Cardinal Zen decries/Vatican defends sell-out of Chinese Catholics

Even before the beginning of WWW, I've been writing about the Vatican's perfidious sell-out of the Chinese Catholic "underground Church" -- the 1000s of Catholics who remained loyal to Rome and refused to join the schismatic Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association created by the Communists when they took power in 1949. Ever since, the bishops, priests and laity of the underground Church have endured persecution, imprisonment and even martyrdom, while their church buildings and holy sites have been taken over by the Communists, with many being closed and destroyed.

In 2018, an agreement was signed between the Vatican and the Communist Chinese government in which the bishops appointed by Rome -- some of whom had been imprisoned for years -- were effectively fired, to be replaced by stooges of the CPCA. The "official" Catholic churches are now required to pledge allegiance to the Communist Party and worship the false gods of Communism, replacing hymns with patriotic songs. See "Vatican bends the knee to Chinese commies in secret accord", WWW 23/9/18.

Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, Archbishop Emeritus of Hong Kong, has from the beginning been an outspoken opponent of the 2018 agreement, which the Vatican insisted was simply intended to "normalize relations" between the Holy See and Communist China. See "Cardinal Zen denounces Vatican's capitulation to Chinese Communists", WWW 13/2/18.

Even though he is now retired, Cardinal Zen has persisted in his criticism of the sell-out of millions of faithful Catholics. See "Vatican-China agreement 'terrible, terrible, terrible': Cardinal Zen", WWW 4/12/19. Now the prelate has been publicly scolded by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the incoming dean of the College of Cardinals.

In a letter sent to cardinals last week, Cardinal Re says Cardinal Zen "did not properly understand the agreement", and insisted that a draft of the deal had the approval of Pope Benedict XVI. He claims that the China-Vatican deal represents the minds of Popes John Paul II and of Benedict XVI, and that Cardinal Zen is mistaken in his opposition to the deal.

"I desire first of all," Cardinal Re writes, "to emphasize that, in their approach to the situation of the Catholic Church in China, there is a profound symphony of the thought and of the action of the last three Pontificates, which -- out of respect for the truth -- have favored dialogue between the two parties and not contrariety.... Cardinal Zen has affirmed several times that it would be better to have no Accord than than a 'bad Accord'. The three last Popes did not share this position and supported and accompanied the drafting of the Accord that, at the present moment, seemed to be the only one possible."

Imagine if Saints Peter, Stephen, Paul and the rest had made a deal with the Romans because "that was the best we could do. It was better than dying..."

Cardinal Zen accused the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin (aka "Petrus Romanus")  of passing incorrect translations of Chinese terms to the Vatican in his effort to push through the deal and neglect criticisms.

In a letter released on Sunday, Cardinal Zen wrote, "I have evidence that Parolin manipulates the Holy Father, who always shows me so much affection but does not answer my questions,"  He charged that Cardinal Parolin "manipulates the Holy Father."

To Cardinal Re’s claim that Pope Benedict XVI had approved an early draft of the Vatican-Beijing agreement, Cardinal Zen responded, "Why was it not signed then?", insisting that the former Pontiff had rejected the deal.

To Cardinal Re, the prelate said, in the letter published in his blog, "I admire your courage in venturing into matters which you also recognize as complex, jeopardizing the prestige of your newly inaugurated honorable office." A very back-handed compliment, well deserved.

Further reading: "Re Against Zen. Divided By a Wall of China", by Sandro Magister, Settimo Cielo, 3/3/20.

Archbishop Sheen a step closer to being beatified

Some good news (for a change) out of the Vatican. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen has been declared “venerable” and may now be beatified if a miracle is attributed to his intercession.

On June 28th, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints announced the new honour as one of a series of decrees regarding candidates for beatification and canonization. The Congregation's statement says that Archbishop Sheen, whose television preaching made him one of America’s best-known public figures in the 1960s, had lived a life of “heroic virtue” and thus qualified for the title “venerable”.

As reported here almost 18 months ago, progress towards Archbishop Sheen's beatification had been slowed by a conflict between the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Peoria, with each claiming responsibility for the cause. The Peoria diocese finally completed a dossier on the prelate’s life and submitted it to the Vatican last year.

Walt has searched YouTube and came up with a talk by Archbishop Sheen on a subject dear to my heart: the Church's condemnation of Communism and the Message of Our Lady of Fatima. Here's the first of three parts.



