PopeWatch: Mosher

Few people in the West know more about Communist China than Steven W. Mosher.  Here are some of his thoughts about the Vatican sellout agreement in regard to the Chinese government:

Here the suggestion is that “clandestinity”—hiding from the Communist authorities–is no longer necessary because these same authorities are supposedly no longer “imposing direct control above and beyond the legitimate competence of the state.”

But this is patent nonsense.  New controls are being imposed on the Catholic Church, and on all religions, even as I write. The increasingly oppressive Communist regime headed by a Communist party leader, Xi Jinping, who self-consciously models himself on the brutal Chairman Mao Zedong, is cracking down on all forms of religious expression.

New restrictions on religious activity were announced on February 1^st of this year. According to a priest of the Underground Church, the new rules state that “all religious sites must be registered, no religious activities can be held beyond registered venues, non-registered clergymen are forbidden to host religious liturgies, and that minors and party members are forbidden from entering churches. … The living space for the Church is getting less and less.”

Has anyone in the Vatican read these new regulations, which make it clear that China is quickly reverting to Maoist-type oppression? Do they consider that banning anyone under the age of 18 from entering a church an act falling within the “legitimate competence of the state”? Has it occurred to anyone there that now may be a particularly inauspicious time to force the Underground Church into the embrace of the Chinese Communist Party, as the new agreement does?

I note that Article 73 of the new regulations expressly forbids a priest or bishop from “being subject to the control of foreign forces”, a rule which would seem to violate the allegiance they owe to the Magisterium. The same regulations forbid them from “organizing and presiding over unapproved religious activities held outside religious venues.” Strictly interpreted, this would mean that a priest could be punished saying Mass in a private home, or even for blessing someone outside the church precincts.

The Pope writes, “I now invite all Chinese Catholics to work towards reconciliation.”  

But the division between Catholics in the underground and patriotic Churches was not caused by the Catholics themselves. Rather, it arose in reaction to actions by the Chinese Communist Party, which in 1958 set up a Party-controlled Church called the Catholic Patriotic Association. Those Catholics who were not willing to compromise their faith went underground.

This division cannot be healed by Catholics themselves, because they were not the cause of it.  The Chinese Communist Party was the cause of the original division, and it remains today a dominating and controlling presence over all Catholics in China.

The entire exercise seems somehow backwards, because historically it was the Underground Church that remained loyal to the Magisterium, while the Patriotic Church accepted the authority of the Chinese Communist Party to govern its affairs.

Now their roles are seemingly reversed. The Pope’s secret agreement apparently recognizes the Catholic Patriotic Church, and puts the onus on the long-persecuted Underground Church to accept supervision and control by its authorities.  That is to say, it lends the authority of the Magisterium to the Communist Party itself, which will be able to claim—rightly—that the Pope has ordered underground bishops, priests, and laity to cooperate with the religious authorities anointed by the Chinese Communist Party.

Will the secret agreement help to unify China’s divided Catholic Church and “heal the wounds of the past?” Or will it only deepen that division by driving the Underground Church even further underground as the Catholic Patriotic Church and its bishops are recognized by the Vatican?

Anyone who wants to understand the difference between Pope Benedict and Pope Francis merely has to read and compare their two letters to the Chinese faithful.  The letter of the Pope Emeritus (a phrase that breaks my heart) is detailed and refined. It shows a deep understanding of the situation in China, is compelling in the immediacy of its prescriptions, and is filled with a spirit of hope and charity.

The short letter of the current occupant of the See of Peter is none of these things. It is vague and unconvincing.  Its central argument—that the faithful in China and around the world should simply trust that he knows what he’s doing–relies upon the story of Abraham. 

As the Pope writes, “Called by God, Abraham obeyed by setting out for an unknown land that he was to receive as an inheritance, without knowing the path that lay ahead. Had Abraham demanded ideal social and political conditions before leaving his land, perhaps he would never have set out. . . . I want to confirm you in this faith … and to ask you to place your trust ever more firmly in the Lord of history and in the Church’s discernment of his will.”

In other words, Pope Francis is asking Catholics to trust his secret agreement with the Chinese Communist Party because he has correctly discerned the will of God.

Perhaps he has.  Nevertheless, in dealing with a situation as complex as that which is found in China, and one which involves the exercise of a considerable amount of prudential judgment, I would welcome an argument more compelling than a simple appeal to papal authority.  

Go here to Lifesite News to read the rest.  Let’s be bluntly honest here.  Pope Francis does not give a damn about faithful Chinese Catholics.  He is pursuing his own agenda and that agenda has virtually nothing to do with a Pope’s role to defend the teaching of the Church, and, to the best of his ability, to defend faithful Catholics.  What he is doing to faithful Chinese Catholics he is attempting to do to faithful Catholics around the globe, to place us in the hands of absolute governments if they mouth the Leftist pieties which are the true Sacred Writ for our Pope.  PopeWatch has difficulty in deciding whether the Pope is more ignorant than evil, or more evil than ignorant, but in either case he should be regarded by faithful Catholics as what his actions reveal him to be:  an enemy of their Faith.