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"He Speaks Like A Leftist"
“He speaks like a leftist. Catholics are getting slaughtered in Syria, and what does this man talk about? Global warming!"
The words above were uttered by a Catholic gentleman, a native of Saint Cloud, Minnesota, area, who works for a firm that manufactures a part that we had to purchase to keep black sand out of our water supply, as he spoke to Sharon last week after I had introduced myself to him before leaving to attend to family errands. Sharon told him about this site, and he said that he would it look at it. Although I don’t know whether he has, let me assure Dan, which is the good gentleman’s name, that this article may explain just a little about why Jorge Mario Bergoglio speaks like a leftist.
Well, longtime readers of this site know that the reason is very simple: Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a leftist. He is a Marxist sympathizer who has gone out of his apostate way to make nice-nice with every single Marxist world leader with whom he has met since he emerged on the balcony of the Basilica of Saint Peter on Wednesday, March 13, 2013. There is not a trace of the authentic sensus Catholicus to be found anywhere within the darkened soul of this veritable agent of Antichrist, whose precursor he is by paving the way for Catholics to accept both One World Governance and a One World Ecumenical religion to bring “peace” to a world that knows none because it has rebelled against Christ the King and the true Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.
Indeed, it was in the summer of 2014 that Bergoglio lifted the suspension that had been imposed upon Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, who was leading figure of the Sandinista revolutionary movement that overthrew the government of Nicaraguan strongman Anastaso Somoza in 1979:
MARYKNOLL, N.Y., Aug. 1, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Vatican has issued a decree that lifts its 29-year suspension on Father Miguel F. d'Escoto Brockmann, a Maryknoll priest. The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers is the mission society of the U.S. Catholic Church.
Father d'Escoto, 81, was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on June 10, 1961. He helped found Orbis Books, the theological publication division of Maryknoll, and he was an official with the World Council of Churches. During the 1970s, Father d'Escoto became engaged in politics in Nicaragua. He joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a political party that overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle and established a revolutionary government.
For his political actions, involvement in the Sandinista government and failing to resign from a political office (Nicaragua foreign minister) held in violation of his ministry, Father d'Escoto was suspended from his priestly duties by the Vatican.
In the notification from the Vatican dated August 1, 2014, "The Holy Father has given His benevolent assent that Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann be absolved from the canonical censure inflicted upon him, and entrusts him to the Superior General of the Institute [Maryknoll] for the purpose of accompanying him in the process of reintegration into the Ministerial Priesthood."
The lifting of the suspension allows Father d'Escoto to resume his priestly duties.
Father d'Escoto has remained a member of the Maryknoll Society with residence in Nicaragua. From September 2008 until September 2009, he presided over the 63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly as its president. (Vatican Lifts Suspension on US Missionary Priest.)
This completely sanitized piece of propaganda, issued by the Maryknolls themselves twenty-five months ago now, overlooked Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockman's bloody participation in the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, his active support and reliance for financial and military assistance from the mass murdering Fidel Castro and his more recent career as an official at the pro-abortion, pro-peversity World Council of Churches and his praise for supporters of abortion and perversity while he was the President of the United Nations General Assembly from 2008 to 2009. At least Daniel Ortega, who maintained close ties during his current term in office of President of Nicaragua to the late Venezulean dictator Hugo Chavez prior to the latter's death on March 5, 2013, refuses to support baby-killing under cover of the civil law. Miguel d'Escoto Brockman is unrepentant in his support of the chemical and surgical assassination of the innocent preborn in their mothers' wombs.
What does this matter to Jorge the Red?
Nothing.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio speaks like a "leftist" because it is who he is, and his respect and admiration for open Marxists and quasi-Marxists such as Barack Hussein Obama/Baryr Soetoro has been and continues to be as firm and consistent as have been his denunciations of fully believinug Catholics who, despite their own sins and failings, hold fast to the everything contained in the Deposit of Faith.
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
Although the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is trite, it is nevertheless true, something that the following image proves without any shadow of a doubt:
Bolivia President Evo Morales, a self-professed earth-worshiping socialist, and his gift to Jorge Mario Bergoglio
Please note the smile on Jorge Mario Berogoglio’s face upon receiving this blasphemous and sacrilegious representation of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s Crucifixion on a hammer and a sickle, the very symbols of international socialism, including Marxism-Leninism.
And yet there is a smile on the face of the Argentine Apostate. A smile.
Without for one second making light of this terrible and terrifying representation of Our Crucified Redeemer, it should be noted that Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s predecessor, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, smiled broadly when receiving objects and symbols of five false religions as he visited the John Paul II Cultural Center in the City of Washington, District of Columbia, on Thursday, April 17, 2008.
Below one can see a photograph of "Pope Benedict XVI," the alleged "restorer of tradition," as he received a copy of the blasphemous Mohammedan "holy book," the Koran, on that occasion over seven years ago now:
John Paul II Cultural Center, Washington, District of Columbia, Thursday, April 17, 2008
By the way, "Pope Benedict XVI" was not "surprised" or "blindsided" by the presentations, which were announced in advance by the so-called United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and each representative of a false religion who presented his or her false idol to Ratzinger/Benedict was introduced by Milwaukee auxiliary "bishop" Richard Slkba, who was the morally, doctrinally and liturgically corrupt Rembert George Wekland's acolyte while the latter was cover up his own moral crimes and those of this clergy:
A silver menorah with seven lights. It symbolizes the perennial validity of God’s covenant of peace. Silver is frequently used in the Eastern European Jewish tradition. The menorah recalls the seven branched lamp stand used in the temple in Jerusalem.
A small, finely crafted edition of the Qur’an, in green leather and gold leaf edging. The Qur’an is the revered word of God, proclaiming God’s message of peace. Green is the traditional Islamic color.
A metallic cube representing the Jain principles of non-violence and respect for a diversity of viewpoints as a way to peace through self-discipline and dialogue.
The sacred syllable Om on a brass incense burner. Om is the primordial sound of creation itself, by which God’s liberating peace is made known. Bronze or brass are widely used for Hindu liturgical ornaments. Incense sticks are used in ritual worship among Hindu believers.
A bronze bell cast in Korea. In various Buddhist cultures, the sound of the bell demarcates the times of meditation, which leads to inner peace and enlightenment. (Many Acts of Evil Demand Many Acts of Reparation; see the video of this outrage by clicking April 17, 2008 - 6:15 p.m. - Interreligious Gathering.)
It is relevant to note that Richard Sklba was an auxiliary "bishop" to the happy "bishop," Timothy Michael Dolan, at the time this blasphemy was uttered in the presence of the man who believes himself to be the Vicar of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on earth, who did not make any gesture of protest and actually stood up to greet those who presented him with the symbols described above as he admired each and every single one of them.
This is not Catholicism. Who says so? Let's try Pope Pius XII for just one example as I know that the three people who remain as readers of this site have other things to do than read these articles:
Her deportment has not changed in the course of history, nor can it change whenever or wherever, under the most diversified forms, she is confronted with the choice: either incense for idols or blood for Christ. The place where you are now present, Eternal Rome, with the remains of a greatness that was and with the glorious memories of its martyrs, is the most eloquent witness to the answer of the Church. Incense was not burned before the idols, and Christian blood flowed and consecrated the ground. But the temples of the gods lie in the cold devastation of ruins howsoever majestic; while at the tombs of the martyrs the faithful of all nations and all tongues fervently repeat the ancient Creed of the Apostles. (Pope Pius XII, Ci Riesce, December 6, 1953.)
What great voice in the world of that false ecclesiology known as “resist while recognize” denounced the “pope” who had given them Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007, to “pacify spirits” (Ratzinger/Benedict’s own words) after he had admiringly accepted and touched the symbols of false religions?
No, many, although not quite all, in the “resist while recognize” camp adopted a “see no hear, hear no evil, evil thus not exist unless we want to recognize it” approach to things done and said by their supposed “restorer of tradition” who has been a Modernist heretic by way of the “new theology” throughout the course of his sixty-four years as a priest. The same voices who denounced—and rightly so—“Saint Paul II” for his own endless acts of apostasy, blasphemy, and sacrilege permitted themselves to be muted during Ratzinger/Benedict’s “Petrine Ministry” as they ignored this man’s crimes against God and the Holy Faith in the utterly delusional belief that he had started a “restoration” that was unstoppable.
Far from being a “restorer of tradition,” Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was merely a Girodist or Menshevik brand of revolutionary who sought to give “permanence” and “stability” to his own interpretation of the direction of the conciliar revolution. Alas, permanence and stability is impossible in a false religious sect.
Consider the fact that Martin Luther himself was aghast at the behavior of his “evangelicals” once he had “liberated” them from their supposed “enslavement” to the only means of human sanctification and salvation, the Catholic Church. There is no such thing as permanence or stability in any heretical sect, something that Pope Saint Pius X himself noted about the Modernists in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: 'These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts.' On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason'; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth.' Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: 'Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation.' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s style is different from that of his immediate predecessor in the conciliar “Petrine Ministry” only in that it is based upon the man both of them admired, Giovanni Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, who was the conciliar “pontiff” during the time of his seminary studies and the first nearly nine years of his presbyteral service as a lay Jesuit revolutionary. Montini’s support for socialism was well-known, and it was this wretched homosexual who permitted himself to be blackmailed by Soviet agents into betraying the locatiton and idenity of Catholic priests that Pope Pius XII had sent behind the Iron Curtain when, Montini, was serving in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See (see Francis: The Latest In A Long Line Of Ecclesiastical Tyrants), and who gave impetus to the "liberation theology" that is close to the heart of so many within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, starting with Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself and including the denier of Our Lady's Perpetual Virginity, Gerhard Ludwig "Cardinal" Muller, who is the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Montini/Paul The Sick endorsed what he called the "preferential option for the poor" when addressing the CELAM conference on August 24, 1968, in Medellin, Colombia and when he issued Octagesima Adveniens, May 15, 1971:
23. Through the statement of the rights of man and the seeking for international agreements for the application of these rights, progress has been made towards inscribing these two aspirations in deeds and structures (16). Nevertheless various forms of discrimination continually reappear-ethnic cultural, religious, political and so on. In fact, human rights are still too often disregarded, if not scoffed at, or else they receive only formal recognition. In many cases legislation does not keep up with real situations. Legislation is necessary, but it is not sufficient for setting up true relationships of justice and equity. In teaching us charity, the Gospel instructs us in the preferential respect due to the poor and the special situation they have in society: the more fortunate should renounce some of their rights so as to place their goods more generously at the service of others. If, beyond legal rules, there is really no deeper feeling of respect for and service to others, then even equality before the law can serve as an alibi for flagrant discrimination, continued exploitation and actual contempt. Without a renewed education in solidarity, an overemphasis of equality can give rise to an individualism in which each one claims his own rights without wishing to be answerable for the common good.
In this field, everyone sees the highly important contribution of the Christian spirit, which moreover answers man's yearning to be loved. "Love for man, the prime value of the earthly order" ensures the conditions for peace, both social peace and international peace, by affirming our universal brotherhood (17). (Giovanni Montini/Paul The Sick, Octagesima Adveniens, May 15, 1971.)
This was nothing other than an attempt to graft a Marxist diatribe onto the Gospel of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, and it had nothing to do with commemorating the eightieth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, May 15, 1891.
Love for "man, the prime vaulue of the earthly order," not love of Christ the King as He has revealed Himself to us exclsively through His true Church, the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.
"Love for man," of course is one of the chief tenets of Marxism, something that the late Dr. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn noted at his famous commencement address at Harvard University on June 8, 1978:
As humanism in its development became more and more materialistic, it made itself increasingly accessible to speculation and manipulation at first by socialism and then by communism. So that Karl Marx was able to say in 1844 that "communism is naturalized humanism.'
This statement turned out not to be entirely senseless. One does see the same stones in the foundations of a despiritualized humanism and of any type of socialism: endless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility, which under communist regimes reach the stage of anti-religious dictatorship; concentration on social structures with a seemingly scientific approach. (This is typical of the Enlightenment in the Eighteenth Century and of Marxism). Not by coincidence all of communism's meaningless pledges and oaths are about Man, with a capital M, and his earthly happiness. At first glance it seems an ugly parallel: common traits in the thinking and way of life of today's West and today's East? But such is the logic of materialistic development.
The interrelationship is such, too, that the current of materialism which is most to the left always ends up by being stronger, more attractive and victorious, because it is more consistent. Humanism without its Christian heritage cannot resist such competition. We watch this process in the past centuries and especially in the past decades, on a world scale as the situation becomes increasingly dramatic. Liberalism was inevitably displaced by radicalism, radicalism had to surrender to socialism and socialism could never resist communism. The communist regime in the East could stand and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who felt a kinship and refused to see communism's crimes. When they no longer could do so, they tried to justify them. In our Eastern countries, communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat; it is zero and less than zero. But Western intellectuals still look at it with interest and with empathy, and this is precisely what makes it so immensely difficult for the West to withstand the East. (Dr. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart. June 8, 1978.)
Giovanni Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul the Sick believed in "man" as he attempted in Octagesima Adveniens, May 15, 1971, to graft graft a Marxist diatribe onto the Gospel of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King that had nothing to do with commemorating the eightieth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, May 15, 1891. Montini/Paul VI's ideological sloangeering helped to let loose a series of Soviet armed and financed and Cuban trained revolutions throughout Central America in the name of serving the "Gospel."
No, I am not suggesting that Montini/Paul the Sick intended to start those revolutions, only that he, a thorough doctrinal, liturgical, social and moral revolutionary, helped revolutionary movements to find a pretext for garnering the support of "the people" who had been the victims of repressive military juntas and economic injustices. Montini/Paul the Sick made "liberation theology" a fashionable way for Soviet-backed and Cuban-trained guerillas who were more brutally murderous than the governments they were attempting to overthrow.
Evo Morales, the coca leaf-chewing earth worshiper, is but a product, at least in some part, of that "liberation theology," which was endorsed and practiced by the Marxist-influenced Jesuit, Father Luis Espinal Camps, who designed the Marxist representation of Our Lord as crucified on a hammer and a sickle at the direct inspiration and direction of none other than the devil himself. It is not surprising, therefore, that a man who could do such violence to Our Lord on His Holy Cross, the very instrument of our Redemption, was gunned down violently by agents of Bolivia's then-dictator. God will not be mocked. Father Luis Espinal died violently because he did violence to the Holy Faith and to the very sacredness of the Holy Cross upon which the Divine Redeemer offered up His very life to His Co-Eternal, Co-Equal God the Father in atonement for human sins, thereby paying back in His Sacred Humanity the very debt of sin that was owed to Him in His Infinity as God.
Did Jorge Mario Bergoglio recoil in horror when he was presented with this sacrilegious crucifix on Thursday, July 9, 2015 (a Ferial Day in the Roman Calendar of 1954 on which the feasts of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, Saint Maria Goretti, Saint John of Cologne, O.P., and Saint Veronica Giuliani could be celebrated or commemorated), Bolivia?
Hardly.
Indeed, Jorge Mario Bergoglio did not even object to receiving Luis Espinal Camp’s demonic crucifix, saying only that “he did not know” that his beloved Espinal had designed it, to which Evo Morales (whom I have confused in the past with the now-former president of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, who was a one-time conciliar “bishop”), said, “Now you know.” Those who are attempting to explain away this act of infidelity to the Divine Redeemer and the sacredness of His Holy Cross must answer to God Himself for seeking to defend the indefensible. (See the informative posts at Novus Ordo Watch Wire and “Francis the Humble Marxist at Call Me Jorge blogspot.)
The spin doctors who are accompanying Jorge Mario Bergoglio to Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay have been working overtime to deal with the fallout of Evo Morales’s “gift” to their Judeo-Masonic boss from Argentina. One will find nothing on the conciliar Vatican’s website from the spin doctors, who have, however, released a statement to the representatives of the media cover the antipapal journey to his home turf of Latin America. I will interject throughout the article to make relatively brief points, something that the late hour deserves:
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivian President Evo Morales' controversial gift of a "Communist crucifix" to Pope Francis threatened to overshadow the pope's visit to Bolivia on Thursday, with the Vatican and Bolivia both insisting that no offense was intended or taken. (Vatican: "Communist crucifix" sign of dialogue.)
No offense intended or taken?
Millions upon millions of Catholics have permitted themselves to undergo all manner of tortures to the point of their own martyrdom rather than to give even the appearance of seeming pleased with, no less smiling at, blasphemous representations of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
No offense intended or taken?
Jorge Mario Bergoglio should have rejected that “crucifix” if he thought that it was blasphemous and sacrilegious. He did not do so. He accepted it graciously.
What, some of you might say? You think that Senor Jorge did not want to “offend” the pantheist cocoa leaf chewer, Evo Morales, that that would have been bad form and had caused an international incident.
Really?
We should be willing to die rather than to offend God. We have not been baptized and confirmed to please men, no matter what earthly position of power and influence they may hold. We have been baptized and confirmed to please God as He has revealed Himself to be exclusively through His Catholic Church.
No offense intended or taken?
Every believing Catholic should be offended by Luis Espinal Camp’s “crucifix.” Indeed, the belief that Jorge Mario Bergolio and his predecessors in the conciliar “Petrine Ministry” have been true and legitimate successors of Saint Peter is offensive in and of itself as each of these men said and did things that were directly contrary to the words of the Divine Redeemer Himself and the totality of Divine Revelation, which consists of both Sacred Scripture and Apostolic (or Sacred) Tradition.
This is not a minor point. Not at all, especially if one considers the fact that Jorge Mario Bergoglio really does not believe in the Sacred Deposit of Faith. He does not accept Apostolic Tradition as a source of Divine Revelation. He believes in a “pure” reading of the Gospel that has not been corrupted by the “filter” of the Fathers and Doctors of Holy Mother Church and by the true general councils of the Second Millennium.
No justification for such a conclusion?
Au contraire, mes amis, au contraire.
Bergoglio himself has proved that he rejects Apostolic Tradition by referring constantly to the “Gospel,” meaning his own revolutionary interpretation of Sacred Scripture that is evocative of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and an endless parade of “evangelical” Protestants today.
Just consider this one example from the Argentine Apostate’s visit to Boliva last year:
The Church cannot and must not remain aloof from this process in her proclamation of the Gospel. Many priests and pastoral workers carry out an enormous work of accompanying and promoting the excluded throughout the world, alongside cooperatives, favouring businesses, providing housing, working generously in the fields of health, sports and education. I am convinced that respectful cooperation with the popular movements can revitalize these efforts and strengthen processes of change. (Speech at World Meeting of Popular Movements.)
Jorge's "gospel" is a false "gospel," one that is all about secular, Judeo-Masonic humanitarianism with a socialist bent, not Catholicism. Bergoglio is not in the least concerned with the salvation of souls, which he presumes to be a given. He is concerned only about the temporal welfare of man on earth without regard to the horror of personal sin and how it is responsible for all of the problems that exist on the face of the earth without exception.
Bergoglio’s “gospel” and the social program for secular salvation that he discusses constantly, including on his current trip to Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay, stands condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:
We wish to draw your attention, Venerable Brethren, to this distortion of the Gospel and to the sacred character of Our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, prevailing within the Sillon and elsewhere. As soon as the social question is being approached, it is the fashion in some quarters to first put aside the divinity of Jesus Christ, and then to mention only His unlimited clemency, His compassion for all human miseries, and His pressing exhortations to the love of our neighbor and to the brotherhood of men. True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors. Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one's personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
The rest of the news report quoted above contained the Vatican’s efforts to spin Bergoglio’s reception of the hideous crucifix designed by Father Luis Espinal Camp, a Marxist who died a violent death on March 21, 1980, the Feast of Saint Benedict, as he was gunned down by government troops, who were, no matter the injustice of the act these troops committed, certainly used by Our Lord Himself to chastise a man who had dared to represent Him, the Divine Redeemer, as a friend of Marxist-Leninist ideology and/or of conciliarism’s “liberation theology”:
Morales gave Francis the crucifix carved into a hammer and sickle upon Francis' arrival in Bolivia Wednesday, immediately raising eyebrows given Morales' past attacks on the church and his socialist bent.
It turns out, the crucifix was originally designed by a Jesuit activist, the Rev. Luis Espinal, who was assassinated in 1980 by suspected paramilitaries during the months that preceded a military coup. Francis, a fellow Jesuit, stopped his motorcade to pray at the site where Espinal's body had been dumped.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Thursday the pope had no idea that Espinal had designed the crucifix and was surprised to receive it — a reaction clearly visible in the footage of the encounter. Some reports suggested the pope told Morales "This isn't good;" one of Francis' friends sent a tweet quoting him as saying such. But Lombardi said it wasn't known what the pope had said.
Lombardi said Espinal had designed the crucifix as a symbol of dialogue and commitment to freedom and progress for Bolivia, not with any specific ideology in mind. Lombardi said he personally wasn't offended by it.
