Catholics Increasingly Harassed Ahead Vatican-China Deal Renewal

09/29/2020Tang Zhe

Some churches refusing to join the Patriotic Church are repurposed by the state, while others are barred from activities in the name of “epidemic prevention.”

by Tang Zhe

As the expiration date for the Vatican-China deal of 2018 drew closer, local authorities across China intensified crackdowns on unregistered Catholics, ignoring the Vatican Guidelines of 2019 that ask to respect those who refuse to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) for reasons of conscience. Bitter Winter continuously receives reports about new cases of persecution. 

Nuns in Hebei ordered to return home

Nuns in the Diocese of Xuanhua in the northern province of Hebei are repeatedly pressured by local officials to fill out forms for joining the CPCA. “We’d rather be arrested and imprisoned then fill out these applications,” one of the nuns said. “After the forms are filled out, they would summon us to attend training classes in the provincial capital Shijiazhuang, where we would be indoctrinated with the CCP ideology, as they do it to priests.”

In June, the government of Gaojiaying town in Zhangjiakou city’s Chongli district ordered the nuns serving in the town’s Catholic Church, who refused to join the CPCA, to leave the area because “they were not locals.”

“This is our home; some of us have lived here for 20 years,” a nun lamented. “We have no homes to return to. Most of our family members have passed away.”

Unwilling to compromise, the nuns remain in the church. Still, they do not exclude the possibility that the local government will forcibly send them to their hometowns or imprison them in the near future.

Services to commemorate an archbishop’s death anniversary banned

August 28 marked the tenth anniversary of the death of Archbishop John Yang Shudao from the Archdiocese of Fuzhou in Fujian Province. Born in 1919, he was ordained a priest in 1947, but the communist authorities sentenced him to life in 1955. Released after years in captivity, he was repeatedly arrested again, spending most of his life in prison.

The United Front Work Department and Religious Affairs Bureau of Fuzhou-administered Lianjiang county restricted local believers from commemorating the archbishop’s anniversary in August in the name of “epidemic prevention.” But local Catholics believe that the real reasons were different. “Archbishop Yang had been imprisoned for 30 years for refusing to join the CPCA,” a churchgoer said. “The government forbids to commemorate archbishop Yang because he was a cohering force, uniting and influencing believers. And that is what the CCP fears most—a collective force joining together against it.”

He also revealed that the government prohibits unregistered Catholic churches from celebrating Mass or holding other activities using epidemic prevention as a pretext. The believer thinks that all such restrictions would be lifted as soon as congregations join the CPCA and raise the national flag. In reality, however, this is not the case.

A 300-year-old church in Jiangxi turned into an entertainment venue

The “Sorrowful and Immaculate Sacred Heart Church” (痛苦無玷聖心堂) in the Diocese of Yujiang in the southeastern province of Jiangxi has a history spanning nearly 300 years. Located in Gangbeijijia village under the jurisdiction of Yingtan city’s Tongjia town, the church has been renovated five times. The venue was ordered to raise the national flag, and since April this year, the local government issued several orders to rectify it, resulting in the removal of religious symbols and paintings inside and the cross atop the church roof.

On May 10, six government officials brought four villagers to the church and instructed them to dance, disrupting church activities.

On September 9, the town government ordered to repurpose the church and turn it into an entertainment venue with a canteen, an amusement arcade, and an activity center for the elderly.

“The church had to be rectified on orders from the provincial government. No leniency was allowed,” a local official said.

“The government has tried repeatedly to take over the church,” a congregation member told Bitter Winter. “I was ready to protest to the end, even if meant losing my job and government benefits.”

Threatening to cancel their welfare benefits and other state allowances, local governments across China are routinely pressuring people of faith to remove religious symbols from their homes, ordering to display portraits of President Xi Jinping or Chairman Mao instead.

https://bitterwinter.org/catholics-increasingly-harassed-ahead-vatican-china-deal-renewal/

When does a Church become a playground?

When does a Church become a business?

When does a Church become political?

When does a Church become corrupt?

When does a Church become willfully blind?

When does a Church become controlled?

Q

>>10867299

Francis Admitted That He Has Encouraged Priests To Become Schismatics

The Vatican's “Pastoral Guidelines” regarding the civil registration of the Chinese Catholic clergy with the Communist Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association is much worse than the Vatican's secret agreement with Beijing, Cardinal Joseph Zen told NcRegister.com (September 28).

Zen reports that even Francis agreed during a private audience, that the Patriotic Association is "objectively a schismatic Church.” Nevertheless, he invited the underground Church which has suffered for so many years in order to be faithful to the Vatican, to register with this group.

The Cardinal also informed that he didn’t receive "many responses” to his letter which he sent to the [indifferent] cardinals, and in which he asks questions about the Pastoral Guidelines.

https://www.gloria.tv/post/3wqTupyKex4U2mRUQNWuMa3Dp

Dialogue and Mercy: Francis Leaves Very Old Cardinal in the Rain

Cardinal Joseph Zen, 88, flew from Hong Kong to Rome for four days until September 27 to meet Francis, reports MarcoTosatti.com.

