Posted on 02/21/2017 6:50:08 PM PST by marshmallow
February 21, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Joseph Zen says the Vatican is betraying Catholics living their faith out clandestinely in China.
In an exclusive interview with LifeSiteNews, he says he has been urged to speak out by Catholics who lack the freedom to speak for themselves. Priests and bishops in the underground church have faced imprisonment for adhering to the Holy See, rather than submitting to the patriotic church approved by the Communist government.
Cardinal Zen, the Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong and China's highest-ranking prelate, is pleading with the Vatican not to "sell out" China's Catholics by striking a deal with the Communist government.
Such a deal would allow the Chinese government to nominate bishops for the pope to accept or reject. It would essentially mean Vatican acceptance of the government-controlled Church in China.
The Chinese government wants "total surrender" from the Church, Zen told LifeSiteNews, even though such a deal may appear to give the pope some power.
The Catholic Church in China operates underground. The government runs the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, a fake church of communist-approved and monitored clerics. Bishops of the underground church, which is loyal to the pope and not the communist government, face imprisonment and persecution.
Zen says that a Vatican deal with the Chinese government would damage the Church's credibility. After all, if the Chinese government can appoint bishops, other governments could expect to do so as well.
"We are very much worried because it seems that the Vatican is going to make a very bad agreement with China," Zen told LifeSiteNews. "And I can understand that the pope is really naive...He doesn’t know the Chinese communists. But unfortunately the people around him are not good at all. They have very wrong ideas. And I’m afraid that they may sell out our.....
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This Pope is not naïve. He knowingly working for the Dragon.
So now he’s Cardinal Zen?
He used to be Cardinal Sin.
Seriously. That’s funny.
Peking, Beijing, whatever.
He is not naïve.
Many of the finest Christians I know are Chinese, some of the finest Catholics too.
The Pope is most definitely betraying the Underground Catholic and Christian Church in China.
The Pope is not naive, he is very clever and he knows exactly what he is doing
For the underground church in China, Cardinal Kung Pen Mei pray for us.
That the church stays faithful to Christ and the sanctity of marriage, St. Thomas More pray for us.
He [Cardinal Zen] said he's written the pontiff "many letters...But then he doesn’t answer my letters."
LOL..........the "merciful" one doesn't "dialogue".
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