HK bishop: Vatican willing to give up Taiwan for China

Straits Times ^ | By Mary Kwang

[Siobhan]

A Vatican geopolitcal ping (although I do not understand entirely what the Vatican hopes to accomplish........)

Our Lady of China, pray for us.
Cardinal Kung, pray for us.

[Cicero]

Who knows what the truth of this is?

In any case, diplomatic relations between any government and the Vatican is much less important than the freedom of Catholics in that country to worship in union with the Church.

[Marines981]

Since when does the vatican have control of Taiwan?

[Loyalist]

Pingus ad orcae schismaticae et bumpus ad summum.

[TotusTuus]

In any case, diplomatic relations between any government and the Vatican is much less important than the freedom of Catholics in that country....

Oh, I don't know about that. I've just learned from another thread that the Pope "dragged" then President Clinton into the Balkans. Not to mention that the Holy See is responsible for WWII and the killing of 6 million Jews. Oh, and the Pope "supports" the Saddam Hussein regime with the killing of many innocent Christians and Jews...

As a Catholic, I never knew that our Pope was so powerful politically over sovereign states, including our own President... /tinfoil wrapped sarcasm>

[ScholarWarrior]

How many divisions does the Pope have?

[EODGUY]

I hope the bishop is wrong about the Vatican's willingness to cut off diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The Taiwanese need all the aid we can give them, religious and military.

EODGUY

[Scupoli]

Uneasy and confused bump.

[watsonfellow]

I think this article is true. I am in Taipei right now and that appears to be the gist of what will happen according to local reports.

This Pope I am afraid is losing control over the Vatican due to his illness, yes he is still sharp but he is enormously weak and unable to resist the pressures brought to bear by very senior Curial Prelates. It is sad really because like Reagan, the Holy Father, while a Holy Pontiff has appointed very many evil men to high offices within the Church.

[Cicero]

As some critics have pointed out, if Pope Pius X had stood on his balcony and told Hitler in so many words to stop killing Jews, does anyone really believe Hitler would have listened to him? Or, for that matter, that FDR would have done more to save them?

Pope John Paul II has been telling the world that abortion is a great evil for several decades. Did clinton pay any attention? Do the Jesuits at Commonweal or America pay attention?

No, the Pope has moral authority over the faithful within the Church, but other than that no one will listen to him unless they are already inclined that way, or unless they have a large population of faithful Catholic voters--which is something of a rarity these days.

[Land of the Irish]

This is very disturbing. Please pray for the underground, real Catholics.

[eleni121]

It is sad really because like Reagan, the Holy Father, while a Holy Pontiff has appointed very many evil men to high offices within the Church.

Too much sun or too much snow got you? President Reagan appointed evil men? Start naming them......

[Dog Gone]

I'm not a Catholic, so I don't know the personalities involved, but it sure seems to me that the Vatican is run by a bunch of evil leftists who are always willing to support dictators, socialists, and generally rotten people.

[HighRoadToChina]

The Vatican is going to give up Free China for the Enslaved China with 80 million underground Catholics and Christians. That is just wonderful. Maybe the Pope and Catholics need to read the following story of one woman in her stand against Evil.

I hope that you Catholics out there will write your priests and Rome to register your outrage.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/27/1038386200865.html
Tortured Chinese refuse to renounce God
November 28 2002

Communist secret police use extreme cruelty on suspects whose only crime is their faith, writes Nicholas Kristof.

She never broke, despite the beatings and electrical shocks, and even when she was close to death she refused to disclose the names of members of her congregation or sign a statement renouncing her Christian faith.

But now, months later, Ma Yuqin abruptly chokes and her eyes well with tears as she recounts her worst memory. As she was being battered in one room, her son was tortured in the next so that each could hear the other's screams, as encouragement to betray their church.

"They wanted me to hear his cries," she said, sobbing. "It broke my heart."

Ma, a steel-willed woman of 54, was brave enough to tell her story of the persecution that Christians sometimes still face in China. Dozens of members of her church are still imprisoned, and the rest are under tight scrutiny, but several church members dared to meet me for a tense interview after we all sneaked, one by one, into an unwatched farmhouse near Zhongxiang, in central China.