Zen delivered via his personal secretary Gonzalo Aemilius a letter to Francis by which he requested an audience but he never heard back from Francis.

The elderly Cardinal waited four days in Rome - in vain. Zen wanted to ask Francis for a Catholic candidate as the new Hong Kong Bishop. The seat has been vacant since January 2019.

A certain Father Peter Choi has been put forward for the post. However, he has the blessing “tyrant” Bejing and - according to Zen - he would be a “disaster” for the Church in Hong Kong.

https://gloria.tv/post/9wFaKWwjYRoU2qpSH7ofasLi7

>>10867305

Naïve, Corrupt—or Both?

As the ancient Chinese proverb warns, a bad beginning makes for a bad ending. In June of 2013, Pope Francis dispatched to China the infamous Theodore McCarrick to begin deliberations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to normalize relations with the Chinese Catholic Church. Those negotiations resulted in a secret pact signed by the parties on September 22, 2018. The result of this two-year agreement made for a bad ending for all religious believers in China.

Nevertheless, all signs point to a renewal of the disastrous Vatican-China secret deal. Both China and the Vatican indicate that the pact will be renewed in October. Despite unparalleled opposition to the agreement by religious freedom organizations and human rights NGOs, the handwriting is on the Vatican wall that Beijing and Rome will execute a continuation of the two-year deal regarding the appointment of Catholic bishops.

Yet a rare and historic development is emerging over this agreement. In the middle of a fierce reelection campaign, the Trump administration is taking a bold step to weigh in on the Sino-Vatican renewal. This past week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo penned a powerful and strategic condemnation in First Things. In “China’s Catholics and the Moral Witness of the Church,” Secretary Pompeo catalogs in gruesome detail the ongoing abuses and persecution of religious believers at the hands of the CCP during the agreement’s two-year cycle. Pompeo forcefully argued that “the Chinese people need the Vatican’s moral witness and authority in support of China’s religious believers.”

As America’s chief diplomat, Pompeo noted that the goal of the original agreement was to improve the condition of Catholics in China, yet the opposite occurred at the hands of the Vatican’s partner, the CCP. President Xi Jinping ramped up brutal persecution of Catholic laity, priests, and bishops.

>>10867320

Noteworthy is the ongoing persecution of priests who refuse to join the CCP-run “Patriotic Catholic Association.” During the two years of the deal, the CCP has shuttered churches; destroyed religious icons; detained, imprisoned and tortured priests; and demanded absolute allegiance to President Xi by replacing all images of Our Lord with portraits of the Paramount Leader.

“If the CCP manages to bring the Catholic Church and other religious communities to heel,” Secretary Pompeo observed in First Things, “regimes that disdain human rights will be emboldened.” The next day, he tweeted: “Two years ago, the Holy See reached an agreement with the CCP, hoping to help China’s Catholics. Yet the CCP’s abuse of the faithful has only gotten worse. The Vatican endangers its moral authority, should it renew the deal.” As a proponent of international religious freedom, Pompeo is acutely aware of the CCP’s ongoing parade of horrors of religious persecutions of all faiths and knows that CCP is not a reliable partner that will adhere to diplomatic or contractual terms. Clearly, the Trump administration is fed up.

Meanwhile, this summer, China brazenly reneged on its treaty with Britain, which guaranteed that Hong Kong would be secure under its own separate system of laws and freedoms. President Xi unilaterally voided that agreement and imposed draconian regulations on Hong Kong. Shockingly, last July, Pope Francis precipitously removed prepared language from a papal address that criticized Chinese tyranny. A transcript of the speech, which was released to the media beforehand, referred to the need for “societal freedom, and especially religious freedom” in Hong Kong, which ought to be “expressed in full and true liberty, as indeed various international documents provide for it.” Yet, when he delivered the speech, Francis omitted these references. Did he not want to anger his CCP partner?

The Trump administration is signaling that it is deeply troubled by the Vatican’s continued partnership with Beijing, to the detriment of freedom-loving Hong Kongers—many of whom are Catholics. Secretary Pompeo tweeted: “Catholics are among Hong Kong’s strongest voice for human rights, including Martin Lee and [Jimmy Lai]. Beijing has arrested, spied on, and harassed them for the ‘crime’ of promoting freedom. The Vatican should stand with fellow Catholics and the people of Hong Kong.”

Jimmy Lai, the billionaire publisher of the newspaper Apple Daily, is indeed a Catholic. Mr. Lai was arrested on August 12 by the Chinese authorities for violating the new draconian national security law, and his arrest garnered global condemnation. Yet the Vatican remained silent.

With the upcoming renewal of the Vatican-China agreement, Hong Kongers are feeling especially vulnerable by the Vatican’s silence. They may hope for an ally in the United States, at least so long as President Trump remains in office. Mr. Lai thanked Secretary Pompeo “for standing with us.” The powerful Catholic Lai also sternly criticized the Vatican in a tweet: “CCP broke the pact with the Vatican, demolished churches, and persecuted believers. Yet the Vatican still extend [sic] the pact with the regime for two more years. Is the decision made out of naivety, or is it corruption? Or both?” That’s a good question.

https://www.crisismagazine.com/2020/naive-corrupt-or-both

When does a Church become a playground?

