. Randt is also a good friend of the president, dating to their days at Yale.  [Maybe they were in the same…. organization?]

But more important to Bush than advice from a college chum is what he believes, as the difficult days of what has been an unpopular presidency dwindle. He met in Washington last year with dissident "House Christians" from China. Speaking in Prague, a week after his talk with Zen, Bush affirmed his position on the side of religious dissidents everywhere: "Freedom is the design of our Maker, and the longing of every soul."

In a city abounding in leaks, I first learned on June 13 about the cardinal’s visit to the White House via a circuitous route, from an American Catholic layman. That same day, Raymond Arroyo of the Eternal Word Television Network, acclaimed reporter of Catholic news, made public that the meeting took place.

Bush asked Zen whether he was the "bishop of all China." [The President might not know much about Catholics but he sure does like and respect them.]  Replying that his diocese was just Hong Kong, Zen told Bush of the plight of Catholics in China, including five imprisoned bishops. The cardinal is reported by sources close to him to have left the White House energized and inspired. George W. Bush is at a low point among his fellow citizens, but he is still a major figure for Catholics in China who look to him as a clarion of freedom.

[Frank Sheed]

Interesting take on the true feelings of President Bush regarding religious freedom in China.

[Frank Sheed]

Catholic religious freedom in China Ping!

[Frank Sheed]

China Ping!

[Frank Sheed]

13-June-2007 — EWTNews Feature
Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong Meets with U.S. President George W. Bush

By Raymond Arroyo

Washington D.C., June 13, 2007 (EWTNews).- EWTNews has learned that Cardinal Joseph Zen, the Archbishop of Hong Kong and an outspoken advocate of religious freedom, met privately with President George W. Bush at the White House on May 31st. According to Church sources in the US and China, the meeting was held in the President’s private residence at the White House. No details of the meeting have been released and it was not on the president’s official schedule. Our sources tell us, however, that Cardinal Zen discussed the state of the Church in China, the problem of the government run Catholic Patriotic Association, and the need for religious freedom.

The meeting comes at a moment when the relationship between the Vatican and Beijing is tense. The recent appointment of Catholic bishops by Beijing authorities without Vatican approval has soured relations. Those loyal to the Pope have been subjected to harassment and outright persecution for their allegiance. At present five Chinese Catholic bishops are in prison, and others remain under house arrest.

As the Archbishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Zen enjoys a freedom that many of his fellow clergy in mainland China do not. He has used that freedom to repeatedly give voice to their plight and is in many ways regarded as the spiritual leader of the pro-democracy movement in China.

For weeks now, the Vatican has been promising a papal letter directed toward Catholics in China. The letter will reportedly call on Chinese officials to recognize the religious freedom of Catholics in the country, and defend the Pope’s right to appoint his own bishops to the Chinese Church.

In early June Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, said that the letter was “approved by the Holy Father” and in the midst of being translated. No release date has been set.

Cardinal Zen’s meeting with President Bush is not unprecedented. In 2006 Bush hosted a meeting with leaders of the Christian “house church” movement and has long been attentive to religious persecution around the world.

Just this past week in Prague the President said he was instructing US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to have every US ambassador in “un-free nations” meet with “activists for democracy”, and those who “demand human rights.”

Cardinal Zen’s visit with President Bush was part of a three week trip to North America that took him to 14 cities. (Raymond Arroyo)

[Frank Sheed]

Ping for the President and Cardinal Zen.

[rogernz]

whereever there is persecution, america and GWB are looked to as saviours. I hope W does something about china and freedoms there.

[Frank Sheed]

The Chinese have an underground Church and an approved “government” Church with Bishops chosen by the ChiComs.

When Pope Benedict chose Cardinal Zen, this calculus changed. I wonder if religious freedom was discussed when the President met the Pope? It would have to make news on the internet in China since it is impossible to keep such news out. The Christian faith is growing dramatically there.

[Cicero]

Fascinating. It's getting to the point where you could change your mind about President Bush about twice a day.

Since you also posted Raymond Arroyo's piece about this, I'll take the opportunity to plug his wonderful biography of Mother Angelica to anyone who hasn't yet read it. It's now available in paperback. It's absolutely fascinating, and I think that many Protestants might find it so, as well as Catholics.

[Frank Sheed]

Thanks. Just when Bush is counted out, he does something like veto the Stem Cell bill. I’ll have to wait until this guy’s final days, I guess.

[rogernz]

how does the one-child policy work with catholic families?

[Frank Sheed]

The Church would be diametrically opposed to this policy. The problem is, those who worship at Masses held by underground priests would have to then meld into the masses in the streets above. It is Stalinesque.

We have seen this play before. The Communists greatest hope is to infiltrate the Church as was done by the Russian bloc Communists. Cardinal Zen is apparently a mythical figure to all Christians who see his defiance.

[freekitty]

Wasn’t Bush’s father Ambassador to China at one point? If Bush is so religious freedom conscious and freedom conscious, I will ask the obvious question?

Why is he trying to sell his own people down the river to slavery?

Also, back to his father being Ambassador to China. There are just to many things that keep popping up about the Clintons and the Bushes. I know Mena AR was aimed at both of them even at different times. Is it fact or fiction that these two families are somehow intertwined. Of course, for the good of the people. I am not a conspirator; just curious as to how they connect.

[Frank Sheed]

I can’t act as an apologist for the President! With the exception of abortion on which he has been a stalwart defendant against the right to choose, and except for his excellent picks on the Supreme Court, the man has been a puzzle to me. And then, just when things like immigration make me want to tear out my hair, I hear this story.

Cardinal Zen is a revered man in China. His choice by the Pope was a “shot heard round the world.” However, why there is such a camaraderie between Clinton and Bush, the elder, and why there is this undercurrent in his administration of a New World Order design is not in my pay grade to decipher.

[Jagman]

The Zen of George Bush:

"What is the sound of one hand clapping? That's right, comphrensive immigration reform!"

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought--you got it: comphrensive immigration reform!"

At any given moment, I open my eyes and exist. And before that, during all eternity, what was there? Why yes: comphrensive immigration reform!"

[fieldmarshaldj]

Bush, Sr. was officially “Liaison to (Red) China” for 13 months at the start of the Ford Administration (October 1974-December 1975).

[rogernz]

i wonder if russia is still spying and infiltrating the church. when you hear from the US govt that russia has at least as many spies in the US today as it did during the cold war, i don’t feel so comfortable.

[lonestar67]

Bush is the man of Steel.

Someday all the Bush Bashers are going to realize the depth of this man’s character and compassion.

It is astounding that he can show this nation and even the world such grace.

I wish Americans would grapple with how they are being manipulated to HATE this man.

That hatred serves the primary interest of dictatorship and oppression. The organized hatred of US Presidents is always a foremmost effort to dim the light of hope that dissidents feel all over the world. Dissidents have known for decades that this Nation is their greatest hope. The blistering and humiliation of American Presidents such as Bush is a calculated effort to sustain inhumanity.

I pray this madness would be stilled.

[Coleus]

.

[freekitty]

Thank you for the correct info.

[freekitty]

Maybe they are just trying to keep us on edge. You know you can control that way. Who knows