PopeWatch: Surprise, Surprise

You can always trust Communists to act like Communists:

Under the terms of the agreement, which has not yet been fully made public, Pope Francis has recognized seven party-appointed bishops, while Beijing has in turn recognized a portion of the formerly underground Vatican-appointed ones. In the future, the Holy See is expected to reach a compromise with Beijing over new appointments, in an arrangement that gives the CCP some control over who is selected.

But then last month, Shao Zhumin, a Vatican-appointed bishop of the eastern city of Wenzhou, who remains unrecognized by Beijing, disappeared. It was the latest in a string of detentions that Shao has faced in recent years. Some Chinese Catholics had hoped that such arbitrary arrests, a relatively common occurrence for underground priests, would end after the agreement was reached.

“The government has not given up its hope for control. They want the Church to be another tool of the state,” Paul Mariani, a Jesuit priest who researches Chinese religious policy at Santa Clara University, told me. “That’s common in China, across labor unions or NGOs—they all have to fall under the party at some level.”

Go here to read the rest.  Pope Francis has a charming faith in Leftist governments, a faith completely at variance with the facts.  Of course facts and this Pope have not been on speaking terms for a very long time.