And here's Part II.



The last part of Archbishop Sheen's talk contains an excerpt from the MGM movie "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima". If you haven't time to watch all three clips, this is the one you must see!



Archbishop Sheen was silenced by death. We can say that God was merciful to him, not allowing him to see how, in the wake of the "reforms" of Vatican II, the Church has not just forgotten about Fatima, but -- led by Cardinals Sodano and now Bertone -- has tried to suppress Our Lady's Message.

Is Benedict XVI himself part of the conspiracy? Is that the terrible secret Bertone is using to cling to power in the Vatican? Walt feels we are in the last times of which Our Lady spoke. She told us that in the end Her Immaculate Heart would prevail. We need to keep praying "So let it be."

Click here to see the complete MGM movie "The Miracle of Fatima" on YouTube. It's in colour, by the way; the only reason it's shown in black and white in the clip above is that Archbishop Sheen's TV show was in black and white.

Why the "new" Roman Catholic Church is soft on Communism

Until the "reforms" of Vatican II, to be Catholic was to be anti-Communist. It was forbidden, under pain of mortal sin, for a Catholic to be a member of the Communist Party, for the same reasons that Catholics were forbidden to members of the Masonic Order or other secret societies which are against the Church and against God.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, when she appeared to Sister Lucy, the principal seer of Fatima, warned against Communism. She said that unless the Church took action, the errors of Communism would spread throughout the world. Specifically, Our Lady asked for the Consecration of Russia, by name, to Her Immaculate Heart. This was to be done publicly by the pope, in union with all the bishops of the world.

Popes Pius XI and Pius XII believed Our Lady's warning, but for reasons known only to themselves never performed the Consecration as She requested, although Pius XII made a half-hearted attempt during World War II. Then came a new pope, John XXIII, the first of what we now call "the Conciliar popes". It was on his watch, at the Second Vatican Council which he convened, that the doors of Holy Mother Church were opened to what Pope Paul VI later called "the smoke of Satan".

Thus, in 1962, through the malevolence of certain influential cardinals and bishops (some of whom were undoubtedly but secretly Freemasons), the Church went soft on Communism. The warnings of Our Lady were officially forgotten, and a policy of rapprochement and appeasement was put in place of the Church's struggle against the godless atheistic ideology.

Incredible as it may seem, the new "Ostpolitik" was even put in writing. Although its existence was denied for decades, the Vatican entered into an agreement with the Soviet Union. John XXIII conceded to the Soviet negotiator, Monsignor Nikodim, the promise not to attack the people or the régime of Russia. This was done to secure Moscow's permission for the Russian Orthodox observers to attend the Council. Since then, the Holy See has considered itself to be still bound by the commitments of John XXIII.

The Communist press was the first to disclose the agreement; and, on this point, it has never been denied or contradicted. In its edition of 16-22 January 1963, France Nouvelle, "the leading weekly of the Party", wrote (page 15):

"Since the world socialist system shows its superiority indisputably and enjoys the approval of many hundreds of millions of men, the Church can no longer rest content with crude anti-communism. She has even given an undertaking, on the occasion of her dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church, that there would be no direct attack on the communist régime at the Council."

Source: "The Vatican-Moscow Agreement", by Jean Madiran.

Fast forward to the early `90s, when the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact was interpreted by the Vatican's foreign affairs "experts" -- especially Cardinals Sodano and Casaroli who were the chief promoters of the "Ostpolitik" -- as meaning that Our Lady's warnings were wrong. Communism had defeated itself, they said, and the Consecration of Russia was no longer necessary, if it ever had been. Now, they said, and in the spirit of peace and brotherhood, we should be even nicer to the Russians. And there's no harm in so doing, they said, because Communism is dead.

Wrong! Communism is alive and well, enslaving the bodies, minds and souls of well over a billion people in Vietnam, North Korea and China. And the Communist régimes of those countries are still hell-bent -- I chose that word with care -- on destroying the Roman Catholic Church and converting or eliminating the millions of Catholics who continue to owe their allegiance to Rome.

For more on the struggle between the "official" (= state-sponsored) Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and the real, underground Cathoic Church in China, please refer to three of my earlier posts: "Catholicism under fire in China"; "Catholics in China -- follow-up"; and "Benedict XVI to Chinese Catholics: Have courage!" I'll come back to this theme later today.