Pope Francis’ Deal With Communist China Has Led to Greater Persecution of Catholics

One Fr. Joseph Liu, of the diocese of Mindong, was also detained by police in July and tortured for 10 hours, before “six policemen took him by the hand and forced him to sign” his allegiance to the CCP. That very day, Vatican News was full of praise for China, as Bishop Li Hui became the fifth bishop consecrated under the terms of the deal. But as far as the Vatican was concerned, Fr. Liu might not even have existed.

Another Chinese Catholic priest, not part of the CCP-approved church, told Bitter Winter that, “we do not see any positive result of the Vatican agreement. We pray for the Pope every day, but believe he has received false information about China. We will not join the Patriotic Association.”

Nor is it merely the courageous clergy who are subject to persecution. AsiaNews reported that members of the lay faithful were being penalized for their support of Bishop Shao. In March 2021, a 56-year-old Huang Ruixun had offered his private chapel in his own residence to the bishop to use. Bishop Shao offered Mass and “about twenty faithful” attended, resulting in Huang being served a fine of “200 thousand yuan,” or around $31,200. Huang was also charged with hosting the bishop “for illegal religious activities, also providing him with lunch, a rest room, etc.”

Christian symbols are also worthy of persecution, under the terms of Xi’s Communist government, with some town’s ordering Christian recipients of “social welfare” to “to remove crosses, religious symbols and images…and replace them with portraits of Chairman Mao and President Xi Jinping.”

Vatican linked in unholy union with China as deal used ‘to bludgeon the Church’

Such is the glory of the “new chapter of the Catholic Church in China” of which Pope Francis is so proud – a church which is now marked by an era of persecution and necessary secrecy, which echo the Elizabethan times of Catholic persecution in England and Ireland more than the supposedly civilized world of the 21st century.

In fact, the persecution under the Vatican-China deal has increased to such levels, that in January 2020, an annual report by the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China stated the persecution witnessed was “of an intensity not seen since the Cultural Revolution.”

The Commission directly linked the increase in Catholic persecution to the deal: “Subsequently, local Chinese authorities subjected Catholic believers in China to increased persecution by demolishing churches, removing crosses, and continuing to detain underground clergy. The Party-led Catholic national religious organizations also published a plan to ‘sinicize’ Catholicism in China.”

Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, presented a harrowing account of the consequences of the deal, telling EWTN in 2019 that it was used “to bludgeon the Church, decimating churches, decimating Marian shrines, detaining priests.”

Due to the Papal promotion of the Patriotic Association, in 2019 Cardinal Joseph Zen, the emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, even accused Francis of “encouraging a schism,” and styled the deal “an incredible betrayal.”

“The document contains something against our orthodoxy and they are encouraged to sign. You cannot cheat yourself. You cannot cheat the Communists. You are cheating the whole world. You are cheating the faithful. To sign the document is not to sign a declaration. When you sign, you accept to be a member of that church under the leadership of the communist party. So terrible, terrible,” he added.

And yet despite this, the Bergoglian Vatican continues its unholy triste with Xi’s China. So sycophantic and disturbing is this relationship that in early 2018, Archbishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo – Chancellor of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academies for Sciences and Social Sciences since 1998 – claimed that communist China was the “best [at] implementing the social doctrine of the Church.” No doubt, Sorondo was laying the necessary diplomatic ‘niceties’ before the “betrayal” deal was signed.

It’s a “betrayal of the real Church,” lamented Cardinal Joseph Zen in 2020 before revealing a startling detail: “It’s not an isolated episode. It’s already a long-standing policy of the Vatican not to offend the Chinese government.”

As China hands out financial rewards for reporting house-churches to the authorities, priests and bishops are arrested for loving Christ instead of Xi Jinping, and faithful Catholics are penalized and arrested for helping their devoted clergy, will the Vatican renew the “betrayal” deal once more this autumn?

While reporting has been widely silenced on the catastrophic effect which the deal has had on Chinese Catholics, the Bergoglian Vatican cannot claim ignorance of the consequences. The question remains – does it even care?