If there is a single Catholic who thinks that the 2018 Sino-Vatican Deal was a good idea, they must be very good at hiding themselves.
The deal was, by any objective measure, a terrible mistake.
Many people, including ourselves, could understand some of the logic that might have underpinned it. There were diplomatic files that we were not privy to, a recognition between the two might be a breakthrough that could be built upon, it might guarantee some safety for Christians in China.
But to understand the logic is different from believing in it. Everyone knew that it was a mistake.
If you don’t know know what was in the deal, essentially the fake Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which the Chinese Communist Party set up in the 1950s to stop the rise of genuine Catholicism, was recognised by the church but with the caveat that the Pope could have influence on appointments within it. This was at the expense of the real underground church, which contains the persecuted Christians who have stayed loyal to Rome, many of them enduring a far more sustained maltreatment than the Uighur Muslims, the cause of whom has become quite trendy in the West as of late. If being abandoned by Rome after staying loyal to them for 60 years sounds rough, well yes it is. As a Catholic, it is to all of our shames that our brethren have been treated this way.
What sort of man could broker such a deal? That honour falls to none other than sex crazed pervert former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Friend of Joe Biden, McCarrick was strangely picked to negotiate with Communist countries like Cuba and China above others who were both personally and professionally more suited. It was certainly unusual for a cleric with rumoured sexual deviancy to be given such access to covert information.
McCarrick travelled to China 8 times in total. In February 2016, McCarrick stated:
“I see a lot of things happening that would really open many doors because President Xi and his government are concerned about things that Pope Francis is concerned about’’
In 2016, he visited and met with Bishops from the Patriotic Church. A 2006 document made available by Wikileaks revealed that he had stayed with members of the Patriotic Church on 2 occasions. In a 2009 visit, Nancy Pelosi gave McCarrick’s good wishes to a Patriotic Church Bishop on his behalf. McCarrick regularly stayed at the Seminary of the Patriotic Church and in 2003 he travelled on a ‘personal visit’. The McCarrick report recently released by the Vatican mentions China almost 100 times, and mentions that, ‘Based upon information provided by Nuncio Viganò and Cardinal Ouellet to Cardinal Parolin in 2014, McCarrick’s activities in China led to some concern within the Secretariat of State’. One recent online article has accused McCarrick of ‘spreading CCP propaganda’.
The Chinese government have recently announced that from May 1st 2021, they’ll have a new process for selecting bishops and it will not include any papal role in the process. This will negate the Vatican deal.
China’s underground church was sold out for nothing.
In the coming weeks, the Sacred Heart Church in Yining will be torn by the Communists as part of a wider policy of removing churches which look overtly Catholic.
Unlike others, we do not give Pope Francis a hard time because most of the problems in the church have been constant for well over half a century now. But this is a mistake that bears his name unfortunately. We know that with diplomacy much goes unknown to the public, but by every observable measure, this is a disaster.
It appears to be open season in the Vatican for subversion and for malignant forces using it to their advantage. We’ve had a gay Israeli soldier granted access to make a documentary about pope Francis, only to use the documentary as a setup towards claiming that ‘Pope Francis endorses gay marriage’ with edited footage. We’ve had Joe Biden use his relationship with Pope Francis to promote his ‘Catholic’ credentials. Is this merely being naïve? Is it incompetence?
Whatever it is, it is not good enough.
It is also not good enough for Catholics to have become overly caught up in the Uighur controversy while staying silent on what has been happening to Catholics. They too are still subject to Communist forced abortions, their places of worship being destroyed and to labor camps.
Communism has not gone away. It is still tearing the crosses off of churches.
With China’s growing influence in the Western World adding another layer of malignance to the forces impinging upon Christianity, it is time that we started asserting ourselves.
Westerners have bought into the Uighur story because they find their cause to be far more attractive than the cause of Chinese Christians, who have suffered worse and for longer. It is also a sense of redemption for American and British Neocons who put Muslims in the Middle East through so much with their own illegal wars and torture camps. The Uighurs are suffering no doubt, it is good to speak up, but we must not forget our brothers in the faith just because the media have.
But the numbers do not lie. Millions of Christians underground. Thousands of churches ransacked in the past year. Bishops missing for decades.
In a tweet, David Quinn recently declared ‘The Future of Christianity mainly African. Yet the future of Africa is mainly Chinese, China is buying up Africa in huge numbers. Do you think that the Chinese will tolerate the presence of Christianity, or even Islam, if it regards it as an obstacle to getting a return on its investments?
We can be overtly critical of the Chinese, at the expense of remembering how other countries have affected Europe. There would be no Same Sex Marriage or Abortion in Ireland without American and British influence for example. Nor would there be any mass immigration, contraception nor divorce. Richard Branson pushed condoms on to Ireland, decades of American TV normalised it. British abortion companies pushed for a law change here with the help of American lobbyists and an American politician (Katherine Zappone) was even bizarrely allowed to run here and to be elected to act as the catalyst for legalising abortion. Imperialism and tyranny come in many forms, not just in Chinese ones.
Yet, unlike the Americans, the Chinese do not even maintain a veneer of respectability. It is cruelty without any semblance of comfort in return.
Let us pray for our brothers and sisters in China, they are going to need it.
