Cardinal once jailed by communists criticizes Vatican’s ‘silence’ about China’s persecution of Catholics

PRAGUE (LifeSiteNews) — A Czech cardinal who was once imprisoned by communists publicly criticized the Vatican under Pope Francis for ignoring Communist China’s human rights abuses and persecution of Catholics.

“Just as silence and complicity with the communist regime damaged my country and made it easier for the government to imprison dissidents, the Church’s silence in the face of human rights abuses by Communist China harms Catholic life in China,” Cardinal Dominik Duka, O.P, the archbishop emeritus of Prague, said in a recent article.

“Hudson Institute scholar Nina Shea has documented that eight Catholic bishops are now believed to be detained indefinitely without trial in China,” he noted. “We know that the great Cardinal Joseph Zen was arrested in 2022 and is now being watched and monitored by the state.”

“Jimmy Lai, a Catholic convert and newspaper owner, has been held in solitary confinement in Hong Kong for more than three years,” the cardinal added.

“Václav Havel (the famous Czech writer and statesman), with whom I once shared a cell, wrote that the only way to fight totalitarian power is for each of us to have the courage to choose to live the truth in our own lives, no matter what,” he continued. “Today, we are again facing totalitarian dictatorships and ideologies. Once again, courageous individuals are paying the price for standing up to them.”

“Strengthened by such modern witnesses, whether known or unknown, Vatican diplomacy must regain and raise its voice to join them in defending the human person and in defending the Gospel. The time of courage has come once again,” he declared.

Cardinal Duka, ordained a priest in 1970, was banned from ministering as a priest by the communist government of what was then Czechoslovakia, though he continued secretly preaching and teaching seminarians. In 1981, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison for “religious activities.”

The prelate compared the Vatican’s diplomacy with China to the policy of Ostpolitik employed by Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, in which “the struggle for freedom and human dignity had begun to be set aside in favor of the politics of détente, which was mainly supported by the political left and communist states.”

The “quiet diplomacy” of Ostpolitik “was skillfully overcome under Pope St. John Paul II, who strengthened underground and dissident information networks to raise his voice and extend his reach,” Cardinal Duka recalled. “He insisted that the Gospel of Jesus Christ be made public, no matter what.”

The Czech cardinal also criticized “attempts to exclude the Church — and the truths of the human person — far from the public square” across the West, as well as threats against schools and teachers who resist transgenderism and the firing of people for upholding “the good of marriage and the value of all human life.”

Pope Francis and China

Pope Francis, and the Vatican during his papacy, have faced widespread criticism for their lenient – and even admiring – approach to totalitarian left-wing regimes, particularly China.

China’s Communist government has oppressed the Catholic Church for decades but has significantly intensified its persecution of Catholics and other religious groups under current dictator Xi Jinping.

Since 2014, the Chinese government has also interned more than one million ethnic and religious minorities in China’s Xinjiang province, reportedly killing some prisoners and subjecting thousands of women to forced abortions, systematic sexual abuse, and involuntary sterilization.

However, despite his normal outspokenness, Pope Francis has rarely mentioned China’s abuses and has downplayed religious oppression in the country, saying that, “In China, the churches are full.”

Pope Francis has also been heavily criticized for his Vatican-China deal, which experts and human rights organizations, including the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, have said has exacerbated persecution of Chinese Catholics.

The secretive agreement, signed in 2018 and renewed in 2020 and 2022, is understood to allow the Chinese Communist government to select bishops and reportedly recognizes the Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), the schismatic, state-backed Catholic “church” in China. As part of the deal, the Vatican recognized seven illegitimate “bishops” installed by the CPA and pushed two bishops of the faithful underground Chinese Church out of their dioceses, replacing them with CPA “bishops.”

Cardinal Zen, the revered former bishop of Hong Kong, has condemned the Vatican-China deal as a “complete surrender” and called for the resignation of Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin over the agreement.

Pope Francis himself has admitted that underground Catholics “will suffer” under the deal. “There is always suffering in an agreement,” he said in 2018.

But the Argentine pope, who has expressed sympathy for communists, has nevertheless described the deal as “going well,” and Parolin has announced that the Vatican and China intend to renew it again this fall.

Glass houses, torchy.

VI. DEATH AND TORTURE FOR CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANT DISSIDENTS

1. Luther

"There are others who teach in opposition to some recognised article of faith which is manifestly grounded on Scripture and is believed by good Christians all over the world, such as are taught to children in the Creed . . . Heretics of this sort must not be tolerated, but punished as open blasphemers . . . If anyone wishes to preach or to teach, let him make known the call or the command which impels him to do so, or else let him keep silence. If he will not keep quiet, then let the civil authorities command the scoundrel to his rightful master - namely, Master Hans [i.e., the hangman]." (111;v.10:222/48)

"That seditious articles of doctrine should be punished by the sword needed no further proof. For the rest, the Anabaptists hold tenets relating to infant baptism, original sin, and inspiration, which have no connection with the Word of God, and are indeed opposed to it . . . Secular authorities are also bound to restrain and punish avowedly false doctrine . . . For think what disaster would ensue if children were not baptized? . . . Besides this the Anabaptists separate themselves from the churches . . . and they set up a ministry and congregation of their own, which is also contrary to the command of God. From all this it becomes clear that the secular authorities are bound . . . to inflict corporal punishment on the offenders . . . Also when it is a case of only upholding some spiritual tenet, such as infant baptism, original sin, and unnecessary separation, then . . . we conclude that . . . the stubborn sectaries must be put to death." (111;v.10:222-3/49)

Bullinger saw the contradiction in Luther's appeal to tradition for punishment of heretics, and thought it was "truly laughable" that he should suddenly appeal to the fact,

"of the Church having so long held this . . . If Luther's argument, based on longstanding usage, be admitted . . . then the whole of Luther's own doctrine tumbles over, for his teaching is not that which the Roman Church has held for so long." (51;v.6:259/50)

Logical consistency was never one of Luther's strong points.