"You can dispute the significance and use of the symbol now, but the origin is from Espinal and the sense of it was about an open dialogue, not about a specific ideology," Lombardi said.
He noted the context in which Espinal was living: as a priest working for social justice in Bolivia during a period of instability that preceded a right-wing dictatorship known for human rights abuses.
However, one of Espinal's friends and fellow Jesuits, the Rev. Xavier Albo, said Espinal's intent was for the church to be in dialogue with Marxism, and said Espinal had altered his crucifix to incorporate the Communists' most potent symbol: the hammer and sickle.
"In this he clearly wanted to speak about the need to permanently dialogue not just with Marxism but with peasants and miners etc.," Albo told The Associated Press earlier this month.
The Vatican launched a harsh crackdown on Liberation Theology in the 1970s and 1980s, fearing that Marxists were using its "preferential option for the poor" to turn the Gospel into a call for armed revolution.
The Bolivian government insisted the gift wasn't a political maneuver of any sort, but was a symbol that Morales thought the "pope of the poor" would appreciate.
"That was the intention of this gift, and it was not any sort of maneuver ... It was really from great affection, a work designed by the very hands of Luis Espinal," Communications Minister Marianela Paco told the Patria Nueva radio station. (Vatican: "Communist crucifix" sign of dialogue.)
“Father” Federico Lombardi, another lay Jesuit, would justify a crucifix that depicted Our Lord in “dialogue” with Satan himself. He is a reprehensible human being, a man of such shallowness and intellectual dishonesty as to make the the wife of the forty-second president of the United States of America seem like a paragon of honesty and virtue.
Here is what Pope Pius XI taught about “dialogue” with any form of socialism, including Communism:
We make this pronouncement: Whether considered as a doctrine, or an historical fact, or a movement, Socialism, if it remains truly Socialism, even after it has yielded to truth and justice on the points which we have mentioned, cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth. . . .
120. If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist. (Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931.)
Writing in Divini Redemptoris, which was issued on March 19, 1937, two days after he had issued his firm denunciation of Nazism, Mit Brennender Sorge, Pope Pius XI forbade Catholics to provide any kind of cooperation with Communism at any time for any reason:
See to it, Venerable Brethren, that the Faithful do not allow themselves to be deceived! Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever. Those who permit themselves to be deceived into lending their aid towards the triumph of Communism in their own country, will be the first to fall victims of their error. And the greater the antiquity and grandeur of the Christian civilization in the regions where Communism successfully penetrates, so much more devastating will be the hatred displayed by the godless. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)
This condemnation of any kind of cooperation with Communism was reinterred by the Holy Office on July 1, 1949, the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, under the pontificate of our last true pope, Pope Pius XII:
This Sacred Supreme Congregation has been asked:
1. whether it is lawful to join Communist Parties or to favour them;
2. whether it is lawful to publish, disseminate, or read books, periodicals, newspapers or leaflets which support the teaching or action of Communists, or to write in them;
3. whether the faithful who knowingly and freely perform the acts specified in questions 1 and 2 may be admitted to the Sacraments;
4. whether the faithful who profess the materialistic and anti-Christian doctrine of the Communists, and particularly those who defend or propagate this doctrine, contract ipso facto excommunication specially reserved to the Apostolic See as apostates from the Catholic faith.
The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Fathers entrusted with the supervision of matters concerning the safeguarding of Faith and morals, having previously heard the opinion of the Reverend Lords Consultors, decreed in the plenary session held on Tuesday (instead of Wednesday), June 28, 1949, that the answers should be as follows:
To 1. in the negative: because Communism is materialistic and anti-Christian; and the leaders of the Communists, although they sometimes profess in words that they do not oppose religion, do in fact show themselves, both in their teaching and in their actions, to be the enemies of God, of the true religion and of the Church of Christ; to 2. in the negative: they are prohibited ipso iure (cf. Can. 1399 of the Codex Iuris Canonici); to 3. in the negative, in accordance with the ordinary principles concerning the refusal of the Sacraments to those who are not disposed; to 4. in the affirmative.
And the following Thursday, on the 30th day of the same month and year, Our Most Holy Lord Pius XII, Pope by the Divine Providence, in the ordinary audience, granted to the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Assessor of the Sacred Office, approved of the decision of the Most Eminent Fathers which had been reported to Him, and ordered the same to be promulgated officially in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.
Given at Rome, on July 1st, 1949. (As found at Decree Against Communism.)
The counterfeit church of conciliarism’s penchant for “dialogue” is false in and of itself and Catholic truth is proclaimed without apology. It is not the subject of any kind of colloquy to “search for truth” as the totality of Sacred Deposit of Faith resides in the Catholic Church alone, she who enjoys a perpetual immunity from error and heresy, a truth that Bishop Bernard Fellay of the Society of Saint Pius X, deconstructs to suit his own nefarious purposes (Bergoglio’s antics in South America have pushed back the article I intend to write about Bishop Fellay’s recent interview with DICI). The Catholic Church does not enter into “dialogue” with leaders of false religions and she does not do so with false ideologies that are founded upon atheism and materialism. Period.
The situation in the counterfeit church of conciliarism is so pathetic that two “priests” quoted in the press report about the Vatican spin doctoring wind up proving they believe in a false religion by seeking to justify that which is beyond any justification before the Throne of the Most Blessed Trinity:
The Catholic blogosphere was buzzing Thursday with the "Communist crucifix" and what, exactly, Morales intended by giving it to the pope.
The Rev. James Bretzke, a theologian at Boston College in Massachusetts, said there is no church legislation that addresses whether Christian imagery is sacrilegious since Christian art is often portrayed in a variety of ways.
But, he continued: "Is this in good taste? Does this seem to be using the Crucifix for political agenda? And I would say the answer is probably yes. Therefore, I would judge it personally in bad taste and especially manipulative to present it to the Holy Father in a situation like that where it clearly hadn't been cleared ahead of time."
The Rev. Robert Gahl, a moral theologian at Rome's Pontifical Holy Cross University in Rome, said it all boils down to Espinal's intent in designing the cross and Morales' intent in giving it to the pope.
"I'd suppose that, given Morales' warm welcome and Espinal's personal convictions, the intent was not to offend but rather to indicate potential for dialogue and even synergy," he said in an email. "Christians tend to see our symbols from the perspective of universal love, redemption, and even Christ's triumph over evil. Indeed, that is what the cross is all about!" (Vatican: "Communist crucifix" sign of dialogue.)
Father James Bretzke needs “legislation” to recognize blasphemy and sacrilege? He believes that the crucifix given by Evo Morales to Jorge Mario Bergoglio is simply in “bad taste” because it represents a political agenda, something that is truly absurd as Bergoglio himself has a political agenda that is identical with the goals of both Marxism-Leninism and of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic concept of the world that made its rise inevitable.
Does anyone really think that Russia has been consecrated properly to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart with all of the world’s bishops?
Does anyone really think at this late date that the errors of Russia are not being spread far and wide across the world, including right here in the United States of America by our caesars and caesarettes and the high priests and priestesses of popular culture, commerce, law, education, health care, science, entertainment and news?
Does anyone reading this article not recognize the extent that Bergoglio himself is influenced by the errors of Russia?
Insofar as Opus Dei’s “Father” Robert Gahl’s efforts to justify Luis Espinal Camp’s work of blasphemy and sacrilege in behalf of Communism, an intention that was, as noted in the news story itself, confirmed by one of his friends, “Father” Xavier Albo, S.J., to reconcile Christianity with Marxism, are beneath contempt.
Open your eyes, “Father” Gahl, and read what “Father” Albo himself said:
However, one of Espinal's friends and fellow Jesuits, the Rev. Xavier Albo, said Espinal's intent was for the church to be in dialogue with Marxism, and said Espinal had altered his crucifix to incorporate the Communists' most potent symbol: the hammer and sickle.
"In this he clearly wanted to speak about the need to permanently dialogue not just with Marxism but with peasants and miners etc.," Albo told The Associated Press earlier this month. (Vatican: "Communist crucifix" sign of dialogue.)
Supposedly “good intentions” do not redeem that which our sensus Catholicus tells us is hideous in the sight of the Divine Redeemer and that must be rejected and condemned in the strongest terms possible. Then again, priests and presbyters of Opus Dei would, like Lombardi himself, spin for a reconciliation with Lucifer if it meant defending the “pope” even when all good Catholic common sense demands outrage and condemnation.
Moreover, “Father” Gahl’s misrepresentation of the nature of the Holy Cross stands completely condemned by Pope Leo XIII:
Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi Di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)
Ah, you want another image?
All right.
I can accommodate you:
(See Comrade Jorge Says Howdy to Comrade Fidel.)
It was upon his arrival in the Communist prison camp on Saturday, September 19, 2016, the Feast of Saint Januarius (San Gennaro) and the Commemoration of the Vigil of Saint Matthew the Apostle, that Jorge Mario Bergolio said the following about the mass murdering Marxist-Leninist named Fidel Castro:
I thank, too, all those who worked to prepare for this Pastoral Visit. Mr President, I would ask you to convey my sentiments of particular respect and consideration to your brother Fidel. I would like my greeting to embrace especially all those who, for various reasons, I will not be able to meet, and to Cubans throughout the world. (Antipope Jorge rrives in Cuba, encourages reconciliation.)
Respect for Fidel Castro?
Respect for an avowed Marxist-Leninist?
Respect for a mass murdering atheist?
Respect for a man who personally sanctioning the execution of “counter-revolutionaries” before he overthrew the government of the corrupt military dictator named Fulgencio Battista on January 1, 1959, and who regularly imprisoned, tortured and imprisoned political dissidents?
Respect for a man who made atheism the official policy of the island discovered by none other than Christopher Columbus, a fact that was noted none other than Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II upon his own arrival in Havana on January 21, 1998, the Feast of Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr?
1. I thank God, the Lord of history and of our personal destinies, that he has enabled me to come to this land which Christopher Columbus called "the most beautiful that human eyes have seen". Arriving on this island, where the cross of Christ was raised over 500 years ago — the same cross zealously treasured today in the parish church of Baracoa, in the extreme eastern part of the country — I greet everyone with warm affection. (Welcome ceremony at the Airport of Havana, January 21, 1998.)
Yes, the Polish Modernist and Phenomenologist expressed his own thanks as he sent his greetings to Fidel Castro before launching into the same bilge of a “dialogue of encounter” that Ratzinger propagated in 2012 and that Bergoglio advocated in Cuba, a "dialogue of encounter" that is one of the cornerstones of his false, heretical theology. Wojtyla/John Paul II, though, di not express “respect” for the eighty-nine year-old Fidel Castro. Jorgethus sprung one of his “surprises” last year by expressing words of warmth, if not admiration, for the amoral atheist named Fidel Castro, and he got an opportunity to meet with the object of his admiration on Sunday, September 20, 2015, the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of Saint Eustachius and his Companions:
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday met with former Cuban president Fidel Castro, shortly after celebrating Mass in Havana's Plaza de la Revolución. The 30-40 minute meeting took place in Fidel Castro's home, with his wife, children, and grandchildren also present at the encounter.
Pope Francis gave Castro several books, including one by Italian priest Alessandro Pronzato and another by Spanish Jesuit Segundo Llorentea. The Holy Father also gave him a book and two CDs of his homilies, as well as his two encyclical letters, Lumen Fidei and Laudato si'.
In return, Castro gave Pope Francis an interview book entitled, "Fidel and Religion," written in 1985 by Brazilian priest Frei Betto. The dedication reads: "For Pope Francis, on occasion of his visit to Cuba, with the admiration and respect of the Cuban people."
The head of the Vatican Press Office, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, said the meeting was "familiar and informal," and the two men spoke about "protecting the environment and the great problems of the contemporary world."
Father Lombardi compared the private encounter to that which took place with Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, saying Fidel Castro asked Pope Benedict many questions, while Sunday's meeting with Pope Francis was "more of a conversation." (Jorge Meets Mass Murderer Fidel Castro.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio has enabled the Communist murderers in Cuba (and the pro-abort statists here in the United States of America). Bergoglio’s absolute silence about the crimes of the murderous Castros and their Communist thugs, to say nothing of permitting himself to stage the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service in the Plaza de la Revolucion in Havana, Cuba, on Sunday, September 20, 2015, under an image of the wanton murderer Che Guevera, who cowardly pleaded for his own life to be spared after he was captured in the jungles of Bolivia and then executed on October 9, 1967, extended to his refusal to meet with those with dissidents, some of whom were rounded up during the “pope’s” visit.
Bergoglio even justified his refusal to meet with the dissidents when asked about it by Rosa Flores of Cable News Network on the flight between Cuba and the United States on Tuesday, September 22, 2015, the Feast of Saint Thomas Villanova:
Rosa Flores, CNN: Good afternoon, Holy Father. I am Rosa Flores of CNN. We understand that more than 50 dissidents were arrested outside the nunciature [in Cuba] as they were trying to have a meeting with you. First, would you like to have a meeting with the dissidents, and if you had that meeting, what would you say?
Pope Francis: Look, I don’t have any news that that has happened. I don’t have any news. Some yes, yes, no, I don’t know. I don’t know, directly. The two questions are about reading the future. Would I like this to happen? … I like to meet with all people. I consider that all people are children of God and the law. And secondly, a relationship with another person always enriches. Even though it was soothsaying, that’s my reply. I would like to meet with everyone. If you want me to speak more about the dissidents, you can ask me something more concrete. For the nunciature, first, it was very clear that I was not going to give audiences because not only the dissidents asked for audiences, but also audiences (were requested) from other sectors, including from the chief of state. And, no, I am on a visit to a nation, and just that. I know that I hadn’t planned any audience with the dissidents or the others. And secondly from the nunciature, some people made some calls to some people who are in these groups of dissidents, where the responsibility was given to the nuncio to call them and tell them that I would greet them with pleasure outside the catedral for the meeting with the consecrated (religious). I would greet them when I was there, no? That did exist. Now, as no one identified themselves in their greetings, I don’t know if they were there. I said hello to the sick who were in wheelchairs. … Oops, I’m speaking Spanish. I greeted those who were in wheelchairs, but no one identified themselves as dissidents; but from the nunciature calls were made by some for a quick greeting.
(Follow up from Flores on what he would tell them if he met with them.)
Pope Francis: Oh, my daughter, I don’t know what I would say. (laughs) I would wish everyone well, but what one says comes in that moment and … You’ve got the Nobel Prize for being a reader of the future, eh? (laughs)
Silvia Poggioli, NPR: I would like to ask you, in the decades of the power of the state of Fidel Castro, the Church in Cuba has suffered much. In your meeting with Fidel, did you get the impression that [he] may be a bit regretful?
Pope Francis: Regret is a very intimate thing, and it’s a thing of conscience. I, in the meeting with Fidel, I spoke of the stories of known Jesuits, because in the meeting I brought a gift of a book, from Fr. Llorente, also a good friend of his, who is also a Jesuit. And also a CD with the conferences of Fr. Llorente and I also gave him two books from Fr. Pronzato [sic] which I’m sure he’ll also appreciate. And we talked about these things. We spoke a lot about the encyclical, Laudato si'. He’s very interested in the issue of ecology. It was a not-so-formal, rather spontaneous meeting. Also his family was present there. Also those who accompanied me, my driver, were present there. But, we were a bit separated from his wife. They couldn’t hear, but they were in the same place. But we spoke a lot on the encyclical because he is very concerned about this. About the past, we didn’t speak.
(inaudible question from Poggioli)
Pope Francis: Yes! About the past, the Jesuit college. And how the Jesuits were and how they made him work. All of that, yes.
“About the past, we did not speak.” (Full Transcript of Bergoglio's Inflight Interview from Cuba to the United States of America.)
The “past” to which Bergoglio referred is very much the present of Cuba in its Communist captivity as the dissidents who wanted to meet with him were rounded up while he remained silent about the Castro regime’s brutality during his visit or to denounce the arrests of the dissidents thereafter.
I wrote the following eleven months to provide my own belief about Bergoglio's behavior in Cuba:
I believe that there is a reason for this that transcends Bergoglio’s personal support for the way in which Communist regimes have provided “social justice,” including universal health care supposed “income equality,” to the masses: he wants to make it clear to the murderers of Beijing that they can invite him to Red China and be assured of the fact that he will validate the so-called Catholic Chinese Patriotic Association, thus putting the final nail in the coffin of the brave underground Catholics who have suffered so much for the past sixty-five years. Although the Chicom leadership is a wary bunch of murderers and spies, they might just take the chance of inviting the lay Jesuit to do for them with their dissidents what he did for those in Cuba (and what he has done for those who oppose the unconstitutional, immoral, illegal and unjust policies of Obama/Soetoro in the United States of America).
It did not take any kind of particular expertise to believe that this was the case as, despite the advancing years, my memory is still decent (although not as good as once was, especially when it comes to short-term memory), and I have followed and written about the conciliar Vatican's plan to sell out the suffering underground Catholics in Red China for over twenty years now. This sell out is almost complete, and it will be the coup de grace of Bergoglio's embrace of the most monstrous regime on the face of this earth at this time.
Goodbye "Cardinal" Zen, Hello Puppets of Beijing
Just as Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul the Sick threw the courageous Primate of Hungary, Joseph Cardinal Midszenty, under the bus in 1966 as part of his Ostpolitik ("East Politics) that resulted in his appointment of "bishops" in Soviet bloc nations that were aceptable to the Communist oppressors, so is Jorge Mario Bergoglio about to throw the memory of the late Bishop Ignatius Kung and all of the many thousands of underground Chinese Catholics, some of whom are still imprisoned and being tortured, under the bus at the present time.
Bishop Ignatius Kung Pin Mei was the Bishop of Shanghai, China from July 15, 1950, to the time of his death on March 11, 2000. Bishop Kung, who was elevated to the conciliar "college of cardinals" in pectore by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II in 1979, a nomination that was not made public until 1991, was arrested by the Red Chinese murderous monsters on September 8, 1955, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and later sentenced to life imprisonment, although he was released in 1986 and later served two years of house arrest until he was permitted to leave his homeland. Here is an excerpt of his official biography as found at the Cardinal Kung Foundation website:
Bishop Kung had been Bishop of Shanghai and Apostolic Administrator of two other dioceses for only five years before he was arrested by the Chinese government. In just 5 short years, Bishop Kung became one of the most feared enemies of the Chinese Communists - a man who commanded both the attention and devotion of the country's then three million Roman Catholics and the highest respect of his brother bishops in China, and inspired thousands to offer their lives up to God. In defiance of the communist created and sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Bishop Kung personally supervised the Legion of Mary, a religious organization of the laity dedicated to the veneration of the Blessed Mother Mary. As the result, many members of the Legion of Mary chose to risk arrest in the name of their God, of their Church and of their bishop. Hundreds of Legion of Mary members, including many students, were arrested and sentenced to 10, 15, or 20 years or more of hard labor.
In the midst of persecutions, Bishop Kung declared 1952 the Marian Year in Shanghai. During that year, there was to be uninterrupted 24 hours-daily recitation of the rosary in front of a statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which toured all the parishes of Shanghai. The Holy Statue finally arrived at Christ the King Church where a major arrest of the priests had just taken place only a month ago. Bishop Kung visited that church and personally led the rosary while hundreds of the armed police looked on. At the end of the rosary, leading the congregation, Bishop Kung prayed: "Holy Mother, we do not ask you for a miracle. We do not beg you to stop the persecutions. But we beg you to support us who are very weak."
Knowing that he and his priests would soon be arrested, Bishop Kung trained hundreds of catechists to pass on the Roman Catholic faith in the diocese to future generations.
The heroic efforts of these catechists, their martyrdom and that of many faithful and clergy contributed to the vibrant underground Roman Catholic Church in China today. Bishop Kung's place in the hearts of his parishioners was very well summed up by the Shanghai youth group in a 1953 New Year youth rally when they said: "Bishop Kung, in darkness, you light up our path. You guide us on our treacherous journey. You sustain our faith and the traditions of the Church. You are the foundation rock of our Church in Shanghai."
On September 8, 1955, the press around the world reported in shock the overnight arrest of Bishop Kung along with more than 200 priests and Church leaders in Shanghai. Months after his arrest, he was taken out to a mob "struggle session" in the old Dog Racing stadium in Shanghai. Thousands were ordered to attend and to hear the Bishop's public confession of his "crimes." With his hands tied behind his back, wearing a Chinese pajama suit, the 5-foot tall bishop was pushed forward to the microphone to confess. To the shock of the security police, they heard a righteous loud cry of "Long live Christ the King, Long live the Pope" from the Bishop. The crowd responded immediately, "Long live Christ the King, Long live Bishop Kung". Bishop Kung was quickly dragged away to the police car and disappeared from the world until he was brought to trial in 1960. Bishop Kung was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The night before he was brought to trial, the Chief Prosecutor asked once again for his cooperation to lead the independent church movement and to establish the Chinese Patriotic Association. His answer was: "I am a Roman Catholic Bishop. If I denounce the Holy Father, not only would I not be a Bishop, I would not even be a Catholic. You can cut off my head, but you can never take away my duties."