China is in many ways freer than it has ever been, and it's easy to be dazzled by the mobile phones and skyscrapers. But alongside all that sparkle is the old police state. Particularly in remote areas such as this, police can arrest people and torture or kill them with impunity, even if they are trying to do nothing more than worship God. Accordingly, the West must press China hard to observe not only international trade rules, but also international standards for human freedom.

Secret Communist Party documents just published in a book, China's New Rulers, underscore the grip of the police. The party documents say approvingly that 60,000 Chinese were killed, either executed or shot by police while fleeing, between 1998 and 2001. That amounts to 15,000 a year, which suggests that 97 per cent of the world's executions take place in China. And it is well documented that scores of Christians and members of the Falun Gong sect have died in police custody.

In some parts of China Christians worship completely freely. But in other areas the authorities brutally crush the independent churches, and that is what happened to the South China Church, an evangelical congregation.

Ma said she and her family were sleeping one night in May, 2001, when police burst into her house and arrested her, her son and her daughter-in-law. The police left her five-year-old grandson alone with nobody to take care of him.

A friend and fellow Christian named Yu Zhongju, 27, who dropped by the house was promptly arrested as well. Yu died in custody, and one can surmise that she was beaten to death.

According to interviews with church members and statements smuggled out of prison, dozens of church members were arrested at the same time and were beaten with clubs, jolted with cattle prods and burnt with cigarettes; when they fainted, buckets of water were used to revive them. Interrogators stomped on the fingers of male prisoners and stripped young women prisoners naked and abused them. "They used the electrical prods on me all over," Ma said, fighting back the tears again. "They wanted to humiliate us."

The government initially sentenced five church members to death. Ma herself was released because she was so sick that the authorities feared she would die in prison, but her son, Long Feng, was sent to a labour camp, where the guards told criminals to beat him up.

One of the ironies of Christianity in China is that in the first half of the 20th century, thousands of missionaries preached freely but left a negligible imprint. Yet now, with foreign missionaries banned and the underground church persecuted, Christianity is flourishing in China with tens of millions of believers.

To his credit, US President George Bush has emphasised the issue of religious freedom in China, and there is progress. Last month a court overturned the death sentences of the South China Church leaders, replacing them with long prison terms. Increasingly, a historic change is visible; the citizens of China are becoming less afraid of the government than it is of them.

I had assumed that Ma, like all the other church members I interviewed, would not want her name published. "No," she said firmly, "use my name. I'm not afraid. The police are afraid of foreign pressure, but I'm not afraid of them."

Pulitzer prize-winner Nicholas Kristof is a columnist for The New York Times, where this article first appeared.

[Dajjal]

Pray for Taiwan bump

Does this help explain anything?
Gorbachev Praises John Paul II's Ethical and Political Philosophy

[TotusTuus]

As some critics have pointed out, if Pope Pius X had stood on his balcony and told Hitler in so many words to stop killing Jews...

Other than the fact that you meant Pope Piux XII, your analysis is 100% correct!

Actually, I think he did essentially do just that in one of his "Urbi et Orbi" Christmas addresses to the world. Today he is scolded because the Jews weren't mentioned by name even though Hitler knew exactly what he was talking about, as did the editorial board of the NY Times.

[EODGUY]

This, in my opinion, is really tragic. I served in Taiwan and returned to the US a little over a year before we severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan at the insistance of Peking. I have long contended that our Pope is being spoon fed information by those around him that serves an agenda, in this case, contrary to the best interests of Taiwan and the Catholic Church.

I will never understand the propriety of turning our backs on a democracy......especially one that desperately needs our support.

It's been 30 years since I lived in Taiwan (Tainan) and would love to return for a visit. I pray that there is a free Taiwan to visit in the future.

[HighRoadToChina]

Thank you for serving in Taiwan. Taiwan is the light of China. If she is lost, China is lost.

[KneelBeforeZod]

what service were you in in Taiwan? Was the Army Gen. Chiklella (sp?) still there?

A lot has changed. The President Hotel up at Sun Moon late got destroyed in that big earthquake a few years ago. And the officers club in Taipei is a restuarant now...for a long time actually.