Grisar states:

"That . . . every follower of his Evangel, were bound to regard all opinions which diverged from his own as godless heresies . . . he had never doubted from the moment he had discovered his new Evangel." (51;v.6:238)

2. Melanchthon

"Melanchthon accepted the chairmanship of the secular inquisition that suppressed the Anabaptists in Germany with imprisonment or death. 'Why should we pity such men more than God does?' he asked, for he was convinced that God had destined all Anabaptists to hell." (122:423)

"A regular inquisition was set up in Saxony, with Melanchthon on the bench, and under it many persons were punished, some with death, some with life imprisonment, and some with exile." (115:177)

"Even though the Anabaptists do not advocate anything seditious or openly blasphemous" it was, in his opinion, "the duty of the authorities to put them to death." (51;v.6:250/51)

At the end of 1530, Melanchthon drafted a memorandum in which he defended a regular system of coercion by the sword (i.e., death for Anabaptists). Luther signed it with the words, "It pleases me," and added:

"Though it may appear cruel to punish them by the sword, yet it is even more cruel of them . . . not to teach any certain doctrine - to persecute the true doctrine . . ." (51;v.6:251)

Protestant theologian Hunzinger concludes that:

"Melanchthon was wont to lose no time in having recourse to fire and sword. This forms a dark blot on his life. Many a man fell victim to his memorandum." (51;v.6:270/52)

In 1530 Melanchthon recommended death for rejection of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but changed his mind on this very doctrine later in his life! (122:424)

3. Zwingli

"Young Bible students he once mentored were now advocating more radical reform . . . refusing to have their babies baptized, citing his own earlier ideas . . . In January, 1525, Zwingli agreed that they deserved capital punishment . . . for tearing the fabric of a seamless Christian society." (53)

Zwingli's Zurich mercilessly persecuted the Anabaptists:

"The persecution of the Anabaptists began in Zurich . . . The penalties enjoined by the Town Council of Zurich were 'drowning, burning, or beheading,' according as it seemed advisable . . . 'It is our will,' the Council proclaimed, 'that wherever they be found, whether singly or in companies, they shall be drowned to death, and that none of them shall be spared.'" (111;v.5:l53-7)

4. Bucer

In his Dialogues of 1535, Bucer called on governments to exterminate by fire and sword all professing a false religion, and even their wives, children and cattle. (111;v.5:367-8,290-1)

5. Knox

"His conviction . . . harked back to the darkest practices of the Inquisition . . . Every heretic was to be put to death, and cities predominantly heretical were to be smitten with the sword and utterly destroyed:

"'To the carnal man this may appear a . . . severe judgment . . . Yet we find no exception, but all are appointed to the cruel death. But in such cases God wills that all . . . desist from reasoning when commandment is given to execute his judgments.'" (122:614/54)

Today, July 17th, is the feast of many saints, including the Sixteen Carmelites.

When the revolution started in 1789, a group of twenty-one discalced Carmelites lived in a monastery in Compiegne France, founded in 1641. The monastery was ordered closed in 1790 by the Revolutionary government, and the nuns were disbanded. Sixteen of the nuns were accused of living in a religious community in 1794.

They were arrested on June 22 and imprisoned in a Visitation convent in Compiegn, there they openly resumed their religious life. On July 12, 1794, the Carmelites were taken to Paris and five days later were sentenced to death. They went to the guillotine singing the Salve Regina. Before each sister climbed the podium they knelt before their abbess and asked, “Permission to die mother?”

They were beatified in 1906 by Pope St. Pius X.

The Carmelites were: Marie Claude Brard; Madeleine Brideau, the subprior; Maire Croissy, grandniece of Colbert Marie Dufour; Marie Hanisset; Marie Meunier, a novice; Rose de Neufville Annette Pebras; Anne Piedcourt: Madeleine Lidoine, the prioress; Angelique Roussel; Catherine Soiron and Therese Soiron, both extern sisters, natives of Compiegne and blood sisters: Anne Mary Thouret; Marie Trezelle; and Eliza beth Verolot.

The martyrdom of the nuns was immortalized by the composer Francois Poulenc in his famous opera Dialogues des Carmelites.

Sixteen Carmelites, pray for us.

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Cardinal once jailed by communists criticizes Vatican’s ‘silence’ about China’s persecution of Catholics

‘The Church’s silence in the face of human rights abuses by Communist China harms Catholic life in China,’ said Czech Cardinal Dominik Duka, who was sentenced to 15 months in prison by communists for ‘religious activities’ when he was a young priest.

Pope Francis and China