Bishop Kung vanished behind bars for thirty years. During those thirty years, he spent many long periods in isolation. Numerous requests to visit Bishop Kung in prison by international religious and human rights organizations and senior foreign government officials were rejected. He was not permitted to receive visitors, including his relatives, letters, or money to buy essentials, which are rights of other prisoners.
he efforts for his release by his family, led by his nephew, Joseph Kung, by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Red Cross, and the United States Government, never ceased. In 1985, he was released from jail to serve another term of 10 years of house arrest under the custody of those Patriotic Association bishops who betrayed him and betrayed the Pope and who usurped his diocese. In an article immediately after his release from jail, the New York Times said that the ambiguous wording of the Chinese news agency suggested that the authorities, not the bishop, might have relented. After two and one-half years of house arrest, he was officially released. However, his charge of being a counterrevolutionary was never exonerated. In 1988, his nephew, Joseph Kung, went to China twice and obtained permission to escort him to America for receiving proper medical care.
Shortly before Bishop Kung was released from jail, he was permitted to join a banquet organized by the Shanghai government to welcome His eminence Cardinal Jaime Sin, Archbishop of Manila, Philippines on a friendship visit. This was the first time that Bishop Kung had met a visiting bishop from the universal Church since his imprisonment. Cardinal Sin and Bishop Kung were seated on opposite ends of the table separated by more that 20 Communists, and had no chance to exchange words privately. During the dinner, Cardinal Sin suggested that each person should sing a song to celebrate. When the time came for Bishop Kung to sing, in the presence of the Chinese government officials and the Patriotic Association bishops, he looked directly at Cardinal Sin and sang "Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam" (You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church), a song of faith proclaiming the supreme authority of the Pope. Bishop Kung conveyed to Cardinal Sin that in all his years of captivity he remained faithful to God, to his Church and to the Pope.
After the banquet, Aloysius Jin, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association's Bishop of Shanghai, rebuked Cardinal Kung, "What are you trying to do? Showing your position?" Cardinal Kung quietly answered, "It is not necessary to show my position. My position has never changed."
Cardinal Sin immediately carried Cardinal Kung's message to the Holy Father and announced to the world: this man of God never faltered in his love for his Church or his people despite unimaginable suffering, isolation and pain. (Biography of Cardinal Kung.)
Bishop Kung's nephew, Joseph Kung, who is now eighty-three years of age, was kind enough to have invited us to a luncheon at his house in Stamford, Connecticut, in June of 2003, I believe, and he showed us the room where his courageous uncle had died. Joseph also showed us a diary in which Bishop Kung wrote the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin while in prison in Red China. His jailers kept taking away the book from him, but Bishop Kung always seemed to find the paper tha he needed to write the Ordinary of the Mass in exquisite handwriting. Bishop Kung won this contest of will as he was aided by Our Lady's intercession in his behalf. The jailers finally relented and let him continue his work without any further efforts to confiscate it. Bishop Kung was dedicated to the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church that Jorge Mario Bergoglio mocked earlier this year in a children's book (see Jorge's Wall of Unbelief.)
Now, leaving aside the fact that Jaimie Sin was no "cardinal," Bishop Ignatius Kung suffered for his fealty to the Throne of Saint Peter. He had no way of knowing that a revolution that had much in common with Marxism had created a counter church with false liturgical rites as he was imprisoned, and he was so grateful to the third in the current line of antipopes that he never understood what had happened while he was held incommunicado for over thirty years. Bishop Kung, however, was courageous in his steadfast defense of the Catholic Faith and of Papal Primacy in the face of vicious Communist persecution against him. He lived for Christ the King just as much as had Padre Miguel Agustin Pro, S.J., and the Cristeros in Mexico (as well as the Spanish Cristeros who died at the hands of Communists, many of whom had the support of American celebrities, including author Ernest Hemmingway, between 1936 and 1939). He did not accord the schismatic and heretical rump church created by the Red Chinese government, the so-called Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, as having any legitimacy whatsoever. He was a true son of Holy Mother Church who always denounced falsehood when he saw it, never failing to call it by its proper name.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, however, has never met a Communist or a Communist regime that he has not attempted to coddle, if not actually praise, and thus it is that he is about the accord de jure recognition to the "Catholic Patriotic Association" as he shows his utter disregard for the suffering of so many countless Chinese Catholics who believed in all sincerity that they were suffering for the Catholic Church and that they were loyal to the papacy. What matters to Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a false sense of "peace" that is premised upon appeasing enemies of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as he, in essence, tells believing Catholics who have suffered so much over the course of nearly seven decades: "Get over it. Get used to the new reality. I stand with the Patriotic Association, not with you."
Yes, the Argentine Apostate is about to announce that is permitting the so-called Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association the right to nominate "bishops" to the conciliar Vatican, thus bypassing the recommendations that used to be made by the underground "bishops," Once again, good readers, one can see that Jorge Mario Bergoglio speaks like a leftist because he is a leftist and because he believes that even Communism, far from being intrinsically evil, can be a legitimate means of pursuing "social justice" and "peace," and it to effect a false "peace" on the blood of the Chinese Catholic martyrs that he is forging his new policy, which will make official that which has been the de facto case for most of the past decade:
He is preparing, that is, to grant the communist authorities the privilege of selecting candidates. And he is exiling to an island in the Pacific the highest ranking Chinese archbishop in the curia, contrary to the agreement. But in China, Cardinal Zen has already taken the lead in the rebellion.
ROME, August 14, 2016 – In China, among the one hundred and nine Catholic bishops there are eight who have been consecrated at the behest of the communist authorities and who have never received the pope's approval, thereby incurring excommunication, a couple of them with children and lovers.
But for none other than these eight, by the end of this summer or at the latest before the end of the jubilee Francis is ready to perform a spectacular gesture: a pardon.
Francis missed another stunning gesture by just a hair’s breadth last September 26, during his journey to Cuba and the United States.
That day, his touchdown in New York on his way to Philadelphia coincided with the landing of Chinese president Xi Jinping, who was expected at the United Nations. Everything had been calculated for the two to cross paths “accidentally” at the airport and exchange a greeting. Xi was aware of this ardent desire of the pope, but in the end he let it drop and the meeting did not take place.
From that moment on, however, the secret contacts between the Vatican and Beijing underwent an acceleration. In October and then in January a delegation of six representatives of the Holy See went to the Chinese capital. And in April of this year, the two sides set up a joint working group that now seems to have come to an understanding over a point that the Vatican takes very seriously: the appointment of bishops.
Since it has been in power, in fact, the Chinese communist party has wanted to equip itself with a submissive Church separate from Rome, with bishops of its own appointment ordained without the pope’s approval, beholden to a Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association that Benedict XVI called “irreconcilable” with Catholic doctrine.
A Church of the regime, therefore, on the verge of schism with its eight excommunicated bishops, contrasted with an “underground” Church with about thirty bishops earnestly faithful to the pope, which however pays all the costs of clandestinity - oppression, surveillance, arrest, abduction.
And in the middle the vast gray zone of the remaining dozens of bishops who were ordained illegitimately but then were more or less reconciled with Rome, or were ordained with the parallel recognition of Rome and Beijing but must still remain under the iron control of the communist authorities.
The bishop of Shanghai, Thaddeus Ma Daqin, ordained in 2007 with the twofold approval of the pope and the government, has been under house arrest for four years for the simple offense of having resigned from the Patriotic Association. Two months ago he retracted, but he is still deprived of his liberty. The eighty-five-year-old Joseph Zen Zekiun (in the photo), who has more freedom of speech in Hong Kong, has called “inevitable” the suspicion that this retraction was also desired by the Vatican, just to reach an agreement at any price.
That an agreement has already been reached was confirmed in recent days by Zen's successor in the diocese of Hong Kong, Cardinal John Tong, with an open letter released in Chinese, English, and Italian that bears all the marks of wanting to prepare the faithful to make the best of a bad lot:
> Card. Tong: Communion of the Church in China with the Universal Church
Because the solution at which Tong hints is one of those against which Cardinal Zen has already raised covering fire to the point of threatening conscientious objection:
> Card. Zen: My concerns over China-Holy See dialogue and repercussions on Chinese Church
The example that is brought up most often is that of Vietnam, where the candidate for bishop is proposed by the Vatican but the government can veto him, and then on to other candidates until the government approves one of them.
But for China, the solution of which Cardinal Tong appears to have knowledge sees the roles reversed. The candidate will be selected and proposed to the Vatican by the Chinese episcopal conference. Only that this conference is a creature of the communist party, completely at the beck and call the regime, devoid of “underground” bishops and with one of the excommunicated eight as its president.
“Let us dare to believe that Pope Francis will accept nothing that could endanger the communion of the Church in China with the universal Church,” Tong wrote.
But the pope's pardon of the eight illegitimate bishops will certainly not suffice to reassure him, Zen, and most Chinese Catholics. (In Appointing Bishops, Jorge Leans Towards Beijing.)
There is nothing to be surprised about by these thoroughly predictable developments. Jorge Mario Bergoglio longs to visit Beijing, and he has long believed that resistance to Communism is pointless. This insidious demon of a human being does not believe that Communism is inherently evil, and he does not care that hundreds of millions of innocent human beings have died at the hands of Communist regimes, principally in the Union of Soviet Soicalist Republics, Red China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, and Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990 during the Sandinista Party's revolutionary regime's policies. Bergoglio cares about the population-controlling, pantheistic, anti-life policies associated with "sustainable development goals," and he cares about wildlife and rain forests. He no more cares about the innocent victims of Communism than he does about the fate that the innocent preborn suffer in supposedly "civilized" nations on a daily basis by means of their chemical and surgical slaughter in their mothers' wombs under the cover of the civil law.
The retired conciliar "bishop" of Hong Kong, Joseph "Cardinal" Zen, wrote an apeal recently a few weeks ago to express a sense of resignation of the forthcoming betrayal of Chinese Catholics in the underground who, acting in all good faith, believed that they have remained faithful to true and legitimate Successors of Saint Peter even though the devil had placed apostates on the throne, thus using his agents in Beijing and his agents in the conciliar Vatican to effect their ultimate and, truth to be told, inevitable betrayal:
Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - The article by Card. John Tong, published today, mentions the difficulties and embarrassment experienced by unofficial faithful in China at the way in which China-Holy See talks are being conducted; at the Vatican's silence on the persecution suffered by the faithful; at the ambiguity of the Patriotic Association, the organism that controls the Church in China. Card. Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, speaks out on behalf of the underground communities. In order to deepen our understanding of the issues being debated by Catholics in China and the shadows that Card. Tong tries to dispel regarding China-Holy See dialogue, we publish an article by retired bishop, that recently appeared on his personal blog.
Originally, the post was an articulate response to an accusation made against Card. Zen by a journalist from Vatican Insider, according to whom the elderly prelate is inciting the "rebellion" against the Holy See's decisions. The Cardinal responds to the false interpretation of his thoughts, but also lists all the concerns that arouse the Vatican's silence on violence against Christians and the revival of a Vatican policy similar to the Ostpolitik practised under Card. Agostino Casaroli.
In the text that we publish below, the uppercase and underscores are from the original.
A PAINFUL APPEAL
After three weeks (11 June – 2 July) of terrible battle against the attack of a virus called “Mycoplasma pneumoniae” I am back to my religious house for a long recovery. But here I am being told that I was subject to another kind of attack, on the prestigious pages of “La Stampa”, from my “friend” Gianni Valente.
My health condition could exempt me from being involved in another battle, but the truth has its rights and I cannot desert my duty of offering some clarifications.
1. AN APPEAL OF MINE IS BEING QUESTIONED
First of all the “status quaestions”. It is a short appeal I made from my blog to my brothers in mainland China. Valente has found at last the “corpus delicti” (the material evidence of a crime) and cries to the scandal, not hiding a certain complacency.
The title of my appeal is translated: “Brothers and sisters of the continent, we need to do ourselves justice!” I do not criticize the translator, I don’t even know how to translate exactly my chinese. It is difficult (it is chinese!)
The words I have used are, literally, “contend the breath!” Here the “breath” corresponds to “speak out” in Italian and the “last breath” would mean the “final word”. Being able to “breathe out” is a sign of dignity, while it is shame having to hold one’s breath and shut up, because one knows to be in the wrong. The irony is that in our case the last word will be just a resounding silence. Here is the real content of my appeal: “Let us retreat in silence with dignity!”
It is not a call to battle as wants Vallente: “…ignore it! Don’t consider it! Dissent from it!” No, It is just a call to retreat, an invitation to calm, to accept the defeat without giving in irrational reactions (let’s not make prophets of our enemies, who say that from papists we are going to become apostates!).
2. WHAT DEFEAT? ORDER TO CHANGE COURSE.
But what defeat it is about?
We know that in China the atheist regime has always wanted to totally control the religions. Until now large groups of Catholics, both underground and in officialdom, making great sacrifices, remain faithful to the Church founded by Jesus on Peter and the Apostles. But today a specter appears in the horizon, of a statement coming right from the authority of the Church, that tells them to change course. What was declared as opposed to the doctrine and discipline of the Church will become legitimate and normal; everyone will have to submit to the Government that manages the Church; everyone will have to obey to bishops who until today are illegitimate and even excommunicated. So, they have been wrong for decades these poor “confrontationists”?
My appeal is to prepare the minds for such an eventuality, which once seemed impossible, now it looks very likely. What to do? Accept to go back, as Valente says, to the catacomb situation, which is not the ordinary situation. But, when the ordinary is illegitimate and the legitimate is not allowed, there is no choice but to hold to the legitimate in a extraordinary way.
Valente mentions a “Sino-Vatican Pax”. This makes me think of the famous “Pax Romana”, a “peace” built and maintained with iron and fire, …the symbol is the triumphant return of the conquering legions pulling behind hosts of slaves.
There you see, my appeal is full of sadness and sorrow. Here I could finish my article begging Valente to have mercy on us, to respect at least our sorrow and let us mourn in peace.
(I remember one expression which appeared long time ago on a catholic website in China: “For many years our enemies have failed to kill us. Now we have to die at the hands of our Father. All right, let’s go to die”.) (Have you not ever noticed that the child, even when he receives some spanking from the mom, he does not run away, but clings on to the leg of the mother, maybe crying and screaming…he has no where to go away from the mother.) (Card. Zen: My concerns over China-Holy See dialogue and repercussions on Chinese Church.)
This should break the heart of anyone with a semblance of the sensus Catholicus.
“Cardinal” Zen believes himself to be a prince of the Catholic Church. It is as an obedient son of the man he thinks is the Vicar of Christ, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, that he accepts in a spirit of mournful resignation that fact of the betrayal of his people. “Cardinal” Zen’s obedience, no matter how bitter, demonstrates that he is possessed of a true understanding what how a Catholic must obey a true pope in all of his magisterial acts than those in the “resist while recognize” movement who refuse such obedience, yes, even in spite of the fact that a theologian many of them respect and will cite when the occasion suits them, the late Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, denounced the very “shoddy tricks of minimism” that they use to reduce the scope of obedience owed to a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. Pity poor “Cardinal” Zen.
Those who read this website understand that the suffering Catholics of the Chinese underground have not been betrayed by their spiritual father. They have been betrayed by an apostate, a veritable figure of Antichrist. This is indeed an hour of darkness, and the adversary is using his minions in the conciliar Vatican to help pave the way for the triumph of his One World Religion. There can be no “seat at the table” for believing Catholics in such a religion.
Alas, the forthcoming betrayal of the suffering Catholics in Red China is just the logical, inevitable result of the appeasement of Communism that began with Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII (aka Nikita Roncalli) and has been continued ever since.
Conciliarism's Love Affair With Communism
Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, long a friend of Italian Communists and Socialists assisted by another friend of the Communists and Socialists, the Archbishop of Milan, the aforementioned Giovanni Montini, agreed to exchange absolute silence about evil of Communism at the "Second" Vatican Council in exchange for the presence of "observers" from the Russian Orthodox Church:
In preparation for the Council, Catholic bishops around the world were polled by mail by the Office of the Secretariat to learn their opinions on topics to be considered at the Council. Communism topped the list.
However, as documented in the previous chapter, at the instigation of Cardinal Montini, two months before the opening of the Council, Pope John XXIII approved the signing of the Metz Accord with Moscow officials, whereby the Soviets would permit two representatives from the Russian State Church to attend the Council in exchange for absolute and total silence at the Council on the subject of Communism/Marxism.
With the exceptions of Cardinal Montini, who instructed Pope John to enter into negotiations with the Soviets, Cardinal Eugene Tisserant, who signed the Accord, and Bishop Jan Willebrands, who made the final contacts with the representatives of the Russian State Church, the Church Fathers at the Council were ignorant of the existence and nature of the Metz Agreement and the horrendous betrayal that it represented. (Mrs. Randy Engel, The Rite of Sodomy, pp. 1135-1136)
Why didn’t the last Ecumenical Council condemn Communism? A secret accord made at Metz supplies an answer.
Those who pass by the convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Borny - on the outskirts of the French city of Metz - never imagine that something of transcendental importance occurred in the residence of Fr. Lagarde, the convent’s chaplain. In a hall of this religious residence in August 1962 - two months before Vatican Council II opened - a secret meeting of the greatest importance between two high-ranking personalities took place.
One dignitary was a Cardinal of the Curia, Eugène Tisserant, representing Pope John XXIII; the other was metropolitan Nikodin, who spoke in the name of the Russian Schismatic Church.
This encounter had consequences that changed the direction of Council, which was already prepared to open. In effect, the meeting at Metz determined a change in the trajectory of the very History of the Church in the 20th century.
What was the matter of such great importance that was resolved at his meeting? Based on the documents that are known today, there it was established that Communism would not be condemned by Vatican Council II. In 1962, The Vatican and the Schismatic Russian Church came to an agreement. According to its terms, the Russian “Orthodox Church” agreed to send observers to Vatican II under the condition that no condemnation whatsoever of communism should be made there (1). 1. Ulysses Floridi, Moscou et le Vatican, Paris: France-Empire, Paris, 1979, pp. 147-48; Romano Amerio, Iota Unum, K.C., MO: Sarto House, 1996, pp. 75-76; Ricardo de la Cierva, Oscura rebelion en la Iglesia, Barcelona: Plaza & Janes, 1987, pp. 580-81. And why were the consequences of such a pact so far-reaching and important?
Because in the 20th century a principal enemy of the Catholic Church was Communism. As such, until Vatican II it had been condemned numerous times by the Magisterium. Moreover, in the early ’60s a new condemnation would have been quite damaging, since Communism was passing through a serious crisis, both internally and externally. On one hand, it was losing credibility inside the USSR since the people were becoming increasingly discontent with the horrendous administrative results of 45 years of Communist demagogy. On the other hand, outside the USSR Communism had not been able to persuade the workers and poor of free countries to take up its banner. In fact, up until that time it had never won a free election. Therefore, the leaders of international Communism decided that it was time to begin to change the appearances of the regime in order to retain the power they had and to experiment with new methods of conquest. So in the ‘60s President Nikita Khrushchev suddenly began to smile and talk about dialogue (2). 2. Plinio Correa de Oliveira, Unperceived Ideological Transshipment and Dialogue, New York: Crusade for a Christian Civilization, 1982, pp. 8-15. This would have been a particularly inopportune moment for the Pope or the Council to issue a formal condemnation, which could have either seriously damaged or possibly even destroyed the Communist regime..
A half secret act
Speaking about the liberty at Vatican II to deal with diverse topics, Professor Romano Amerio revealed some previously unpublished facts. “The salient and half secret point that should be noted,” he stated, “is the restriction on the Council’s liberty to which John XXIII had agreed a few months earlier, in making an accord with the Orthodox Church by which the patriarchate of Moscow accepted the papal invitation to send observers to the Council, while the Pope for his part guaranteed the Council would refrain from condemning Communism. The negotiations took place at Metz in August 1962, and all the details of time and place were given at a press conference by Mgr. Paul Joseph Schmitt, the Bishop of that Diocese [newspaper Le Lorrain, 2/9/63]. The negotiations ended in an agreement signed by metropolitan Nikodim for the Orthodox Church and Cardinal Tisserant, the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, for the Holy See.
