Posted on 09/29/2020 3:08:04 PM PDT by ebb tide
VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Vatican's second-in-command is defending the Holy See's deal with China, a day before U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to shame Pope Francis for wanting to renew the controversial concordat.
Cdl. Zen pleads with Francis not to appoint a pro-China bishop
Pre-empting Pompeo's speech on religious freedom, to be delivered at the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See on Tuesday, Vatican Secretary of State Cdl. Pietro Parolin — as part of a Vatican News report — justified the pact as pastoral.
"The goal of the provisional agreement has never been merely diplomatic, much less political, but was always genuinely pastoral," Parolin stressed.
Parolin explained:
[The agreement's] objective is to permit the Catholic faithful to have bishops in full communion with the successor of Peter who are at the same time recognized by the authorities of the People's Republic of China. The provisional agreement exclusively treats the process for the appointment of bishops ... an essential question for the life of the Church and for the necessary communion between the pastors of the Chinese Catholic Church with the bishop of Rome and with the bishops throughout the world.
In 2018, immediately after signing the deal, Parolin said, Pope Francis had emphasized that "in the last decades, wounds and divisions in the heart of the Catholic Church in China were 'centered especially on the figure of the bishop as the guardian of the authenticity of the faith and as guarantor of ecclesial communion.'"
However, 88-year-old Chinese cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun — who was refused a meeting by Pope Francis after arriving at the Vatican last week — pointed out that the deal had backfired on the Church, leaving important dioceses without a bishop or with the impending appointment of a bishop approved by the atheist Communist Party.
No deals can be made with this regime: Even thinking of making deals with Beijing is crazy. It's like making a deal with the Devil.Tweet
"The agreement concerns the appointment of bishops: Well, in two years there has been no new appointment. On the other hand, under the pretext of the agreement, seven excommunicated bishops were recognized by the Holy See," Zen told Italian news media La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana.
Cardinal Parolin, however, claimed that Francis "has re-established full communion with Chinese bishops ordained without papal mandate" only "after years of lengthy negotiations undertaken by his predecessors."
The Catholic Church approved by the communist government remains "schismatic," says Cdl. Joseph Zen
Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, also cited the example of Chinese-controlled Hong Kong, which he says "has not had a titular bishop since Jan. 2019" following the death of Bp. Michael Yeung Ming-cheung.
"We are now into almost two years of stalemate: Initially it seemed obvious that Aux. Bp. Joseph Ha Chi-shing would be appointed, but his name was strongly unwelcome in Beijing since he showed too much sympathy for the democratic movement that rebels against the Chinese regime," Zen told Italian news media La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana.
Communism is not eternal, and when it falls it will be found that the Church has collaborated with this inhuman regime; [the Church] will have no more moral authority.Tweet
Zen also said he made a special trip to Rome to warn the Holy See against the appointment of Peter Choy Wai-man as the new bishop of Hong Kong.
Choy, one of the four vicars general of Hong Kong, "risks splitting the Hong Kong Church" and "apart from the strong reaction [to the appointment] among the majority of the Catholic faithful of the diocese, it would be the definitive capitulation of the Church before the Chinese political power," Zen said.
Pro-communist vicar general Fr. Peter Choy Wai-man
"It would mean that the 'secret' agreement, signed two years ago, actually gives a free hand to the rule of Beijing," Zen lamented.
But according to Cdl. Parolin, Pope Francis insists that "the sole scope of the provisional agreement is to support and advance the preaching of the gospel and to reestablish and preserve the full and visible unity of the Catholic community in China."
Zen told the Italian media:
Communism is not eternal, and when it falls it will be found that the Church has collaborated with this inhuman regime; [the Church] will have no more moral authority. No deals can be made with this regime: even thinking of making deals with Beijing is crazy. It's like making a deal with the devil.
"Even though contact [with China] was blocked in recent months due to the pandemic, the results [of the concordat] have been positive, although limited, and suggest going forward with the application of the agreement for another determined period of time," the Vatican announced.
Ping
The first step was making a business deal with Communist China. The second step is making a deal between the Catholic Church and the Communist Chinese. This Pope is a gradualist Communist. They have patience and they plan long term. The globalist business people who made the sell out deal with China 30 years ago were traitors who knew that they were betraying America.
The current Pope does not seem very ‘Catholic’.
Just say’n...
Parolin is a communist.
Isn’t this exactly what Isaiah warned us of?
Similar to how we have to pretend Francis (and maybe even John XX111 onward) were real Popes in order to salvage "apostolic succession".
"What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?" 2 Corinthians 6:15
China has made it clear what the stakes are. It is what it is..
Amen.
Prophecy of the Popes
Cash is King.
While I am not a Catholic, I am not religiously ignorant of what makes a faithful observant Catholic and how any deal that concedes power to the Communist Party of China in the naming of Catholic bishops in China cannot in the long run favor either Catholicism or Christianity within Catholicism in China.
Francis is also ignoring that while making the compromise with the CPP the CCP is rewriting the bible and going to produce a regime official version that any “officially recognized” Christian church in China will have to use.
For Catholics in China it all means leaders selected by the CCP instructing the faithful with scripture revised and approved by the CCP.
I believe Francis is not so intellectually stupid as to not understand all that. He is simply and squarely dishonest in his refusal to admit it.
If it’s “pastoral not political” why is it handled by the Vatican Secretary of State?
And why is it’s counterpart a communist government?
Just like the “deal” the Vatican made with Mussolini in 1929, with The Lateran Treaty:
In 1929 the long wait finally paid off when Mussolini proved willing to enter an alliance with the Vatican. A precondition of the negotiations was destruction of the parliamentary Catholic Italian Popular Party. Pius XI disliked political Catholicism because he could not control it. Like his predecessors, he believed that Catholic party politics brought democracy into the church by the back door. The demise of the Popular Party caused a wholesale shift of Catholics into the Fascist Party and the collapse of democracy in Italy.
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