When does a Church become a business?

When does a Church become political?

When does a Church become corrupt?

When does a Church become willfully blind?

When does a Church become controlled?

Q

>>10867325

https://www.yorechildren.com/blog

>>10867381

Whistleblower Claims Chinese Communists Pay Vatican $2 Billion in Bribes

Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.23 Jun 2020

ROME — Exiled Chinese dissident Guo Wengui alleged this weekend the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “allocates $2 billion a year” to pay off the Vatican for its silence concerning Chinese atrocities.

In a June 20th interview on The War Room, Mr. Guo said the CCP earmarks massive sums each year to win the allegiance of foreign countries including the Vatican, Italy, and Australia. Among them, the Vatican receives up to 2 billion dollars from the Chinese Communist Party every year, he said.

“The Chinese Communist Party allocates 2 billion US dollars each year” to gain influence over the Vatican’s internal policy making and to pay for its silence on the CCP’s repression of religious freedom, said the controversial billionaire whistleblower.

Guo has previously stated that China has drafted a complete strategy for world domination known by the initials “BGY,” which stands for Blue (control the Internet), Gold (buy influence with money), and Yellow (seduce key people with sex).

Since 2014, the CCP has formulated internal policies to invest a certain percentage of trade with foreign countries in the BGY program to erode the local state system, Guo said Saturday, and the current BGY quota for the United States is 5%.

According to data from the U.S. Trade Office, the total trade volume between China and the U.S. in 2018 was $7.37 trillion. If calculated according to 5%, the amount used for BGY in the United States would then be about $36.8 billion, Guo said.

Guo also offered a similar calculation for Australia.

“The trade volume between the CCP and Australia is about US $200 billion,” he said. “Previously, 1 percent was used for BGY, but it rose to 5 percent. That is, $10 billion was used for BGY.”

According to Guo, these huge amounts of BGY funds are employed for a variety of uses, including bribing local officials, regulating media messaging, and controlling local resources.

A 2019 report released by the International Cyber Policy Centre at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute revealed hundreds of Twitter accounts linked to the state-backed effort to denigrate pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong had formerly been used to target critics of the Chinese government, principally Guo Wengui.

The accounts were part of a coordinated information campaign operating for more than two years to target Mr. Guo as well as jailed publisher Gui Minhai.

“Those early efforts are an attempt to shape sentiment and the international narrative around these prominent critics of the Chinese government and to shape them in such a way as to influence the Chinese diaspora’s perception of these individuals,” said Jake Wallis, one of the report’s chief authors.

For its part, the Vatican has been carrying on a charm offensive with the CCP for several years, and in September 2018 signed an important secret accord with Beijing concerning the appointment of Catholic bishops in China.

According to veteran Vatican journalist John L. Allen, Jr., the Vatican has spared no effort in its attempt to woo Beijing into full diplomatic relations, a key priority of the Francis papacy.

The Vatican is “covetous of a relationship with China, and often apparently willing to stifle objections and give away a great deal” in order to move toward that goal, Allen wrote last month.

In short, “the Vatican is moving full-steam ahead in its courtship of Beijing, with the ultimate prize remaining full diplomatic relations, a secure legal standing for the church, and partnerships on the global stage,” Allen wrote.

The Vatican’s 2018 overture to Beijing was sweetened by the May 2020 launch of a new Chinese edition of the Jesuit-edited journal Civiltà Cattolica, which enjoys a semi-official Vatican status, Allen noted.

La Civiltà Cattolica said the new edition is meant “as a gesture of friendship, given the increasingly important role that the Chinese language plays in the contemporary world within the global context.”

Mr. Allen’s appraisal of the Vatican’s courtship of China squares with what other Vatican-watchers have been observing as well.

Francis dreams of being the pope who will establish diplomatic relations with Beijing, and to achieve this goal he is willing to make “concessions,” declared Vatican analyst Alban Mikozy on French television last December.

“Pope Francis is a prudent man,” Mikozy said. “He pursues a dream: to be the sovereign pontiff who will restore relations between China and the Vatican.”

“In order to do this, he is ready to make a few concessions: say nothing about Hong Kong, do not get too excited when the Chinese leader talks about rewriting the Bible,” he added, in reference to announcements that the CCP intends to retranslate the Bible and other sacred texts to make them conform to socialist ideology.

Because of this overarching desire, Mikozy said, the pope is willing to turn a blind eye to the CCP’s violations of religious liberty and other human rights issues.

Last November, for instance, during an in-flight press conference during his return flight from Asia, the pope reiterated his desire to visit China, while dodging questions about the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests.

“I would like to go to Beijing,” Francis said. “I love China.”

According to Mikozy, the pope’s silence on Hong Kong suggests that he will go to great lengths not to offend the CCP.

The pope has lavished fulsome praise on China, insisting that China’s communist government protects religious freedom and that “churches are full.”

Meanwhile, the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the Argentinian Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, has held up communist China as the best model for living out Catholic social teaching today.

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/06/23/whistleblower-claims-chinese-communists-pay-vatican-2-billion-in-bribes/

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