“News of the agreement was given in the France Nouvelle, the central bulletin of the French communist party in the edition of January 16-22, 1963 in these terms: ‘Because the world socialist system is showing its superiority in an uncontestable fashion, and is strong through the support of hundreds and hundreds of millions of men, the Church can no longer be content with a crude anti-communism. As part of its dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church, it has even promised there will be no direct attack on the Communist system at the Council.’ On the Catholic side, the daily La Croix of February 15, 1963 gave notice of the agreement, concluding: “‘As a consequence of this conversation, Msgr. Nikodim agreed that someone should go to Moscow carrying an invitation, on condition that guarantees were given concerning the apolitical attitude of the Council.’
“Moscow’s condition, namely that the Council should say nothing about Communism, was not, therefore, a secret, but the isolated publication of it made no impression on general opinion, as it was not taken up by the press at large and circulated, either because of the apathetic and anaesthetized attitude to Communism common in clerical circles or because the Pope took action to impose silence in the matter. Nonetheless, the agreement had a powerful, albeit silent, effect on the course of the Council when requests for a renewal of the condemnation of Communism were rejected in order to observe this agreement to say nothing about it” (3). 3. Romano Amerio, Iota Unum, pp. 65-66. Thus the Council, which made statements on capitalism and colonialism, said nothing specific about the greatest evil of the age, Communism. While the Vatican Monsignors were smiling at the Russian Schismatic representatives, many Bishops were in prison and innumerable faithful were either persecuted or driven underground for their fidelity to the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
The Kremlin-Vatican negotiations
This important information about Vatican-Kremlin negotiations is confirmed in an article ‘The mystery of the Rome-Moscow pact’ published in the October 1989 issue of 30 Dias, which quotes statements made by the Bishop of Metz, Paul Joseph Schmitt. In a February 9, 1963 interview with the newspaperRepublicain Lorrain, Mgr. Schmitt said:
“It was in our region that the ‘secret’ meeting of Cardinal Tisserant with archbishop Nikodin occurred. The exact place was the residence of Fr. Lagarde, chaplain for the Little Sister of the Poor in Borny [on the outskirts of Metz]. Here for the first time the arrival of the prelates of the Russian Church was mentioned. After this meeting, the conditions for the presence of the Russian church’s observers were established by Cardinal Willebrands, an assistant of Cardinal Bea. Archbishop Nikodin agreed that an official invitation should be sent to Moscow, with the guarantee of the apolitical character of the Council” (4). 4. 30 Dias, October 1988, pp. 55-56.
The same source also transcribed a letter of Bishop Georges Roches regarding the Pact of Metz:
“That accord was negotiated between the Kremlin and the Vatican at the highest level .… But I can assure you …. that the decision to invite Russian Orthodox observers to Vatican Council II was made personally by His Holiness John XXIII with the encouragement of Cardinal Montini, who was counselor to the Patriarch of Venice when he was Archbishop of Milan…. Cardinal Tisserant received formal orders to negotiate the accord and to make sure that it would be observed during the Council” (5). 5. Ibid. p. 57
In a book published some time after this, German theologian Fr. Bernard Häring - who was secretary-coordinator at the Council for the redaction of Gaudium et Spes - revealed the more profound reason for the ‘pigeon-holing’ of apetition that many conciliar Fathers signed asking Paul VI and the Council to condemn Communism: “When around two dozen Bishops requested a solemn condemnation of Communism,” stated Fr. Häring, “Msgr. Glorieux …. and I were blamed like scapegoats. I have no reason to deny that I did everything possible to avoid this condemnation, which rang out clearly like a political condemnation. I knew that John XXIII had promised Moscow authorities that the Council would not condemn communism in order to assure the participation of observers of the Russian Orthodox church” (6). . . .
1. Catholic doctrine has always emphatically condemned Communism. It would be possible, should it be necessary, to publish a small book composed exclusively of anti-communist pontifical documents.
2. It would have been natural, therefore, for Vatican Council II, which met in Rome from 1962 to 1965, to have confirmed these condemnations against the greatest enemy of the Church and Christian Civilization in the 20th century.
3. In addition to this, 213 Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishop solicited Paul VI to have the Council make such a condemnation. Later, 435 Conciliar Fathers repeated the same request. The two petitions were duly delivered within the time limits established by the Internal Guidelines of the Council. Nonetheless, inexplicably, neither petition ever came up for debate. The first was not taken into consideration. As for the second, after the Council had closed, it was alleged that it had been “lost” by Mgr. Achille Glorieux, secretary of the commission that would have been entrusted with the request.
4. The Council closed without making any express censure of Communism. Why was no censure made? The matter seemed wrapped in an enigmatic fog. Only later did these significant facts on the topic appear. The point of my article is to gather and present information from several different sources for the consideration of my reader. How can the actions of the Catholic Prelates who inspired, ordered, followed and maintained the decisions of the Pact of Metz be explained? I leave the answer to my reader. (The Council of Metz)
The future Paul VI, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, directly betrayed Catholic priests sent behind the Iron Curtain by Pope Pius XII, effectively sentencing these priests to death or imprisonment:
An elderly gentleman from Paris who worked as an official interpreter for high-level clerics at the Vatican in the early 1950s told this writer that the Soviets blackmailed Montini into revealing the names of priests whom the Vatican had clandestinely sent behind the Iron Curtain to minister to Catholics in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Soviet secret police were on hand as soon as the priests crossed over the Russian border and the priest infiltrators were either shot or sent to the gulag.
The extent to which Pope Paul VI was subject to blackmail by the enemies of the Church will probably never be known. It may be that, in so far as the Communists and the Socialists were concerned, blackmail was entirely unnecessary given Montini's cradle to grave fascination and affinity for the Left. On the other hand, the Italian Freemasons, M16, the OSS and later the CIA and the Mafia were likely to have used blackmail and extortion against Montini beginning early in his career as a junior diplomat, then as Archbishop of Milan and finally as Pope Paul VI. (Randy Engel, The Rite of Sodomy, p. 1156.)
Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul the Sick engaged in a policy of Communist surrender known as Ostpolik (East politics) wherein he appointed men as "bishops" in Communist countries behind the Iron Curtain who were friendly to, if not actual agents of, the Communist authorities in those countries. These "bishops" had a perverse "apostolic mandate," if you will, given then sub secreto by Montini: never criticize Communism or any Communist officials. In other words, be good stooges for various "people's" and "democratic" republics in exchange for promoting the false "gospel" of conciliarism.
It was also Montini/Paul VI who sold out the courageous Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty, the Primate of Hungary and the Archbishop of Budapest, Josef Cardinal Mindszenty when the latter, after taking refuge in the American Embassy in Budapest for a decade following the Hungarian Revolution in October of 1956, was forced out of the American Embassy as a result of Vatican pressure and then, after being told by Montini/Paul VI that he remained as the Archbishop of Budapest, has his primatial see declared vacant by the theologically, liturgically and morally corrupt Montini.
This scenario is described by an sedeplenist, Dr. Steve O'Brien, in a review of two motion pictures about the life of Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty:
The Prisoner, as it happened, was wrapped too soon because Mindszenty's story, which had seemed to be fini, had scarcely begun. By 1956 Stalin was dead and Khrushchev was making some unusual noises. In October the Hungarians rose in revolt. Mindszenty had no clue of what was happening on the street; his guards told him that the rabble outside the prison was shouting for his blood. A few days later he was released and indeed a mob of locals set upon him. But instead of ripping his flesh they grabbed at the liberated hero to kiss his clothes. When he returned to Budapest the deposed Reds quivered over this ghost who would not stay buried, but in a radio broadcast he counseled against revenge. The Soviets were not so forgiving, and tanks rumbled to crush this unpleasant incident. A marked man, Mindszenty sought asylum in the American embassy as his last resort. Now a second long Purgatory had begun. Pius spoke out repeatedly against this latest example of Soviet terror but the West, heedless of its own liberation rhetoric, was deaf.
When The Prisoner was released, the Church was still the implacable foe of communism. Frail Pius stood as a Colossus against both right and left totalitarianism. When Pius departed this world there ensued a moral void in the Vatican that has never been filled. By the early 1960s both the Western governments and the Novus Ordo popes decided that accommodation with the Communists was preferable to the archaic notions of Pius and Mindszenty. John XXIII and successor Paul VI welcomed a breath of fresh air into the Church, and that odor included cooperation with the Reds. The new Ostpolitik, managed by Paul's Secretary of State Agostino Casaroli, hadn't room for Christian warriors of Mindszenty's stamp. The position of the Hungarian government was strengthened when Casaroli entered negotiations with the appalling regime of Janos Kadar. As the Cold War thawed, the freeze was put on Mindszenty. The American government made it understood that he was no longer welcome at the embassy. Worse still, Paul sent a functionary to persuade Mindszenty to leave, but only after signing a document full of stipulations that favored the Reds and essentially blaming himself for his ordeal. The confession that the Communists could not torture out of him was being forced on him by the Pope!
Driven from his native land against his wishes, Mindszenty celebrated Mass in Rome with Paul on October 23, 1971. The Pope told him, "You are and remain archbishop of Esztergom and primate of Hungary." It was the Judas kiss. For two years Mindszenty traveled, a living testament to truth, a man who had been scourged, humiliated, imprisoned and finally banished for the Church's sake. In the fall of 1973, as he prepared to publish his Memoirs, revealing the entire story to the world, he suffered the final betrayal. Paul, fearful that the truth would upset the new spirit of coexistence with the Marxists, "asked" Mindszenty to resign his office. When Mindszenty refused, Paul declared his See vacant, handing the Communists a smashing victory.
If Mindszenty's story is that of the rise and fall of the West's resistance to communism it is also the chronicle of Catholicism's self-emasculation. In the 1950s a man such as Mindszenty could be portrayed as a hero of Western culture even though both American and English history is rife with hatred toward the Church. When the political mood changed to one of coexistence and detente rather than containment, Mindszenty became an albatross to the appeasers and so the Pilates of government were desperate to wash their hands of him. Still, politicians are not expected to act on principle, and therefore the Church's role in Mindszenty's agony is far more damning.
Since movies, for good or ill, have a pervasive influence on American culture, perhaps a serious film that told Mindszenty's whole story could have some effect on the somnolent Catholics in the West. Guilty of Treason and The Prisoner are artifacts of their day. An updated film that follows the prelate through his embassy exile and his pathetic end would be a heart-wrenching drama. But knowing what we know now, the Communists, despicable as they are, would no longer be the primary villains. (Shooting the Cardinal: Film and Betrayal in the Mindszenty Case)
As we know, of course, no true pope of the Catholic Church sold out Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty. A conciliar revolutionary did so, And it has been three other such revolutionaries who have conspired to sellout the the suffering Catholics of Red China over the course of the past thirty years ever since Bishop Kung was released from prison in 1986 and then left his homeland two years later. Yes, even the supposed anti-Communist, Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, helped to pave the way for this sellout, which will be made official soon by "Pope Francis."
The Path From "Saint Paul II" to Jorge Mario Bergoglio
I first learned of the conciliar Vatican intentions with respect to selling out the faithful, suffering Catholics of Red China when attending what I thought was Holy Mass at the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street in the Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, New York, in the 1990s when a highly effeminate Franciscan presbtyter announced before the beginning of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic liturgical weekday service that his "concelebrant" was a "priest" from China who was studying at Saint Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, Yonkers, New York. "Ah," I said to myself, "China? Red China? The underground church? The 'Patriotic Association'?"
Well, I began to get a clearer idea of what "Saint John Paul II" and his chief lieutenants, Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, the prefect of the misnamed Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Angelo "Cardinal" Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State, were planning with respect to Red China when I stopped by one occasion in 1999, I believe, to spend some time in prayer before what I believed to be the Real Presence of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament at Holy Trinity Retreat House in Larchmont, New York. It was as I was leaving that I encountered Father Benedict Groeschel as he was taking a stroll on the grounds. It was then that he told me about that the the Vatican was supporting in the 1990s the training of seminarians for the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) in American seminaries, including Saint Joseph's Seminary.
Father Benedict told me that this was all "hush, hush," as he termed it, and that the situation in Red China was very complex, full of double and triple agents. Father Groeschel said that the training of the CPCA priests at Saint Joseph's had the approval, at some level or another, of the Vatican. The hope was to "integrate" CPCA priests, who had to support the government's anti-life policies, into the life of the underground Church when a "reconciliation" could occur at some point in the future. We can see how well that worked out over the coure of time. Indeed, Wojtyla/John Paul II laid the groundwork for "Pope Benedict's" betrayal of the faithful Catholics in Red China, which helped to prepare what can be called the "shining path" for an admirer of the late Chicom murderer known as Zhou Enlai, who was the Premier of the so-called People's Republic of China from May 1, 1949, to the time of death on January 8, 1976, to finish off the suffering Catholics of Red China once and all.
By 1999, however, the conciliar Vatican had already issued a set of "directives" that would lead to the sorry fate that the faithful Catholics have been dealt by their supposed spiritual father. Here are the terms of those guidelines, which were issued by Josef "Cardinal" Tomko, then the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Propagation of the Faith, issued on September 3, 1988, a series of "eight guidelines" for "contact" between faithful Catholics and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association:
As the contacts among members of the Episcopate, priests and faithful, with exponents of the Catholic Church in China are becoming ever more frequent, this Dicastery, in accord with the Council for the Public Affairs of the Church, considers it opportune to give the Episcopal Conferences the following indications:
1. The contacts in question could be a good occasion to reaffirm with clarity the Catholic Doctrine on the communion which must unite the Bishops with the Successor of Peter and, through him, among themselves (L. G. 14 & 18). In this regard, one could have recourse to the doctrinal principles of the Vatican Councils I and II.
2. In the light of the Vatican Council II one could also explain to them how the Church realizes in her own life self-government, self-propagation and self-financing: it is normal today that Bishops be chosen from among the local clergy; evangelization is, in the first place, to be realized by the local churches, even if in many cases the collaboration of the missionaries still remains necessary, but in a subordinate position; that it is evident that the Church be financially supported by the offerings of the faithful in the locality.
3. Mention could also be made to them of the various forms of collegiality which are being developed in the Church, particularly since Vatican Council II, both on the national and regional levels through the Episcopal Conferences, and on the universal level through the presence and collaboration of the Episcopates of the various countries in the central government of the Church, as, for example, their presence in the Roman Dicasteries, and their collaboration in the Synod of Bishops.
4. In the course of various encounters, care must be taken to avoid attitudes which could wound the sensibility of the ‘silent’ majority of those Catholics who have suffered and are suffering for their fidelity to the Holy Father.
There is also need of avoiding that the visits in question do not become instrumental in obtaining recognition and the legitimization of a position which cannot in any way be acceptable either on the doctrinal level or disciplinary and canonical levels.
5 Another rather delicate point is the question of the liturgical celebrations. In fact all 'communicatio in sacris' is to be avoided. The ‘patriotic’ bishops and priests are not to be invited or even allowed to celebrate religious functions in public, either in the churches or in the oratories of the various religious institutes.
6. The necessary clarity regarding the ecclesial aspects of the visits and the attitude to be adopted, which must be respected by all, do not imply that there is to be a lack of fraternal charity, which should be expressed in the cordiality of the welcome given to the guests and in the manner in which they are treated.
It is hoped that all this will assist them in understanding, in the light of the Spirit, the incoherence of their position and induce them to a change of attitude.
7. Care must also be taken that those who are responsible for the organization of the visits of the above-mentioned delegations be persons of sound doctrine, faithful to the Magisterium of the Church and capable of acting with great prudence.
8. It is to be foreseen that such events will not fail to arouse reactions in the local and international press. It will be necessary, therefore, to foresee how to assist the means of social communication, utilizing the orientations mentioned above, which clarify the position of the Church and may foster the comprehension of the diverse and complex problems closely connected with this position. (As found at Cardinal Kung Foundation.)
Joseph Kung wrote a series of updates about the situation of underground Catholics in Red China. Indeed, he did so just seventeen days after his uncle's death on March 11, 2000, because the situation facing Catholics had become so confusing. Moreover, Mr. Kung was alarmed by the fact that seminarians from the rump church in Red China were being permitted to study in American seminaries, which was what I been told by Father Benedict Groeschel the year before. Appendix A below contains a few excerpts of that open letter, which asked one plaintive question after another. The saddest part of all is that Mr. Kung's questions have been answered loud and clear, and th first set of answers were given by the supposed "restorer of tradition," Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, on June 30, 2007.
Ratzinger "I Can't Take The Jet Lag From Rio" Provided the Famework for Bergoglio's Current Surrender to the Chicoms
True to his subjectivist self, the chief apostle of the "new ecclesiology", who said recently that he resigned from the hard duties of promoting heresy as the universal public face of apostasy because he could not take the jet lag if he had to go to World Youth Day in Rio di Janiero in 2013 (nothing is ever stable in the mind of this Hegelian, including the rationales for his resignation), used the situation in Red China as a grand "workshop" to "perfect" a "communion" among the "particular churches" in China without requiring members of the rump church to renounce their errors publicly and while he strongly "encouraged" those who have suffered in the underground Church to cooperate with the Communist officials there so that the "suffering" of the past can be overcome by means of a supposed “spiritual reconciliation," which must necessarily precede the "difficulties" of differences of Faith. This is how he phrased things in his Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China, which was realeased on June 30, 2007, the Commemoration of Saint Paul
Addressing the whole Church in his Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, my venerable predecessor Pope John Paul II, stated that an "important area in which there has to be commitment and planning on the part of the universal Church and the particular Churches [is] the domain of communion (koinonia), which embodies and reveals the very essence of the mystery of the Church. Communion is the fruit and demonstration of that love which springs from the heart of the Eternal Father and is poured out upon us through the Spirit whom Jesus gives us (cf. Rom 5:5), to make us all 'one heart and one soul' (Acts 4:32). It is in building this communion of love that the Church appears as 'sacrament', as the 'sign and instrument of intimate union with God and of the unity of the human race.' The Lord's words on this point are too precise for us to diminish their import. Many things are necessary for the Church's journey through history, not least in this new century; but without charity (agape) all will be in vain. It is again the Apostle Paul who in his hymn to love reminds us: even if we speak the tongues of men and of angels, and if we have faith 'to move mountains', but are without love, all will come to 'nothing' (cf. 1 Cor 13:2). Love is truly the 'heart' of the Church"
These matters, which concern the very nature of the universal Church, have a particular significance for the Church which is in China. Indeed you are aware of the problems that she is seeking to overcome – within herself and in her relations with Chinese civil society – tensions, divisions and recriminations.
In this regard, last year, while speaking of the nascent Church, I had occasion to recall that "from the start the community of the disciples has known not only the joy of the Holy Spirit, the grace of truth and love, but also trials that are constituted above all by disagreements about the truths of faith, with the consequent wounds to communion. Just as the fellowship of love has existed since the outset and will continue to the end (cf. 1 Jn 1:1ff.), so also, from the start, division unfortunately arose. We should not be surprised that it still exists today ... Thus, in the events of the world but also in the weaknesses of the Church, there is always a risk of losing faith, hence, also love and brotherhood. Consequently it is a specific duty of those who believe in the Church of love and want to live in her to recognize this danger too"
The history of the Church teaches us, then, that authentic communion is not expressed without arduous efforts at reconciliation . Indeed, the purification of memory, the pardoning of wrong-doers, the forgetting of injustices suffered and the loving restoration to serenity of troubled hearts, all to be accomplished in the name of Jesus crucified and risen, can require moving beyond personal positions or viewpoints, born of painful or difficult experiences. These are urgent steps that must be taken if the bonds of communion between the faithful and the Pastors of the Church in China are to grow and be made visible. (Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China)
In other words, Ratzinger/Benedict told the members of the underground Church in Red China nine years ago that it was up to them to make "visible" a "communion" with the "pastors" of the rump church that supports the Communist regime's "population control" policies. "Communion" depended upon them being willing to forgive past—and present!—injustices as well as to forget the inconvenient truth that the most of the leaders of the rump church defect from several of the Church's defined teachings on Faith and Morals, placing them totally outside of the pale of the Catholic Church, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.
Ratzinger/Benedict was telling the long-suffering Catholics in the underground Church in Red China that their suffering was appreciated and noted. It was time, however, to "move on" and purify "memories" so that a "reconciliation" based on a deliberate and calculated overlooking of defections from Faith and Morals on the part of the rump church in China coud take place, leaving to a later date—perhaps—“discussions" on the more "delicate" matters that might seem to the Communist authorities to be an "interference" in their "internal affairs." Just be quiet, therefore, don't complain about the government's "population control policies," be good citizens and be content that you have the sacraments and are in "communion" with your fellow Chinese Catholics.
