“I told the pope that he has a poisoned mind. He is very sweet, but I have no trust in this person. He believes in diplomacy, not in our faith.” - Cardinal Zen
Many powerful members of the hierarchy seem to believe in diplomacy or mammon or modernism or climate change or public relations or politics or whatever else, anything except our faith. If the diplomacy goes badly, the persecuted bishops will not have to accept Communist control. That may be true if they believe in politics, but not if they believe in our faith. The fact that they are already persecuted suggests that they do believe in our faith, so they will have other options, including persecution and martyrdom.
The current regime in Rome will do something, maybe ask for the Cardinal's release and departure to Rome ala Patriarch Josyf, Metropolitan of Galicia, Archbishop of Lviv in the 1960's or Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary in 1971. Then Rome can try to shut His Eminence up. It happened before, it can happen again. Both Paul VI and Francis were/are great vacilators.
I’m glad to hear the Cardinal is out on bail. The future of the Holy See/China deal is defiantly in the balance and unfortunately we in the rest of the Church are unlikely to hear anything about the negotiations going on behind closed doors. It’s a fairly common requirement for Chinese agreements that the contents are kept secret when their partners are not required to accountability to their citizens. Another example is the recent security deal they struck with the Solomon Islands that will probably see a naval base built there in the future. No idea if that’s the case, the contents are sealed and confidential.
The Holy See know they are doing a deal with a government who doesn’t give two flying f-words about human beings or religion and would be very happy to have an excuse to round up every Catholic in China and give them the Uigher treatment and be rid of a troublesome sect in their territory.
Things aren’t good, but they can get worse. Whatever negotiations can be had should be had. It’s much more difficult to start negotiations from a “let my people go” in the midst or after the fact position, than from where they are now. Just ask Moses. The irony of loosing China under a Jesuit Pope would not be lost on many people.
“I told the pope that he has a poisoned mind. He is very sweet, but I have no trust in this person. He believes in diplomacy, not in our faith.” - Cardinal Zen
Many powerful members of the hierarchy seem to believe in diplomacy or mammon or modernism or climate change or public relations or politics or whatever else, anything except our faith. If the diplomacy goes badly, the persecuted bishops will not have to accept Communist control. That may be true if they believe in politics, but not if they believe in our faith. The fact that they are already persecuted suggests that they do believe in our faith, so they will have other options, including persecution and martyrdom.
The current regime in Rome will do something, maybe ask for the Cardinal's release and departure to Rome ala Patriarch Josyf, Metropolitan of Galicia, Archbishop of Lviv in the 1960's or Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary in 1971. Then Rome can try to shut His Eminence up. It happened before, it can happen again. Both Paul VI and Francis were/are great vacilators.
This was all utterly predictable when the deal was first signed with the avowed atheist communists
whatever he does, based pope
I’m glad to hear the Cardinal is out on bail. The future of the Holy See/China deal is defiantly in the balance and unfortunately we in the rest of the Church are unlikely to hear anything about the negotiations going on behind closed doors. It’s a fairly common requirement for Chinese agreements that the contents are kept secret when their partners are not required to accountability to their citizens. Another example is the recent security deal they struck with the Solomon Islands that will probably see a naval base built there in the future. No idea if that’s the case, the contents are sealed and confidential.
The Holy See know they are doing a deal with a government who doesn’t give two flying f-words about human beings or religion and would be very happy to have an excuse to round up every Catholic in China and give them the Uigher treatment and be rid of a troublesome sect in their territory.
Things aren’t good, but they can get worse. Whatever negotiations can be had should be had. It’s much more difficult to start negotiations from a “let my people go” in the midst or after the fact position, than from where they are now. Just ask Moses. The irony of loosing China under a Jesuit Pope would not be lost on many people.