An unfair reading of Ratzinger/Benedict's June 30, 2007 letter? Read this footnote from the Compendium that was released by the conciliar Vatican on May 24, 2009, to “clarify” his original letter, which caused great confusion among the "bishops," priests/presbyters and members of the laity in Red China, and then decide for yourselves:
We can see that the Holy Father is talking about a spiritual reconciliation, which can and must take place now, even before a structural merger of official and unofficial Catholic communities takes place. As a matter of fact, the Holy Father seems to make a distinction between “a spiritual reconciliation” and “a structural merger”. He recognizes that the reconciliation is like a journey that “cannot be accomplished overnight” (6.6): however, he emphasizes that the steps to be taken on the way are necessary and urgent, and cannot therefore be postponed because - or on the pretext that - they are difficult since they require the overcoming of personal positions or views. Times and ways may vary according to local situations, but the commitment to reconciliation cannot be abandoned. This path of reconciliation, furthermore, cannot be limited to the spiritual realm of prayer alone but must also be expressed through practical steps of effective ecclesial communion (exchange of experiences, sharing of pastoral projects, common initiatives, etc.). Finally, it should not be forgotten that all without exception are invited to engage in these steps: Bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful. It is by means of practical steps that spiritual reconciliation, including visible reconciliation, will gradually occur, which will culminate one day in the complete structural unity of every diocesan community around its one Bishop and of every diocesan community with each other and with the universal Church. In this context, it is licit and fitting to encourage clergy and lay faithful to make gestures of forgiveness and reconciliation in this direction. (Footnote 2, Compendium, pp. 8-9.)
This footnote reflects entirely Joseph Ratzinger's abject rejection of the "ecumenism of the return." Ratzinger/Benedict believes that people are gradually "absorbed" into the Church by means of "perfecting" their "communion" with other Christians. This is heretical. This is condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church. Yet it is of the essence of Ratzinger/Benedict's theology, which is reflected so completely in his June 30, 2007, Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China and in the Compendium released on May 24, 2009.
After all, it is "reconciliation" and "love" that matters the most, although Catholics understand that true love of God can never sanction anything that is offensive to Him, making, therefore, Ratzinger's appeal for a "reconciliation" with authorities of a rump church who support (or are silent about) government polices contrary to Faith and Morals nothing other than an exercise in pure subjectivism.
Ratzinger/Benedict's subjectivism was further displayed when he vitiated his earlier affirmation of Papal Primacy by excusing Catholics who seek out the sacraments from "pastors" who are not in "communion" with the Roman Pontiff, who he believed himself to be at the time.
In not a few situations, then, you have faced the problem of concelebration of the Eucharist. In this regard, I remind you that this presupposes, as conditions, profession of the same faith and hierarchical communion with the Pope and with the universal Church. Therefore it is licit to concelebrate with Bishops and with priests who are in communion with the Pope, even if they are recognized by the civil authorities and maintain a relationship with entities desired by the State and extraneous to the structure of the Church, provided – as was said earlier (cf. section 7 above, paragraph 8) – that this recognition and this relationship do not entail the denial of unrenounceable principles of the faith and of ecclesiastical communion.
The lay faithful too, who are animated by a sincere love for Christ and for the Church, must not hesitate to participate in the Eucharist celebrated by Bishops and by priests who are in full communion with the Successor of Peter and are recognized by the civil authorities. The same applies for all the other sacraments.
Concerning Bishops whose consecrations took place without the pontifical mandate yet respecting the Catholic rite of episcopal ordination, the resulting problems must always be resolved in the light of the principles of Catholic doctrine. Their ordination – as I have already said (cf. section 8 above, paragraph 12) – is illegitimate but valid, just as priestly ordinations conferred by them are valid, and sacraments administered by such Bishops and priests are likewise valid.Therefore the faithful, taking this into account, where the eucharistic celebration and the other sacraments are concerned, must, within the limits of the possible, seek Bishops and priests who are in communion with the Pope: nevertheless, where this cannot be achieved without grave inconvenience, they may, for the sake of their spiritual good, turn also to those who are not in communion with the Pope. (Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China.)
Never mind the fact that the rump church in Red China is a tool of the government. Never mind that there might be some "differences" between the teachings of the rump church in Red China and the Catholic Church. These differences did not matter to Ratzinger/Benedict unless they involved a "denial of unrenounceable principles of the faith and of ecclesiastical communion," although there is not one article of the Faith that is "renounceable." For if it is permissible to participate in the liturgical services of heretics who defect from the Catholic Faith, then Pope Saint Pius V was himself wrong when he told English Catholics, many of whom did not look forward to heavy fines or the confiscation of their properties or imprisonment or martyrdom—or all of those things, not to assist at the liturgies of the heretical and schismatic Anglican Church.
Or, my friends, was that what Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was saying nine years ago?
Was he saying, as he made reference to in his Explanatory Letter on "Summorum Pontificum, which was issued on June 7, 2007, just a week after his letter to Chinese Catholics, that he was doing then what others did not do in the past, that is, being willing to "bend" a little bit on some points in order to effect a "reconciliation" which comes at the price of truth itself?
What an affront to the witness of the martyrs over the history of the Church, including the martyrs of the underground Church in Red China in the past sixty-seven years, who refused to make one compromise with error or heresy or any interference at all on the part of the civil state with the life and mission of the Catholic Church.
Then again, of course, the counterfeit church of conciliarism is "rife" with members in "good standing" who support some of the very evils promoted by the Communist regime in Red China. Others are in "good standing" despite supporting the promotion of perversity under cover of the civil law. Thus it is that Edward Moore Kennedy and John F. Kerry and Mario Matthew Cuomo and Andrew Cuomo and David Paterson and Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Richard Durbin and Thomas Harkin and Jim Doyle and Kathleen Sebelius and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., and Patricia Murray, and Donna Shalala and Janet Reno, et al., can retain their "good standing" despite their open support for baby-killing and perversity under cover of the civil law.
“Father” John Jenkins, the President of the University of Notre Dame, considered to be a "fit" president of an allegedly Catholic University after bestowing an award upon a man, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, who is at war with God by means of supporting—and issuing Executive Orders permitting—the slaughter of the preborn under cover of the civil law.
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair was "received" into the counterfeit church of conciliarism without renouncing his support for baby-killing under cover of the civil law.
Conciliar "bishops," are permitted to renounce that are supposed to part of the "official" doctrines of the Catholic Church that have been maintained by the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Robert Zollitsch maintains his own "good standing" despite having denied that Our Lord died in atonement for our sins.
There is, you see, quite a bit of logic involved in requesting the Catholics of the underground church in Red China to join up with the rump church that promotes some of the very evils that are support by "Catholics" in the counterfeit church of conciliarism without forfeiting their place in the One World Church of Ecumenism born of the new ecclesiology. All that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is doing at this time is follow through on what Ratzinger/Benedict helped to make more possible nine years ago now.
A report issued by another sedeplenist, Mr. Steven W. Mosher, the founder and President of the Population Research Institute who lost credit for his doctorate at Stanford University after he had uncovered the Red China's policies of forced abortion and forced sterilizations, indicated that Red China's one child per family policy might be waning, but only because of concerns about a decline in the work force. Dr. Mosher reminded his readers that the other parts of the Chicom's draconian policies remain in place:
Will the Chinese Communist Party loosen the stranglehold it has had on reproduction since the late seventies? There has been much speculation that the 13 th Five-Year Plan, to be released next month, will significantly relax the well-known One Child Policy.
If the regime does back away from its draconian birth limits, it won’t be because senior Party officials have suddenly developed a conscience. Rather, it will be because they have finally realized that a shrinking workforce and a rapidly aging population are crippling future economic growth.
For at least the past two years, China’s workforce has been shrinking. Last year, the potential workforce fell by 3.71 million, a significant number even by China’s standards. At the same time, the over-sixty population is exploding. According to U.N. projections, it is expected to more than double by 2050. China is growing old before it grows rich, and the strains on China’s nascent pension programs will be enormous.
As Bloomberg reports, Mu Guangzong of the Institute of Population Research at Peking University has emphasized that “[China] must move from restricting childbirth to encouraging it as soon as possible.”
The parallels between China’s current demographic and economic malaise and Japan’s demographic and economic decline in the 1990s is striking. The Japanese economy has never really recovered from its “demographic recession.” China may not recover either.
The One Child Policy has caused fertility rates to plummet over the past three and half decades. The U.N. Population Division estimates fertility rates today sit at an anemic 1.55 children per woman, far below the replacement level of 2.1. One scholar has suggested that due to a deeply skewed sex ratio in China, the replacement rate is closer to 2.3. Many Chinese men will never marry and never have children.
Sex-selective abortion has reached epidemic proportions in many parts of the country. The strong preference for sons in Chinese culture, especially in rural areas, has resulted in the deaths of millions of unborn baby girls. While the natural sex ratio at birth is 106, data from China’s 2005 intercensus survey show that country’s average to be a lopsided 119 boys for every 100 girls. Others have perished from female infanticide, malnutrition and neglect.
The overall loss of human life in China is staggering. China’s own Ministry of Health estimated in 2013 that 336 million babies had been aborted as a result of the onerous population control program. With an estimated 13 million abortions taking place in China every year—almost 1,500 lives per hour—the number is likely significantly higher today.
The Policy has also resulted in the sterilization of over 222 million women and men. Many sterilizations have been used as punishment for couples failing to meet stringent birth quotas. Some women are not even aware that they have been sterilized until months later.
Fertility cycles are charted and tracked by family planning officials. Women in many locales are forced to appear for mandatory sonograms or pelvic examinations every few months. If a woman is discovered to be “illegally” pregnant, she is coerced into having an abortion.
Forced abortions are commonplace. Women found to be pregnant without a birth permit are required to abort under the pain of crushing fines which run from three to five times their family’s annual income. They also face imprisonment of family members, confiscation of personal property, and demolition of their homes. Recently, a media firestorm in China was ignited when a woman eight months pregnant was told her husband would lose his job if she did not abort, another common practice.
Women are also forced to abort if they are pregnant before the age of 23 or are found to be pregnant out of wedlock. Even women who are permitted to have a second child are forced to abort if the child is conceived too soon after the first.
Reports of women being dragged to abortion clinics are not uncommon. Family planning officials have been known to force their way into private homes and cart women away to abortion facilities.
As Ma Jian reports in The New York Times, women have been known to be tied down to hospital beds as they wait for their baby to die from the lethal injection administered directly through the abdomen:
For two days she writhed on the table, her hands and feet still bound with rope, waiting for her body to eject the murdered baby. In the final stage of labor, a male doctor yanked the dead fetus out by the foot, then dropped it into a garbage can. She had no money for a cab. She had to hobble home, blood dripping down her legs and staining her white sandals red.
Babies have been given the lethal injection up to the point of birth, even as they are descending the birth canal. Some are born crying, only to die moments later, turning cold and motionless on the operating table.
Chinese President Xi Jinping first sought to loosen the policy in 2013. It was announced that couples where both the husband and the wife were themselves only children would be allowed to have a second child following the birth of their first. The response was underwhelming as few couples applied for a second birth “permit."
This suggests that a second, greater dispensation for couples to have second children may be in store. But don’t expect it to stop there. A government bent on controlling the fertility of its people will do whatever necessary to produce the number of children it thinks necessary.
After all, the One Child Policy is only one phase of the larger Planned Birth campaign. This is Beijing’s ongoing campaign to control the reproduction of the Chinese people under a state plan in the same way that it controls the number of tanks, or the number of coal-fired power plants, that it builds each year.
This means that, if the Chinese people refuse to conceive and bear the number of children that the state demands, childbearing will become mandatory. Women will be forcibly inseminated, regular pelvic examinations will be instituted to monitor their pregnancies, and abortions will be forbidden.
Unless and until the Communist regime abandons its Planned Birth policy, and allows couples to freely choose the number and spacing of their children, abuses will continue.
And since when has a one-party dictatorship ever voluntarily relinquished even a portion of the power that it wields over its people? (Is China’s One Child Policy Coming to an End?)
Some "progress," huh?
Well, it is important to remember that Jorge Mario Bergoglio cares about none of this. He wants the faithful Catholics in Red China to surrender peacefully as they are led to the slaughter, both figuratively and literally, by the very monsters that have persected them for nearly seven decades.
True Popes Never Spoke As Leftists
True popes never spoke like leftists. Indeed, they subscribed to no secular political ideology or naturalist philosophy. They were simply Catholic, and all that they ever did was to enunciate Catholic truth, not serve as bobble head dolls for an ideology. Ideology of its very nature is a sterile substitute for the true Faith.
Quite unlike the conciliar “popes,” our last true pope thus far, Pope Pius XII, did not mince words when dealing with Communist aggression against Catholics and the rights of Holy Mother Church. One can contrast Pope Pius XII’s unambiguous condemnation of the persecution of faithful Catholics in Red China at the hands of the Chicom regime and its puppets in a rump church of its own creation:
3. That which seems to Us not only the greatest evil but the root of all evil is this: often the lie is substituted for the truth, and is then used as an instrument of dispute. On the part of not a few religion is passed by as a thing of no importance, and elsewhere absolutely prohibited in family and social life as a remnant of ancient superstitions; public and private atheism is exalted in such a way that God and His law are being abolished, and morals no longer have any foundation. The Press also too often vulgarly reviles religious feeling, while it does not hesitate to spread the most shameful obscenities, agitating and with incalculable harm leading into vice tender childhood and betrayed youth.
4. By means of false promises a people is deceived and provoked to hatred, rivalry and rebellion, especially when the hereditary faith, the only relief in this earthly exile, is successfully torn from its heart. Disturbances, riots and revolts are organized and fomented in continuing series, which prepare for the ruin of the economy and cause irreparable harm to the common good.
5. We must above all deplore with overwhelming sadness that in not a few nations the rights of God, Church and human nature itself are outraged and trampled upon. Sacred ministers, even those invested with high dignities, are either driven from their proper Sees, exiled and imprisoned, or impeded in a manner preventing them from exercising their ministry. In the field of education, whether of lower or of university level, as well as in publications and the Press, permission to explain and defend the doctrine of the Church either is not given or is so restricted and subjected to such surveillance by official censorship that the arbitrary proposition that truth, liberty and religion must submissively serve only the civil authority seems to be the established principle.
6. Since these innumerable evils spring, as We have said, from one source only, the repudiation of God and contempt for His law, it is necessary, Venerable Brethren, to offer to God fervent prayers and recall all to those principles whence alone can come enlightenment for minds, peace and concord for souls and well ordered justice between the various social classes.
7. As you know, once religion is taken away there cannot be a well ordered, well regulated society. In this point lies the urgency to spur on priests under your guidance in order that, especially during the Holy Year, they spare no efforts so that souls entrusted to them, with their false prejudices and erroneous convictions cast aside, and hatreds and discords settled, may nourish themselves on the teachings of the Gospel and thus participate in Christian life so as to hasten the desired renewal of morals.
8. And since the priest can reach neither everybody nor everything, and as his work is not always able to meet adequately all needs, those who serve in the Catholic Action ranks must offer the aid of their own experience and activity. No one must be idle and lazy in the face of so many evils and dangers while those in the other camp strive to destroy the very basis of Catholic religion and Christian worship. Let it never come to pass that "the children of this world are wiser than the children of light" (Luke xvi. 8); let it never be that the latter are less active than the former.
9. But human efforts are ineffective unless strengthened by Divine Grace. We exhort you, therefore, Venerable Brethren, to begin a veritable crusade of prayer among your faithful to implore from the Father of Mercies and the God of Consolation (2 Cor. i. 3) suitable remedies for the present evils. We intensely desire that, united with Us, they offer public prayers on March 26th Passion Sunday, when the sacred rites of the Church begin to commemorate the bitter sufferings by means of which the Divine Redeemer liberated us from slavery to the demon and led us back to the freedom of the sons of God. It is Our intention on that day to descend into the Basilica of St. Peter to unite Our prayers not only with those present but -- as We hope -- with those of the whole Catholic world. Let those who, because of illness or old age or other reasons, cannot come to church, offer to God with humble and trusting heart their sufferings and their fears so that the prayer of all, the yearning of all and the wish of all may be one.
10. Let all, united with Us in prayer, implore from Divine mercy that a new order, based on truth, justice and charity, may arise from the longed-for restoration of morals. May the Heavenly Light illuminate the minds of those who have in their hands the destinies of peoples; may they realize that just as peace is the work of wisdom and justice, so war is the fruit of blindness and hatred; let them consider that one day they must render account not only to history but to God's eternal judgment.
11. Those who profusely sow the seed of hatred, of discord and of rivalry; those who secretly or openly arouse the masses and provoke rebellions; those who deceive with empty promises the easily agitated masses, even they must understand that the justice demanded by Christian principles, which gives birth to equilibrium and fraternal concord, is achieved not through force and violence, but with the application of the law.
12. Guided by the supreme light gained by collective prayer, let all be persuaded that only the Divine Redeemer can compose the many and formidable conflicts; only Jesus Christ, We say, Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John xvi. 6), Who bestows celestial clarity to clouded minds and Divine strength to doubtful and indolent wills (Imitation of Christ, III, 50 8, 5); He alone can set on the road to eternal happiness the souls of men joined by the bond of brotherhood.
13. With faith, love and hope, therefore, We address to Him Our prayers. May He then, especially during this Holy Year, benignly look down upon humanity, oppressed by so many misfortunes, assailed by so many fears and by waves of so many discords. And as one day, by His divine sign, He calmed the tempest on the Lake of Galilee, so today may He quieten human storms. (Pope Pius XII, Anni Sacri, March 12, 1950.)
15. Lastly, there are some among you who would wish that your Church would be completely independent, not only, as We have said, in regard to its government and finances, but also in regard to the teaching of Christian doctrine and sacred preaching, in which they try to claim "autonomy."
16. We do not at all deny that the manner of preaching and teaching ought to differ according to place and therefore ought to conform, when possible, to the nature and particular character of the Chinese people, as also to its ancient traditional customs. If this is properly done, certainly greater fruits will be gathered among you.
17. But -- and it is absurd merely to think of it -- by what right can men arbitrarily and diversely in different nations, interpret the gospel of Jesus Christ?
18. Bishops, who are the successors of the Apostles, and priests, who according to their proper office cooperate with the Bishops, have been charged with announcing and teaching that gospel which Jesus and His Apostles first announced and taught, and which this Holy See and all the Bishops united to it have preserved and transmitted pure and inviolate through the centuries. The holy pastors, therefore, are not the inventors and the composers of this gospel, but only its authorized custodians and its divinely constituted heralds. Wherefore We Ourselves, and the Bishops together with Us, can and ought to repeat the words of Jesus Christ: "My teaching is not my own, but his who sent me" John 7. 16). And to all the Bishops, in every age, can be directed the exhortation of St. Paul: "O Timothy, guard the trust and keep free from profane novelties in speech and the contradictions of so-called knowledge" (I Tim. 6. 20). And so also these words of the same Apostle: "Guard the good trust through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us" (2 Tim. 1. 14). We are not teachers of a doctrine invented by the human mind. But our conscience obliges us tO embrace and follow what Jesus Christ Himself taught, and what He solemnly commanded His Apostles and their successors to teach (Cf. Matt. 28. 19-20).
19. A Bishop, or a priest of the true Church of Christ, ought time and again to meditate on what the Apostle Paul said of his preaching of the Gospel: "For I give you to understand, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not of man. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it; but I received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1. 11-12)
20. Being most certain that this doctrine (whose integrity We must defend with the help of the Holy Ghost) has been divinely revealed, We repeat these words of the Apostle of the Gentiles: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel to you other than that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema" (Gal. 1.8).
21. You can easily see, Venerable Brothers and beloved sons, why he cannot be considered a Catholic or bear the name of Catholic who professes or teaches differently from what We have up to this point briefly explained. This includes those persons who have adhered to the dangerous principles underlying the movement of the "Three Autonomies," or to other similar principles.
22. The promoters of such movements with the greatest cunning seek to deceive the simple or the timid, or to draw them away from the right path. For this purpose they falsely affirm that the only true patriots are those who adhere to the church thought up by them, that is, to that which has the "Three Autonomies." But in reality they seek, in a word, to establish finally among you a "national" church, which no longer could be Catholic because it world be the negation of that universality or rather "catholicity" by which the society truly founded by Jesus Christ is above all nations and embraces them one and all.
23. We want to repeat here the words that We have written on the same argument in the letter already cited: "The Church does not single out a particular people, an individual nation, but loves all men, whatever be their nation or race, with that supernatural charity of Christ, which should necessarily unite all as brothers, one to the other.
24. "Hence it cannot be affirmed that she serves the interests of any particular power. Nor likewise can she be expected to countenance that particular churches be set up in each nation, thus destroying that unity established by the Divine Founder, and unhappily separating them from this Apostolic See where Peter, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, continues to live in his successors until the end of time.
25. "Whatever Christian community were to do this, would lose its vitality as the branch cut from the vine (Cf. John 15. 6) and could not bring forth salutary fruit" (AAS, 44: p. 135).
26. We earnestly exhort "in the heart of Christ" (Phil. 1. 8) those faithful of whom We have mournfully written above to come back to the path of repentance and salvation. Let them remember that, when it is necessary, one must render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and with greater reason, one must render to God what is God's (Cf. Luke 20. 25). When men demand things contrary to the Divine Will, then it is necessary to put into practice the maxim of St. Peter: "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5. 29). Let them also remember that it is impossible to serve two masters, if these order things opposed to one another (Cf. Matt. 6. 24). Also at times it is impossible to please both Jesus Christ and men (Cf. Gal. 1. 10). But if it sometimes happens that he who wishes to remain faithful to the Divine Redeemer even unto death must suffer great harm, let him bear it with a strong and serene soul.
27. On the other hand, We wish to congratulate repeatedly those who, suffering severe difficulties, have been outstanding in their loyalty to God and to the Catholic Church, and so have been "counted worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus" (Acts 5. 41). With a paternal heart We encourage them to continue brave and intrepid along the road they have taken, keeping in mind the words of Jesus Christ: "And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather be afraid of him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell . . . But as for you, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Therefore do not be afraid . . . Therefore everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I in turn will disown him before my Father in heaven" (Matt. 10. 28, 30-33). (Pope Pius XII, Ad Sinarum Gentem, October 7, 1954.)
This is quite a contrast with what Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI wrote in 2007 and what Jorge Mario Bergoglio said earlier this year when celebrating the Chinese “Year of the Monkey”:
Asia Times: "How should these challenges of families in China be faced, given that they find themselves in a process of profound change and no longer correspond to the traditional Chinese model of the family?"
Pope Francis: "The history of a people is always a path. A people at times walks more quickly, at times more slowly, at times it pauses, at times it makes a mistake and goes backwards a little, or takes the wrong path and has to retrace its steps to follow the right way. But when a people moves forward, this does not worry me because it means they are making history. And I believe that the Chinese people are moving forward and this is their greatness. … And I would go further: do not be bitter, but be at peace with your own path, even if you have made mistakes. I cannot say my history was bad, that I hate my history.
No, every people must be reconciled with its history as its own path, with its successes and its mistakes. And this reconciliation with one’s own history brings much maturity, much growth. … When one takes responsibility for one’s own path, accepting it for what it was, this allows one’s historical and cultural richness to emerge, even in difficult moments. And how can it be allowed to emerge? Here we return to the first question: in dialogue with today’s world. To dialogue does not mean that I surrender myself, because at times there is the danger, in the dialogue between different countries, of hidden agendas, namely, cultural colonisations. It is necessary to recognise the greatness of the Chinese people, who have always maintained their culture. And their culture – I am not speaking about ideologies that there may have been in the past – their culture was not imposed". (Jorge Wishes A Happy Year of the Monkey to the Red Chinese.)
Interjection Number Three:
“I cannot say that my history is bad, that I hate my history.”
In other words, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was saying that it is not necessary to view any period of history with particular revulsion, something that he believes is applicable, albeit with a few prominent exceptions to be noted momentarily, to nations and to individuals.
Bergoglio only applies this false principle, however, to Communist nations as he has indeed denounced the history of Nazi Germany and its monstrous crimes (relying upon Zionist propaganda after the extent of such crimes, which is not to minimize the evils of the Nazi regime—see Meet Some Catholics Truly Worth Admiring, part one and Meet Some Catholics Truly Worth Admiring, part two.)
Jorge can, however, denounce the authentic history, doctrine, tradition and liturgy of the Catholic by issuing “apologies” to non-Catholics for how Catholics “persecuted” them by defending the truths of the Holy Faith, sometimes with their very lives, and by urging those non-Catholics to convert to the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order, which is what he did on January 25, 2016, the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle, during his "homily" at the annual ecumaniacal vespers service at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls:
In this Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, we must always keep in mind that there cannot be an authentic search for Christian unity without trusting fully in the Father’s mercy. We ask first of all for forgiveness for the sins of our divisions, which are an open wound in the Body of Christ. As Bishop of Rome and pastor of the Catholic Church, I want to ask for mercy and forgiveness for the behavior of Catholics towards Christians of other Churches which has not reflected Gospel values. At the same time, I invite all Catholic brothers and sisters to forgive if they, today or in the past, have been offended by other Christians. We cannot cancel out what has happened, but we do not want to let the weight of past faults continue to contaminate our relationships. God’s mercy will renew our relationships. (Jorge Ask Forgiveness for How Catholics Have Treated Protestants.)
How can a man who, in essence, tells the suffering Catholics in Red China to be "reconciled" to their "history" hate the history of the Catholic Church, no less defame the matyrdom of Catholics killed by Protestants in Germany, the Low Countries, and, of course, England and Ireland in the first two centuries after the Protestant Revolution?
Should Saints Thomas More and John Fisher accommodated themselves to the "new order" of things after King Henry VIII had divorced his true wife, Catherine of Aragon, to "marry" his mistress, Anne Boleyn?
Should Saint Fidelis of Sigmarigen and the Martyrs of Gorkhum not have defend the Catholic Faith against Calvinism with their very lives?
Should Saint Josaphat not have sought convert those in the heretical and schismatic Russian Orthodox Church?
Unlike Jorge Mario Bergoglio, our last true pope thus far, Pope Pius XII, explained in his last encyclical letter, Ad Apostolorum Princeps, June 29, 1958, that there could be no accommdating the so-called "Patriotic Association" in Red China:
49. What then is to be the opinion concerning the excuse added by members of the association promoting false patriotism, that they had to act as they alleged because of the need to tend to the souls in those dioceses which were then without a bishop?
50. It is obvious that no thought is being taken of the spiritual good of the faithful if the Church's laws are being violated, and further, there is no question of vacant sees, as they wish to argue in defense, but of episcopal sees whose legitimate rulers have been driven out or now languish in prison or are being obstructed in various ways from the free exercise of their power of jurisdiction. It must likewise be added that those clerics have been cast into prison, exiled, or removed by other means, whom the lawful ecclesiastical superiors had designated in accordance with canon law and the special powers received from the Apostolic See to act in their place in the government of the dioceses.
51. It is surely a matter for grief that while holy bishops noted for their zeal for souls are enduring so many trials, advantage is taken of their difficulties to establish false shepherds in their place so that the hierarchical order of the Church is overthrown and the authority of the Roman Pontiff is treacherously resisted.
52. And some have even become so arrogant that they blame the Apostolic See for these terrible and tragic events (which have certainly been deliberate accomplishments of the Church's persecutors) even though everyone knows that the Church has been unable, in the past and at present, when such information has been needed, to obtain requisite data about qualified candidates for the episcopacy simply because she was prevented from communicating freely and safely with the dioceses of China.
53. Venerable brethren and dear children, thus far We have told you of the anxiety with which we are moved by the errors which certain men are trying to sow among you, and by the dissensions which are being aroused. Our intention is that, enlightened and strengthened by the encouragement of your common father, you may remain steadfast and without blemish in that faith by which We are united and by which alone We shall obtain salvation.
54. But now, following the ardent dictates of Our heart, We must tell you of the close and particular feelings of intimacy which draw Us near to you. To Our mind come those torments which rend asunder your bodies or your minds, particularly those which the most valiant witnesses of Christ are enduring, among whose number are several of Our Venerable Brethren in the episcopate. Daily at the altar We offer to the Divine Redeemer the trials of all of them, together with the prayers and sufferings of the whole Church.
55. Be constant then and put your trust in Him according to the words: "Cast all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you."[20]
56. He sees clearly your anguish and your torments. He particularly finds acceptable the grief of soul and the tears which many of you, bishops and priests, religious and laymen, pour forth in secret when they behold the efforts of those who are striving to subvert the Christians among you. These tears, these bodily pains and tortures, the blood of the martyrs of past and present -- all will bring it about that, through the powerful intervention of Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, Queen of China, the Church in your native land will at long last regain its strength and in a calmer age, happier days will shine upon it. (Pope Pius XII, Ad Apostolorum Princeps, June 29, 1958.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio would have us believe that Pope Pius XII was wrong, that conditions are “different” now, repeating the same delusional belief that had been assert by Ratzinger/Benedict in 2007, namely, that we have to “move on” in order to “move forward.”
Pope Pius XII urged the suffering Catholics in Red China to maintain the Holy Faith unblemished, and what he wrote to them fifty-eight years ago applies to us now. We must maintain the Holy Faith unblemished and without making any compromise with the nonexistent legitimacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his false religious sect, the counterfeit church of conciliarism.
Pope Pius XII was equally firm in his denunciations of Communist aggression against Catholics in Eastern Europe in 1956 during the uprisings again that took place in Poland and Hungary in 1956, writing the following in the immediate aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution's liberation of Josef Cardinal Mindszenty in late-October of 1956:
We are most pleased to learn that the Consecrated Shepherds of the Catholic world and the rest of the clergy and faithful have responded with generosity and enthusiasm to the paternal entreaty of Our recent Encyclical Letter by supplicating Heaven in public prayers. And so We give unceasing thanks to God from Our heart that He has heard so many prayers, especially of innocent boys and girls, and a new dawn of peace based on justice seems to be breaking at long last for the people of Poland and Hungary.
2. With no less joy have We learned that Our beloved sons, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Stefan Wyszynski, Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw, and Jozef Mindszenty, Archbishop of Esztergom, who had both been expelled from their Sees, are acknowledged to be innocent men, unjustly accused of crime, and as such have already been restored to their positions of honor and responsibility and welcomed in triumph by rejoicing multitudes.
3. We are confident that this event will prove a happy omen for the restoration and pacification of these two countries on a basis of sounder principle and nobler law, and, above all, with proper respect for God's rights and those of His Church.
4. Wherefore We call again and again upon all the Catholics of those countries to unite themselves about their lawful shepherds with massed force and drawn ranks, and thus apply themselves diligently to the advancement and strengthening of this holy cause. For it is a cause which cannot be abandoned or neglected without making true peace an impossibility.
5. But even while Our heart still fears on this account, We behold the threat of another frightening crisis. As you know, Venerable Brothers, the flames of another war are being fanned menacingly in the Near East, not far from that holy land where angels descended from Heaven and hovered over the crib of the Divine Child, announcing peace to men of good will. (Luke 2. 14).
6. What else can We do, who embrace all peoples with a father's affection, but raise suppliant prayers to the Father of Mercies and God of all comfort (cfr. 11 Cor. 1. 3), and urge all of you to join in them with Us? For "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but powerful before God." (11 Cor. 10. 4)
7. We trust solely in Him Who can illuminate the minds of men with His heavenly light and incline their incited wills to those more temperate counsels by which right order among nations may be established, to their common advantage and with certainty that the legitimate rights of all interested parties are being secured.
8. May all men, especially those who hold the destinies of nations in their hands, remember that war brings no lasting benefit, but a host of misfortunes and disasters. Differences among men are not resolved by arms, bloodshed, or destruction, but only by reason, law, prudence, and justice.
9. When wise men who are motivated by a desire for lasting peace meet to discuss such differences, they should certainly feel obliged to enter upon the ways of justice rather than the rash road of violence if they reflect upon the grave dangers of a war which may start as a tiny spark, but can burst into an enormous conflagration.
10. Amidst these dangerous crises We wish especially to convince the heads of governments. We cannot possibly doubt their realization that no other interest motivates Us but the common good and prosperity of all, which can never be achieved by the massacre of one's brothers.
11. And since, as We have said, We place Our hope above all in the providence and mercy of God. We repeatedly, urge you, Venerable Brothers, not to cease encouraging and promoting this zealous crusade of prayer. Through it -- with the intercession of His Mother, the Virgin Mary -- may Almighty God in His goodness grant an end to the threat of war, a happy solution to the conflicting claims of nations, and assurance everywhere, to the common benefit of all, of those rights granted the Church by her Divine Founder. Thus may "the whole human family, which has been rent asunder by sin's wound, be brought under the sway of His most sweet rule." (Prayer for the Feast of Christ the King) (Pope Pius XII, Laetamur Admodum, November 1, 1956.)
Although his joy was quickly turned into sorrow following the Soviet invasion of Hungary after he issued Laetamar Admodum, Pope Pius XII was truly relieved that two imprisoned bishops, Stefan Wyszynski, Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw and the Primate of Poland, and Jozef Mindszenty, the Primate of Hungary had been returned to their sees. Bergoglio is now accepting rump "bishops" as legitimate governors of Catholic sees in Red China, which makes perfect sense if one understands the fact that he thinks that Justin Welby is truly the "archbishop of Canterbury." A true pope, Pope Pius XII, gave no quarter to falsity. A false "pope" embraces falsity with enthusiasm as he believes that the only thing that is "false" is "old-fashioned" Catholicism.
It was only four days afer he issued Laetamar Admodum that Pope Pius XII forcefully condemned the Soviet invasion of Hungary that resulted in Cardinal Mindszenty’s taking refuge in the American Embassy in Budapest for the next decade prior to his betrayal at the hands of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul the Sick:
Venerable Brethren, Greetings and Apostolic Benediction.
In the Encyclical Letter which We recently wrote you, Consecrated Shepherds of the Catholic world, We expressed Our hope that a new day of peace based on justice and liberty might be dawning upon the noble people of Hungary. For conditions in that country seemed to be improving.
2. But tidings have reached Us lately which fill Our heart with pain and sorrow. There is being shed again in the cities, towns, and villages of Hungary the blood of citizens who long with all their hearts for their rightful freedom. National institutions which had just been restored have been overthrown again and violently destroyed. A blood-drenched people have been reduced once more to slavery by the armed might of foreigners.
3. We cannot help but deplore and condemn (for so Our consciousness of Our office bids Us) these unhappy events which fill all Catholics and all free peoples with deepest sorrow and indignation. May those whose commands have caused these tragic events come to realize that the rightful freedom of a people cannot be extinguished by the shedding of human blood
.
4. We who watch over all peoples with a father's concern assert that any violence and any bloodshed which anyone unjustly causes is never to be tolerated. On the contrary, We exhort all people and all classes of society to that peace which finds its basis and nurture in justice, liberty, and love.
5. The words which "the Lord said to Cain. . . 'The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the earth'," (Gen. 4, 10) are relevant today. For so the blood of the Hungarian people cries out to God. And even though God often punishes private individuals for their sins only after death, nonetheless, as history teaches, He occasionally punishes in this mortal life rulers of people and their nations when they have dealt unjustly with others. For He is a just judge.
6. May our merciful Redeemer, We suppliantly pray, move the hearts of those upon whose decisions these matters depend, that an end may be put to injustice and a finish to violence, that all nations, being at peace with one another, may be united in peaceful and tranquil harmony.
7. Meanwhile, We implore a most merciful God on behalf especially of all those who have been tragically slain in the course of these unhappy events. May they find eternal life and unending peace in heaven. We desire that all Christians join Us in praying to God for them.
8. And as We address these words to you, We lovingly impart Our Apostolic Benediction to each and every one of you, Venerable Brethren, and to your flocks, and in a very special way to Our beloved Hungarian people. May it be a pledge of heavenly graces and a witness to Our paternal love. (Pope Pius XII, Datis Nuperimme, November 5, 1956.)
No, true popes never speak like leftists. True popes speak as Catholics, and there has not been a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter, since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958.
Caught In the Diabolical Grip of Two Revolutions
The Catholics who remained faithful to the Church in the years following the Maoist Revolution that took control of mainland China October 1, 1949, longed to cling to the Successor of Saint Peter, the Vicar of Christ on earth. Struggling to survive in the midst of terrible persecutions and to practice their Faith as faithfully as they could, Catholics in the underground Church in Red China looked to the Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, for support and consolation and encouragement in the midst of the terrible sufferings that were being visited upon them. They, like most other Catholics in the world,. believed that the men who "succeeded" Pope Pius XII were true and legitimate Successors of Saint Peter, which is why they accepted the conciliar changes.
After all, the devil's men in Peking (now rendered Beijing in English) told Catholics in Red China them that they could not adhere to the Vicar of Christ. These Catholics wanted to demonstrate their loyalty to the men whom they believed to be the Supreme Pastors during their respective false "pontificates." They went along with the changes without realizing that they had been trapped by the devil into believing that the changes he effected as a result of the "Second" Vatican Council and its "popes" thereafter were from God Himself, who is immutable, and that it was necessary to oppose his, the devil's agents in Red China by going along with the conciliar revolution against the Catholic Faith in the name of "loyalty" to the Church.
Catholics in the underground Church in Red China have been struggling to survive. They have not had access to the information that most of us in other parts of the world have been able to access. We must pray to Our Lady, the Queen of the Apostles, that the truth of our ecclesiastical situation will be made manifest to the Catholics in Red China so that they can recognize that Ratzinger/Benedict is not a true Successor of Saint Peter, simply another kind of revolutionary, one who has made war against Catholicism throughout his priesthood, as demonstrated earlier in this article. We need to pray as well that these Catholics will be the beneficiaries of the Triumph of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart sooner rather than later.
On the Feast of Saint Louis IX, King of France
The readings for Matins in today's Divine Office speak of Saint Louis IX's lifelong commitment to the pursuit of sanctity in his personal life and his abiding concern for the salvation of the souls of his subjects, something that contrasts him quite a bit from every single politician, whether of the false opposites of the naturalist "right" or of the naturalist "left," alive here in the United States of America and almost everywhere else in the rest of the world:
Lewis IX., King of France, (was born on the 25th day of April, in the year of our Lord 1215.) At the age of twelve years he lost his father. He was brought up under the godly care of his mother, Blanche of Castile. In the twentieth year of his reign he fell grievously sick, and the thought then occurred to him of delivering Jerusalem out of the hands of the Moslems. On his health being restored, he received a banner from the Bishop of Paris, and crossed the sea (to Egypt) with a very great army. In his first battle he put the Saracens to flight, but, a great number of the soldiers perishing by disease, he was himself conquered and taken prisoner.
The King afterwards entered into treaty with the Saracens, and he and his army departed in peace. He remained five years in the East, during which he redeemed great numbers of Christians from slavery among the unbelievers, and also brought many of the unbelievers themselves to believe in Christ. Moreover he rebuilt several cities of the Christians at his own cost. Meanwhile, his mother departed this life, whereby he was constrained to return home, where he gave himself up entirely to works of godliness.
He built many monasteries, and charitable institutions for the poor. By his alms he relieved the needy, and often visited the sick, for whom he not only provided at his own cost, but waited on them with his own hands with such things as they wanted. He wore a plain dress and constantly chastised his body with hair-cloth and fasting. (In the year 1270) he crossed the sea (to Tunis) to make war again upon the Saracens. His camp was pitched in sight of the enemy, but he was seized with pestilence, and died uttering the words I will come into thy house I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy Name. (Pss. v. 8 cxxxvii. 2.) His body was afterwards carried to Paris, and it is kept and honoured in the famous Abbey Church of St Denys, but his head in the oratory called La Sainte Chapelle. He was renowned for miracles, and Pope Boniface VIII. enrolled his name among those of the Saints. (Matins, Divine Office, Feast of Saint Louis IX, King of France. As a result of the wars in France between Catholics and Hugenots in the late-Sixteenth Century, the only relic that remains of Saint Louis IX is one of his fingers.)
Saint Louis IX is everything that those in public life today, including Jorge Mario Begoglio and his band of apostates within the counterfeit church of conciliarism, are not, and it is with good reason that Dom Gueranger praised him for his desire to eradicate, not accomodate and enable, sin in his realm:
For God, who commands us to obey at all times the power actually established, is ever the master of nations and the unchangeable disposer of their changeable destinies. Then every one of thy descendants, taught by a sad experience, will be bound to remember, O Louis, thy last recommendations: “Exert thyself that every vile sin be abolished from thy land; especially, to the best of thy power, put down all wicked oaths and heresy.” (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)
Obviously, we must, as always, spend time in prayer, if at all possible, which it is not for many Catholics around the world today in this time of apostasy and betrayal, before Our Lord's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament and pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, using the shield of Our Lady's Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel and the weapon of her Rosary to protect us from the contagion of apostasy and betrayal that is all around us. We must also, of course, make reparation for our own many sins by offering up all of our prayers and sufferings and sacrifices and humiliations and penances and mortifications and fastings to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The final victory belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We must pray to her so that we can be instruments, unworthy though we may be, of planting the seeds for the restoration of Holy Mother Church and of the Social Reign of Christ the King so that everyone in the whole will exclaim with hearts consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.
Appendix
Selected Excerpts from Cardinal Kung Foundation Open Letter to "Pope John Paul II," March 28, 2000
March 28, 2000
His Eminence Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
His Eminence Angelo Cardinal Sodano
His Eminence Jozef Cardinal Tomko
His Excellency Most Rev. Stanislaw Dswisz
His Excellency Most Rev. Giovanni Battista Re
Vatican City
Your Eminences and Excellencies:
THIS IS AN OPEN LETTER
We write this letter because we do not understand many actions by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church towards the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. These actions appear to have been so one sided in favor of the Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA) that the underground Roman Catholic Church, which has gone through five decades of severe persecutions in China in defense of the Magisterium, appears to have been greatly neglected by the Vatican. Inasmuch as we and a vast number of concerned Catholics in and out of China do not understand these actions, we present to you the following issues in the hope that you will clarify and explain to the world your position.
This letter is written in the spirit of genuine concern for the Church and in the interest of reconciliation between the Roman Catholic underground Church and the CPA in China. On many occasions, His Holiness Pope John Paul II called for reconciliation and for unification of the Church in China so that it will return to the one fold and one Shepherd. How can the Holy See expect us to carry out this policy of the Holy Father while there is such confusion on the issues cited below?
I. IS THE CHINESE CATHOLIC PATRIOTIC ASSOCIATION A SCHISMATIC CHURCH?
8. Observations by Members of the Roman Catholic Church Hierarchy: Having been notified about the ordination of five bishops by China’s CPA on January 6, 2000, Cardinal Ignatius Kung, the exiled Bishop of Shanghai, reacted immediately in the United States: “The Patriotic Association is a schismatic Church.”
On Jan. 7, 2000, Cardinal Vincenzo Fagiolo, honorary president of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, at a conference in Palermo, Italy, described China’s move to ordain the five bishops as a “de facto schism.”
9. Conclusion: In the light of the overwhelming evidence reflected above, we believe that the CPA is not Catholic and is indeed in schism.
10. Holy See’s Position: The Holy See has never formally declared that the CPA is in schism, albeit the CPA has refused for the last 42 years to submit to the Roman Pontiff and has also refused for the last 42 years to be in communion with the members of the Church subject to him.
11. We do not understand your silence on this issue and need your unequivocal answer: Why has the Holy See not declared the CPA to be in schism? Recently, in response to questions about Maryknoll’s support of the CPA, Maryknoll Father Leo B. Shea wrote: “Catholics are united. There is no schismatic Church in China.” Why are so many Roman Catholic leaders advocating that the CPA and the underground Roman Catholic Church in China are the same Church - and without any explanation from the Holy See to attempt to resolve this apparent contradiction?
II. WHY ARE ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS AND RELIGIOUS ORDERS EDUCATING SEMINARIANS OF THE SCHISMATIC CPA?
1. The Program: In recent years, there have been approximately fifty CPA seminarians and priests studying in Roman Catholic seminaries each year across the United States. This program was organized by the Maryknoll Fathers on behalf of the CPA. The CPA seminarians and priests were given full scholarships covering tuition, room and board from various dioceses. Upon completion of their studies, the CPA seminarians return to China to be ordained, not by the underground Roman Catholic bishops, but by their schismatic CPA bishops. They will serve under these same bishops who are not in communion with the Holy Father.
Apparently, this practice has been going on for some time. In an article entitled “Quietly, U.S. Seminaries Train Chinese Priests” which appeared May 29, 1994, in Our Sunday Visitor, Jesuit Father Denis Como, at the time heading the Chinese Apostolate of the Archdiocese of Boston, is quoted as saying: “The diocese wouldn’t be accepting these students if Rome weren’t in favor of this. The Vatican recognizes that we need to be preparing for that day when the situation opens up in China.”
2. The Participating Seminaries in the United States According to Maryknoll (may not be all inclusive) are:
1) Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.
2) Holy Name College, W. T. U., Silver Springs, Maryland
3) Maryknoll Seminary, Maryknoll, New York
4) Mundelein Seminary, Chicago, Illinois
5) Pontifical College Josephinum, Columbus, Ohio
6) Pope John XXIII Seminary, Weston, Massachusetts
7) Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit, Michigan
8) Saint Charles Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
9) Saint John’s Seminary, Boston, Massachusetts
10) Saint John’s Seminary, Collegeville, Minnesota
11) Saint John’s Seminary, Los Angeles, California
12) Saint Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, Yonkers, New York (apparently the program is temporarily suspended there)
13) Saint Mary’s Seminary, Baltimore, Maryland
14) Saint Vincent’s Seminary, Latrobe, Pennsylvania
15) The Saint Paul Seminary, Saint Thomas University, Saint Paul, Minnesota
3. Cooperating Sponsors in the United States of America According to Maryknoll (may not be all inclusive):
1) His Eminence Joseph Cardinal Bernadine, Archbishop of Chicago, IL (Deceased)
2) His Eminence Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua, Archbishop of Philadelphia, PA
3) His Eminence James Cardinal Hickey, Archbishop of Washington, DC
4) His Eminence William Cardinal Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore, MD
5) His Eminence Bernard Cardinal Law, Archbishop of Boston, MA
6) His Eminence Roger Cardinal Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, CA
7) His Eminence Adam Cardinal Maida, Archbishop of Detroit, MI
8) His Eminence John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York, NY
9) His Excellency Most Rev. Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop of Newark, NJ
10) His Excellency Most Rev. John Roach, Archbishop of Minneapolis, MN
11) His Excellency Most Rev. Rembert Weakland, Archbishop of Milwaukee, WI
12) Right Rev. Timothy Kelly, Archabbot of St. Vincent’s Archabbey, PA
13) Right Rev. Matthew Leavy, Abbot of St. Anselm’s Abbey, NH
14) Right Rev. Augustine Roberts, Abbot of St. Joseph’s Abbey, MA
15) Right Rev. Douglas Nowicki, Archabbot of St. Vincent’s Archabbey, PA
16) Rev. Ray Finch, Superior General of Maryknoll, NY
17) Msgr. John W. Flesey, Rector of Immaculate Conception Seminary, NJ
18) Dr. Marc A. van der Heyden, President of St. Michael’s College, VT
19) Rev. Howard Bleichner, Rector of Theological College, DC
20) Rev. Thomas McCreesh, O.P., President of Dominican House of Studies, DC
21) Rectors of all the above listed seminaries
22) Bishops of all the dioceses where the above listed seminaries are located
4. Our Understanding: Through Maryknoll’s correspondence to our supporters, we have been informed that Vatican officials, in keeping with its policy of reconciliation, have encouraged Maryknoll to get any seminarians out of China and into the United States seminaries. Their purpose was (and is) to provide for them a proper Roman Catholic education, and to expose them to the universal Church.
5. What We Do Not Know: We do not know - and Maryknoll has not divulged the information - the names, occasions and dates of these “Vatican officials” who have encouraged Maryknoll to sponsor “any seminarians” out of China to the United States. We are led to believe that such an action is being undertaken under the direction of certain unnamed Vatican dicasteries. If these Vatican dicasteries are proud of their actions, why the secrecy? If Maryknoll and others are relying on so-called Vatican documents authorizing such actions, where may such documents be found?
6. Accessibility of Underground Seminarians in China: We all know that through careful planning, many underground seminarians and priests are accessible to anyone (especially to religious communities such as Maryknoll) who wishes to contact them. There is no reason for Maryknoll not to include the underground seminarians and priests in its program because of any inaccessibility.
There are approximately 1000 underground seminarians in China. These dedicated young men have chosen to follow the footsteps of the Chinese martyrs, their underground bishops and His Holiness Pope John Paul II to serve the Church during the most difficult years. Pope John Paul II was also an underground seminarian, and is well aware of the hardships to be endured in studying under a tyrannical regime.
7. Only for the CPA Seminarians: All the seminarians sponsored by Maryknoll are CPA seminarians. There are no underground seminarians included in the Maryknoll program. According to item 6 of the Holy See 1988 directive, “fraternal charity” should govern these relations. Should not fraternal charity extend also, if not first, to the Roman Catholic underground Church in China? Should we not be more concerned about bringing into contact with the universal Church those seminarians whose bishops are in communion with, and not in schism from, the Holy Father? The fact that only the CPA seminarians are being provided with these educational opportunities without at least the same opportunities being extended to the underground Roman Catholic seminarians in China is unjust, discriminatory and a violation of the rights of the faithful in China.
8. Item 7 of the Holy See 1988 directive states:
“Care must be taken that those who are responsible for the organization of the visits [between Roman Catholic hierarchy and members of the CPA] ….be persons of sound doctrine, faithful to the Magisterium of the Church and capable of acting with great prudence.”
We must ask whether the Holy See has determined that:
Those who are organizing efforts to bring the CPA seminarians to Roman Catholic seminaries and to educational institutions, and those actually responsible in Roman Catholic seminaries for the education and formation of the CPA seminarians, are presumably persons, “of sound doctrine, faithful to the Magisterium of the Church, and capable of acting with great prudence.”
9. Underground Seminarians overseas: The Cardinal Kung Foundation, with extremely limited resources, was able to bring out three underground priests a few years ago. In the meantime, there are about 20 underground seminarians and priests scattered around the world with just a bare subsistence. With no official program from the Vatican to assist them, one underground priest is suffering from hepatitis in Europe without proper medical care. In fact, the Cardinal Kung Foundation is supporting these underground religious overseas whenever they are in need and whenever the Foundation has the resources to do so. In fact, it is the Cardinal Kung Foundation who makes sure that all the underground priests overseas have Mass stipends to provide them with some support.
Sad to say, the 20 or so underground seminarians and priests outside of China do not even have a “home” to go to during such traditional holidays as Easter and Christmas, while all the CPA seminarians can always go to Maryknoll’s headquarters in Ossining, New York. When the Cardinal Kung Foundation took care of three underground priests for several years, not even one offer came from Catholic dioceses or religious institutions to take care of any of them. They all had to share one small room in my house for a prolonged period to study English before they started studying in a seminary.
10. Misrepresentation: By sponsoring only the CPA seminarians in the United States, Maryknoll, which claims to have encouragement from the Vatican, has the appearance of abandoning the suffering underground Roman Catholic Church in China. This could be easily and conveniently interpreted by the Chinese government that Maryknoll supports the Chinese government’s repressive religious policy and condones the government’s 50-year persecution of the Roman Catholic Church. Worse, it could also encourage the Chinese government to continue its persecution of the underground Roman Catholic Church without fear of reprisal from the outside world. It is too convenient for the Chinese government to make an excuse for anything detrimental to the underground Church by citing Maryknoll’s program. The negative impact and the damage which could have already been done resulting from Maryknoll’s program is incalculable.
11. Wounding the Sensibility: According to the fourth item of the Holy See 1998 directive:
“in the course of various encounters, care must be taken to avoid attitudes which could wound the sensibility of the ‘silent’ majority of those Catholics who have suffered and are suffering for their fidelity to the Holy Father.”
A policy or practice by any organization or community within the universal Church that aims at educating only CPA seminarians unquestionably wounds the suffering underground Roman Catholic Church in China - spiritually, psychologically, and financially. Of course, this particular directive is applicable to all the issues covered in this letter.
12. Conclusion: In the light of the overwhelming evidence shown above, we believe that this program is wrong and should be immediately terminated. Instead, the Vatican should have a comprehensive program to educate the underground seminarians both overseas and inside China.
13. Holy See’s Position: The Vatican has never explained to the public the merits of this program and its own position.
14. The “Run-Around”: We have a supporter who asked Cardinal O’Connor of New York few years ago the rationale of this program. That person was told to write to Cardinal Tomko for an answer. He wrote. In his reply to this person, Cardinal Tomko wrote: “For information on this matter, I suggest that you contact either Cardinal Law or Cardinal O’Connor, both of whom may be able to give you information on this matter”!
15. We do not understand and need your unequivocal answer: We do not understand why the Vatican has so far declined to comment in public on this issue and why is there no program for the underground priests and seminarians to study overseas.
III. WHY ARE ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS IN THE UNITED STATES GRANTING PRIESTLY FACULTIES TO PRIESTS OF THE CPA?
1. Background: In the United States, such as in the New York and San Francisco archdioceses, Ordinaries have granted priestly faculties to priests of the schismatic CPA. These priests were allowed to offer Holy Mass publicly in Roman Catholic Churches and to administer other sacraments openly in parishes. No specific mention was made in parish bulletins that the priest in question belonged to the CPA and no explanation was made about the schismatic nature of the CPA.
2. Responses to our Inquiries: In response to our inquiry about this practice of granting priestly faculties to CPA priests:
Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco, wrote: “I would like to invite the Foundation to be more accurate in its statements concerning the Church in China and in particular concerning the priests from China who have been welcomed by the dioceses of this country. The program of their [CPA priests’] formation and of their apostolic ministry is being carried out according to directives received from the Holy See.” The archbishop does not specify to which directives he refers.
Bishop Patrick Sheridan of New York City wrote: “Your letter ….has saddened us to the point of deep personal distress to assume that someone like Cardinal O’Connor or any of his staff would act in relationship to priests of the so called Patriotic Church …..without the necessary consultations and guidance from the Holy See, is highly offensive and without any foundation in fact….Am I being overly sensitive perhaps when I wonder what grounds or even what right you have to offer such advice to the Cardinal Archbishop of New York that he step out beyond his own jurisdiction and responsibility of call upon priests of Brooklyn or other Chinese priests in the United States to serve a ministry at Transfiguration in Chinatown which you consider to be flawed?” Bishop Sheridan never offered us a reason for granting priestly faculties to CPA priests.
3. All “Communicatio in Sacris” Is To Be Avoided: According to item five of the Holy See 1988 directive:
“The ‘Patriotic’ bishops and priests are not to be invited or even allowed to celebrate religious functions in public, either in the churches or in the oratories of the various religious institutes.”
We do not understand that, given the above very clear guideline, how this program of giving faculties to CPA priests and allowing them to administer the sacraments in public could be approved by the Ordinaries in the United States.
4. Profession of Faith: We understand that the only requirement for granting the aforementioned faculty to CPA priests in the United States was that each priest had only to recite once and in private the Profession of Faith as proof of his allegiance to the Pope. We have the following observations.
5.1) What is the Difference: In their Masses in China, the CPA priests also profess the same Profession of Faith while they publicly renounce the Holy Father’s authority. On the feast of the Epiphany, 2000, as it has been the Pope’s custom, the Holy Father consecrated twelve new bishops in St. Peter’s Basilica. It was not a mere coincidence that in China on the same day, the government controlled CPA sponsored the consecration of five bishops who had received no papal mandate as required by Canon 1013, in defiance of the Pope’s authority. As a further mockery, these five new bishops, together with the consecrating bishop, recited the same Profession of Faith. Does the mere recital of the Profession of faith mean anything when it is accompanied by a spirit of defiance? This reminds us of the words of Our Lord quoting the prophet Isaiah: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain do they worship me, teaching doctrines and commandments of men.” (Matt. 15:8-9)
5.2) Is It a True Profession of Faith: For CPA priests’ being granted diocesan faculties after making a “private” Profession of Faith, how do they make reparation for the scandal of public schism? How then, do such priests escape the condemnation of our Lord, when He said: “Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God. But he that shall deny me before men, shall be denied before the angels of God.” (Lk. 12:8-9) Considering where they come from and to which they are destined to return to serve a schismatic Church in China, is the mere recital of a private Profession of Faith is sufficient to be a true Profession of Faith?
5.3) Supreme Authority of the Pope: By reciting the Profession of Faith, the CPA priests regard the Holy Father as only the “spiritual leader” of the Church. They do not necessarily recognize that the Pope has supreme legislative, executive, and judicial authority to appoint and govern the Catholic bishops of the whole world, which naturally includes China. They also do not necessarily recognize the Pope as the supreme pastor of the universal Church, possessing the immediate, full, supreme, universal and ordinary power over all Catholic faithful. In this way, the CPA priests reconcile their recitation of the Profession of Faith with their profession of independence from the Holy Father. So, Should not the Holy See revise the approach to reconciling CPA priests with the Roman Catholic Church?
5.4) Pope’s Principle: Reciting the Profession of Faith once by the CPA priests in private without explicitly acknowledging the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff and in the meantime still reporting to the schismatic CPA bishops can hardly be construed as the faith demanded by the Pope when he said: “unity (which) springs from conversion of the heart and from sincere acceptance of the unchanging principles laid down by Christ for His Church.” (Pope’s speech in Manila to China on February 14, 1994.)
5. If This Scenario were to happen, would it cause a shock among the faithful in the United States?
5.1) Validly ordained priests belonging to Churches that are in schism from the Roman Catholic Church are not normally allowed priestly faculties in Roman Catholic dioceses. How, therefore, can one justify granting priestly faculties to CPA priests?
5.2) How would the faithful react should the priests from a schismatic Church such as the Society of St. Pius X be given faculties to function as priests in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States?
5.3) In the light of the national and international significance of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, should not the granting of priestly faculties to CPA priests be accompanied by an explanatory statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops? Instead we find an unwillingness to disclose from which alleged Vatican dicasteries this authorization emanates.
6. Wrong Signal: CPA priests functioning in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States at present cause much scandal in the Universal Church and deep pain to the loyal underground Roman Catholic Church in China. It also gives the appearance and consequently the wrong message to the Chinese communist government that the CPA has been accepted by the Universal Church in spite of the government’s agenda (independence from the Pope), its policy (continuous persecution of the underground Church) and its programs (“one child, one family” and its forced abortion policy to achieve this program)
7. Violation of Canon Law: Even if these priests have made a truthful Profession of Faith, why is it that these priests have not been required to sever their ties with the CPA in China, and more specifically, with their government-approved bishops in China? Is this not a violation of Canon 265 of the Church, according to which every cleric must be incardinated into some particular church, prelature, institute or society that is in communion with the Bishop of Rome? Is this not also a violation of the living communion of the Body of Christ with the Successor of Peter?
8. We Do Not Understand and Need Your Unequivocal Answer: In the light of all the matters discussed above, we do not understand why the Vatican should approve this program, because no member of the Church hierarchy has offered any reasons for justifying such actions, nor has the Vatican ever explained to the public the rationale and justification of this program.
IV. IS IT TRUE THAT THE VATICAN HAS RECOGNIZED SOME PATRIOTIC BISHOPS?
1. Background : The media and members of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy have often reported that many CPA bishops have been recognized by the Holy See.
2. Remarks by Members of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy: In 1991, Jesuit Father Guiseppe Pittau, now Archbishop and a member of the Roman Curia, told reporters in Rome that there were 20 CPA bishops who are “in perfect communion with the Pope and are therefore legitimate [Roman Catholic bishops].” In its article on September 12, 1991, South China Morning Post of Hong Kong reported that “there were at least 10 more bishops of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association who were recognized by the Vatican privately, in addition to the 20 announced by Father Pittau.” Since then, many remarks have been made by various church people that most of the CPA bishops have been accepted by the Holy See and are therefore in communion with the Pope. The latest remark which I am aware of was from Mr. Thomas Quigley, an official of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of the United States in January, 2000: “It is believed that the vast majority of the bishops associated with the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association have been secretly reconciled with Rome.”
3. Vatican’s Non-Confirmation: Shortly after Father Pittau’s disclosure that there were 20 CPA bishops in communion with the Pope, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the spokesman of the Vatican, neither confirmed nor denied father Pittau’s statement when he said: “I believe it is opportune to emphasize that the statements by Father Pittau did not represent the Church’s.” Since then, in the last eight years, even in the face of numerous reports in the media regarding the conversion of the CPA’s bishops to the Pope, the Holy See has never issued any statement to confirm or to deny such reports.
4. Our Observation: We know that almost all CPA bishops are on the board of directors - or its equivalent - of the CPA and/or of the China Catholic Bishops College, either at the headquarters or at the local level. As officers, they have the fundamental duty to defend the current constitution of these two organizations. The most important and basic article of these two constitutions that the CPA bishops vigorously defend is the autonomy of the CPA from the Pope. If the claim that most of the CPA bishops have been accepted by the Vatican is true, are they still sitting on the board - or the equivalent thereof - of the CPA and the China Catholic Bishops College and defending their autonomy from the Holy See?
5. Effect of Vatican’s Non-Confirmation: The lack of any clarity on this matter on the part of the Holy See has created confusion and, we believe, has adversely affected the morale of the persecuted underground Roman Catholic Church in China. This is contrary to item 8 of the Holy See 1988 directive:
“It will be necessary, therefore, to foresee how to assist the means of social communication, utilizing the orientations mentioned above [the previous seven items of the directive as referred to throughout this Open Letter], which clarify the position of the Church and may foster the comprehension of the diverse and complex problems closely connected with this position.”
6. We Do Not Understand and Need Your Unequivocal Answer: This conversion of the CPA bishops is, if true, an extremely important matter. Yet, we are still mystified and uncertain. In view of the above, we need a clarification whether it is true that “the vast majority of the bishops associated with the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association have been secretly reconciled with Rome.”
V. WHY ARE CATHOLIC OFFICIALS AND ORGANIZATIONS FINANCIALLY SUPPORTING THE CPA AND NOT THE UNDERGROUND ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN CHINA?
1. Media Report: According to the magazine 30 days, millions have been contributed to the CPA by the universal Church’s institutions. In the meantime, the loyal underground Roman Catholic Church, which has demonstrated its allegiance to the Holy Father heroically for the last five decades, was “left with nothing.”
2. Facts: For examples, Aid to the Church in Need alone has given millions to the CPA. Jesuits contributed one-third, or U.S. $ 400,000, of the total cost of U.S. $ 1.2 million of a retreat house in Shanghai belonging to the CPA. Even the New York Archdiocese contributed US $ 5,000 toward the repair of a CPA church. In addition, Father Paul Pang, O.F.M., the Director of the Office for the Promotion of the Overseas Chinese Apostolate of the Sacred Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, has publicly approved and in fact urges the faithful to donate money during a collection at Mass in a CPA church!
In addition to cash, there are free services given to the CPA . Scores of religious personnel worked in China for the CPA as teachers and social workers. Moreover, as explained above, dozens of CPA seminarians and nuns are studying free with full tuition, room and board scholarships in United States Catholic seminaries and elsewhere in the West.
3. A nightmare: Is it also true that the Vatican itself, through its own agents such as the Propagation of Faith, Catholic Relief Services, diocesan Ordinaries or even parish pastors, is also donating monies to the CPA?
4. Impact: Because of all this support, it is logical for the CPA bishops and the Chinese government to believe that the position they have taken (independence from the Pope), their policy (continuous persecution of the loyal Church) and programs (“one child, one family” and its forced abortion policy to achieve this program) must have been accepted by the universal Church. Otherwise, why would these CPA projects receive such overwhelming support with millions of dollars in donation from the universal Church?
5. Our Observations: If these millions of dollars donated merely represent charity to other Christian brothers, should there not be significantly more donations to express the Church’s love for and solidarity with the persecuted and suffering underground Roman Catholic bishops? We are heart-broken to note that we have not seen these donations to the underground Church. We do not believe that this disparity is within the meaning and intention of the “fraternal charity” emphasized as item 6 of the Holy See 1988 directive.
Many Church leaders in the free world appeared to have been convinced that the kindness and friendship expressed by donating millions to the Communist government-sanctioned CPA would bring about unity between the loyal Church and the CPA, and eventually the freedom of worship in China. It has not and will not work. Almost twenty years of active and open support for the CPA bishops by the universal Church has failed to achieve this “unity.” It could only misguidedly give the CPA bishops and the Communist government an impression that if they wait long enough, the universal Church leaders would accept them under any terms, with or without the principle of Papal primacy.
In the meantime, the recent ordination, on January 6, 2000, of five CPA bishops without the approval of the Pope speaks eloquently that the Chinese government is in defiance of Pope John Paul II’s assertion of authority over all Catholics worldwide.
With all this evidence, one might come to the conclusion that the Vatican is playing into the hands of the Chinese government. On the one hand, the Communists’ CPA receives millions from the West. On the other hand, the Chinese government continues and intensifies the persecutions against the underground Roman Catholic Church, and the CPA continues its schism and its total independence from the Pope.
6. Cardinal Kung’s Homily: In his homily televised nationally on June 29, 1994, the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul, Cardinal Ignatius Kung said:
“...Many Catholic Church leaders in the Free world extended hospitality and donated large sums of money to bishops of the Communist’s Patriotic Association. The Chinese government regards these friendships and cooperation with the Patriotic Association as an endorsement of its current policy on religion. With this license, they continue their persecution of the loyal Roman Catholic Church without any fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, these misguided friendships and acts of charity on behalf of the Patriotic Association have only prolonged the sufferings of the loyal Church...This is a disservice to the Chinese. This is a ridicule to the continued sacrifices and sufferings of the loyal “underground” Roman Catholic communities. It is a mockery to the blood of the thousands of Chinese martyrs.”
7. We Do Not Understand and Need Your Unequivocal Answer: We need your clear explanations why the Catholic hierarchy should give millions to a schismatic CPA without giving any meaningful amount to the underground Church. We know that it is much more difficult to clandestinely give money to the underground Church; but this certainly cannot justify giving money one-sidedly to the CPA.
VI. CATHOLIC VISITORS IN CHINA ATTENDING RELIGIOUS SERVICES IN OR BY THE CPA CHURCH
1. Background: A large number of Roman Catholics visit China every day. Many of them stay over the weekend or over a holy day of obligation. Because of the inaccessibility of the underground Roman Catholic Church in China, these visitors fulfill their Sunday or holy day of obligation by attending Mass at a CPA church.
2. Issue: In view of the Chinese government’s hostility toward and persecution of the underground Roman Catholic Church in China, must these visitors attend Mass on Sunday or on a holy day of obligation while they travel in China? Should they attend Mass in a CPA church?
3. No Official Guidance: The Holy See 1988 directive does not provide any direct reference to guide the faithful whether they should attend Mass in a CPA church when they are in China. However, Father Paul Pang, O.F.M., the Director of Office for the Promotion of the Overseas Chinese Apostolate of the Sacred Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, advised that, as long as there is no apparent “evil example,” it is all right for the faithful to attend Mass in the CPA church. Father Pang defined the “evil example” as the “condition, established by the Patriotic Association religious,” that would “sever the relationships with the overseas faithful and the Magisterium by attending the Mass in the Patriotic Association Church.” Father Pang said that this “evil example” is in general almost non-existent.
4. Our Observations:
4.1) Compromise of the Church’s Magisterium: The CPA and its clergy have publicly compromised and diluted the Roman Catholic Church’s Magisterium and do not honor the supreme administrative, legislative and judicial authority of the Successor of Peter. Therefore, they are not in communion with the Pope. Communion with the Pope is a basic Catholic doctrine, not merely a discipline. Therefore, the CPA is not Roman Catholic.
4.2) The CPA is in Schism from the Roman Catholic Church: Please read the section above, “Is The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association a Schismatic Church?”
4.3) Uncertainty about Validity of Ordinations: According to the Code of Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church, section 844, item 2 states:
“Whenever necessity requires or genuine spiritual advantage suggests, and provided that the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, it is lawful for the faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, to receive the sacraments of penance, Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose churches these sacraments are valid.”
This Canon does indeed apply consistently, for example, to the Greek Orthodox Church, all of whose bishops and priests are validly ordained. However, this Canon cannot consistently apply to the CPA.
The vast majority of CPA bishops and priests are validly ordained. However, that even a small minority of them are not makes it impossible for Catholics visiting China to be ALWAYS certain about the validity either of the ordinations of individual CPA bishops or priests, or of the Sacraments that these individual bishops or priests administer. We have no written official guarantee from the Holy See that ALL of the CPA’s bishops and priests are validly ordained.
4.4) Sunday Obligation is not Binding in a Hostile Country: According to Canon 1248 of the Roman Catholic Church, “the precept of participating in the Mass is satisfied by assistance at Mass which is celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite….” and is obligatory unless it is made impossible either by a “lack of a sacred minister” or some “other grave cause.”
In the light of the past five decades of severe persecution of Roman Catholics in China and its recent intensification, it is clear that China is hostile to the Roman Catholic Church and can be characterized as a “hostile country.”
Moreover, it is almost impossible for a foreign visitor to attend the Sunday Mass celebrated by an underground Roman Catholic priest. If they attend such an underground Mass, the visitors as well as the Chinese underground Catholics are subject to arrest and detention
.
Considering the past and current persecutions of religious believers and considering the aforementioned danger in attending the underground Mass, the atmosphere and the environment in attending the underground Catholic religious service are definitely hostile and it is tantamount to a “grave cause” as described in the Canon. As confirmed by the Canon 1248, a Roman Catholic visiting China is, therefore, not obliged to fulfill the Sunday obligation unless he or she is able to do so without danger.
4.5) Danger of “Wounding the Sensibility” of Catholics Suffering in China: Item 4 of the Holy See 1988 directive states that “[i]n the course of various encounters, care must be taken to avoid attitudes which could wound the sensibility of the ‘silent’ majority of those Catholics who have suffered and are suffering for their fidelity to the Holy Father.” This China Advisory has not been rescinded.
By attending the CPA’s religious services, as stated in the next paragraph “Danger of Misrepresentation,” the underground Church’s sensibility is certainly torturously wounded.
4.6) Danger of Misrepresentation: Even if unwittingly, by their presence in the CPA church, Roman Catholics would encourage the Chinese government to continue its persecution of the Roman Catholic Church without fear of reprisal from the outside world, and would give the false impression that they support the Chinese government’s repressive religious policy and condone the government’s 50-year persecution of the Roman Catholic Church.
5. We Do Not Understand and Need Your Unequivocal Answer: In view of our observations, we do not understand why the Holy See, through the representation from Father Paul Pang, should encourage the Roman Catholic visitors to China to attend Mass at a CPA church.
VII. OTHER ITEMS OF CONCERN
1. Pastoral Letter of the CPA Bishops’ Conference: In September 1995, the CPA Bishops’ Conference issued a pastoral letter calling for all Chinese Catholics to support China’s “Platform for the Development of Women.” We all know well that this Platform includes birth control, sterilization, and the one family-one child policy whereby women who are pregnant after having one child are forced by the Chinese government to abort their unborn babies.
While we are aware of the possibility that the above pastoral letter may have been written under the pressure and instruction of the Chinese government to whom the CPA bishops’ conference reports, we are also mindful of the following words by the Pope in his message to China on December 3, 1996:
“The Bishop must be the first witness of the faith which he professes and preaches, to the point of ‘shedding his blood’ as the apostles did and as so many other Pastors have done down the centuries, in many nations and also in China”
We do not understand how the Holy See can remain so silent about this obviously very wrong “pastoral letter” without uttering a word in public in fidelity to the Gospel of Life and for the sake of the dignity of human life in China.
2. Approval from The Ordinary: In the universal Church, according to Canon 678 of the Roman Catholic Church, all religious organizations working in a diocese must receive the approval from the Ordinary of that diocese. However, many missionaries, in recent years, returned to China and started various charitable projects. These foreign missionaries did not seek permission for their projects from the underground loyal bishops who were appointed by the Holy Father. They do not work with the loyal Church. Instead, they work with the Communist’s CPA.
A most recent example is the opening of a new retreat center in Shanghai by the CPA on April 15, 1999. This center has three stories with 51 rooms accommodating 102 persons. It costs U.S. $ 1.2 million. In accordance with Canon 678, the Jesuits and other foreign missionaries should seek permission to build this retreat house from Cardinal Ignatius Kung, who is the only legitimate Bishop of Shanghai, but they did not. Instead, they supported the CPA’s Bishop of Shanghai, Bishop Jin Luxian, S.J. who opened this new retreat center. This project must have been viewed by the CPA as another sign of approval of the CPA from the free world.
This misguided enthusiasm to work in a diocese without proper authorization, in violation of Canon 678, cannot possibly be a form of ecumenism, because ecumenism can never be done at the expense of Canon Law or at the expense of the fundamental Catholic dogma of being “in communion with the Pope.”
In view of the above, it is very sad to note that the Roman Catholic missionaries of the free world ignore their own brother bishops. We cannot imagine a religious order carrying out an unauthorized project in a diocese of the Free World. If this unauthorized ministry could not happen in the Free World, why should it occur in China? Why the double standards?
We do not understand why the aforementioned irregularity happened without appropriate public explanations and comments from the Vatican. We need your help to understand this matter.
3. Appealing to Chinese Authorities for the Imprisoned Faithful in China: Since the beginning of religious persecutions in China fifty years ago, hundreds, maybe even thousands, of lay Catholics, priests, nuns, seminarians, and bishops are still in jail or labor camps because they continue to refuse to renounce our Holy Father.
These imprisoned faithful are the soldiers of the Church. These imprisoned bishops are the citizens of the Vatican. Any country defends its citizens. Therefore, we expect that whenever a bishop or any of the faithful is unjustifiably jailed and/or tortured by another country, Vatican officials will come to their aid and negotiate with the country to secure their release.
For example, Bishop Su Zhimin, the underground Bishop of Baoding in Hebei Province, and his auxiliary Bishop An Shuxin were arrested by the Chinese government without trial or sentence about three years ago. They were simply taken away by the police. There were many other bishops and priests arrested by the Chinese authorities in the recent years. We thought that the Vatican would “fight” on behalf of these bishops and priests vigorously for their release from China’s prisons.
However, about Bishop Su Zhimin and Bishop An Shuxin, Holy See press office director Joaquin Navarro-Valls made a startling and unbelievable declaration on March 22, 1999 that “The Secretariat of State up until now has taken no step concerning the liberation of the two bishops of Baoding.”
Frankly, we were shocked. We expected that the Vatican would have taken steps to liberate these two heroic and good bishops from the first day of their arrest. The same would be true for any other bishops and priests. Has the Vatican now taken steps to negotiate with the Chinese government for the release of these two bishops? For this matter, has the Vatican taken steps to liberate any other bishops, priests, and other faithful currently in jail in China?
Another example: The government of the Peoples Republic of China confiscated the passport of His Eminence, Ignatius Cardinal Kung two years ago in March 1998, effectively making him stateless. The worldwide media reported the news of this confiscation. No one in the Holy See or in the local Bishop’s office indicated any concern about the Cardinal’s problem and no one offered any help to him!
4. Why is the Holy See’s 1988 Directive Largely Ignored and Violated even by members of the hierarchy?
As noted in many of the questions above, this directive has been ignored. Have other directives been issued by the Holy See that render this particular directive obsolete? If so, the faithful, especially those in China, have the right to know. If this particular directive has not been rescinded, why has the Holy See not enforced it among members of the hierarchy?
Of the eight directives presented by The Holy See in 1988, the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth are directly and concretely appealed to in the questions above (The application of the second and third directives are complicated by the schismatic nature of the CPA as well as by the Chinese government’s continued persecution of the Roman Catholic underground Church.)
5. Annuario Pontificio: This is an official Vatican directory of all world’s bishops appointed by and recognized by the Holy See. Yet, with the exception of His Eminence Cardinal Kung, none of the bishops of the underground Church is recognized in this directory.
For many years, the activities of most of the loyal bishops were truly underground. To protect their identity, Vatican had good reasons in the past not to disclose their names. Situations have now changed. Most underground bishops have willingly taken the risk of coming out into the open. The government knows their whereabouts better than anyone. The reasons for not giving them your recognition in the Annuario Pontificio due to identity protection no longer exist. The fact that you do not publicly list the Chinese loyal bishops in the Annunario Pontificio is being misinterpreted by people of all ranks as your reluctance to support your loyal bishops. Moreover, the Chinese government regards this situation, not as a friendly concession of the Holy See, but rather as a lack of support for these loyal bishops from the universal Church. It also causes great confusion in many dioceses of China about the true identities of Vatican appointed Ordinaries and bishops.
We beg you to give your loyal bishops the mandate needed to guide your flock of almost ten million. Please consider publishing in the Annuario Pontificio the names of those bishops who are known to have come out into the open. Those underground bishops, if any, who have chosen to remain hidden should remain anonymous until the appropriate time.
6. Chinese National Conference of Roman Catholic bishops: About eleven years ago in 1989, realizing the importance of a central strategic organization, the underground bishops established “The Chinese National Conference of Roman Catholic (underground) Bishops.”
As expected, the government retaliated. On the way back to their dioceses, all attendees of the Conference were arrested by the Chinese authority. Eventually, four bishops died in jail. Many were injured and became sick.
The Chinese National Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops was established according to the regulations of the Church. They drafted and passed the constitution of the Conference, elected officials, and completed all the required formalities for the approval of the Conference by the Holy See. We understand that all documents were submitted to the Holy See in 1989.
The underground bishops in China have lived under the Communist rules for almost half a century, and have survived many turbulent periods. Regardless of this most difficult situation, they have succeeded in increasing the Catholic population from three million to almost ten million. They are also experienced in Communist tactics and psychology. They are prepared to pay for their fidelity and faith with their life and blood as they are taught by the history of the Church.
We are convinced that in the long run, the recognition of the loyal Bishops Conference by the Holy See can only further energize the steady growth of the underground Church and will eventually force the Chinese Communist government to give the Roman Catholic Church legal status.
Eleven years have passed. The conference has stood the test of time. The imprisonment and the death of a few bishops did not result in the demise of the Conference. Now, what we urgently need is the Holy See’s public approval and acceptance of the underground Bishops Conference.
We beg the Holy See to consider granting official status to the Chinese National Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops as soon as possible. Please do not base your decision on the fear of the reprisal from the Chinese government. These short term harassments and persecutions will be there for some time to come, with or without any special action from Rome. These same persecutions always strengthen the faith of the clergy and faithful. History has proven that the Roman Catholic Church in China will never be destroyed by persecutions, but will be severely weakened by the misconception that the Holy See has abandoned the loyal Church.
CONCLUSION
1. DE FACTO IRRELEVANCE OF THE HOLY SEE 1988 DIRECTVE: According to item 8 of the Holy See 1988 directive:
“….It will be necessary….to assist the means of social communication….(to) clarify the position of the Church and may foster the comprehension of the diverse and complex problems….”
This item of the 1988 directive calls for the utilization of the means of social communication for the clarification of the position of the Roman Catholic Church on the question of the CPA of China. However, this open letter to the Holy See, and each of the questions raised in it, are testimony to the fact that Holy See’s position on the CPA of China is far from being clear. This letter seeks to gain such clarity for the sake of the universal Church on all of the issues discussed above.
2. CONTINUED HOSTILITIES – SECRET DOCUMENTS: The Chinese government has been and continues to be hostile to the loyal Roman Catholics in China who, despite increased and intensified persecutions, remain faithful to the Pope. Recent examples of these hostilities include the November 1996 Chinese government’s secret plan “to legally implement the eradication of illegal activities of the underground Catholic Church;” and the August 17, 1999 secret document stating that the underground Roman Catholic Church “must be eliminated.”
3. ENCOURAGING THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT: Even if unwittingly, bishops and/or the religious superiors in the United States or in any other free countries - who allow the education of CPA seminarians in their own seminaries with full tuition, room and board scholarships, grant priestly faculties to CPA priests, donate millions to the CPA, work with the CPA on various projects without asking permission from the underground Ordinaries - in fact are encouraging the Chinese government to continue its persecution of the Roman Catholic Church without fear of reprisal from the outside world. They thereby give the false impression that they support the Chinese government's repressive religious policy and condone that government's 50-year persecution of the Roman Catholic Church.
4. NO SUPPORT: Should not those Roman Catholic bishops and religious superiors friendly to the CPA bishops show some support and unity to the underground bishops by suspending these donations and projects to the CPA until the persecutions to the underground Roman Catholic Church stop? They have not done so.
5. OCEAN OF AGONY: Like so many tributary rivers ultimately pouring themselves together, each of the issues discussed above has been a source of tribulation for the underground Roman Catholic Church in China; and together, they have formed a veritable “ocean of agony” for faithful Catholics in China. This seems so terribly wrong and so grossly unfair.
6. PERSECUTIONS BY OUR OWN CHURCH: It is therefore no wonder that the 9-10 million loyal Catholics in China are very heart-broken and confused. In their hearts, they know that Papal primacy is one of the basics of being a Catholic. In their hearts, they know that Holy Father is firmly behind them. In their hearts, they know that Holy Father will never abandon them. However, facing all these confusing and contradictory events, the loyal Catholics are experiencing, as one of the underground bishops has confided to us, neglect and abandonment by our own Church. This experience causes far more painful suffering than does incarceration in a Chinese Communist prison.
7. PAPAL AUTHORITY BECOMING IRRELEVANT: The Communist government did not succeed in eliminating the three million Catholics by coercion and persecution in the 1950s. Now the government is hoping to defeat the Roman Catholic Church from within its own Church through misinformation, deceit, and confusion over and in addition to the intensified persecutions! The Chinese government is trying very hard to erode the respect, confidence, obedience and loyalty of the “underground” Church to the Holy Father to the extent that when the chips are down, the issue of the Papal authority in the Catholic Church in China would become irrelevant.
8. NOT SPEAKING OUT: Needless to say, the CPA is in a state of schism. Its bishops have publicly demonstrated their aberration from the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. The Chinese government has intensified its persecution of Roman Catholics who remain faithful to the Pope. How in conscience can bishops in the United States continue their practices as outlined above, and how can the Holy See not speak out forcibly and act on these matters in no uncertain terms?
9. NEED OFFICIAL AND UNAMBIGUOUS RESPONSE: For many, it appears that the Holy See itself struggles internally between the attraction to political expediency and fidelity to the divinely established communion with the Successor of Peter. This is why we think that it is both important and urgent that our questions receive an official and unambiguous response.
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Joseph Kung
President
Cardinal Kung Foundation