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'OUT OF LOVE FOR MY PEOPLE, I WILL NOT STAY SILENT': Reflections on the Tenth Anniversary of Benedict VXI's Letter to the Catholics of China,
by Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, Chora Books, Rome, 2018)
Marco Tosatti and Aldo Maria Valli both write about a new book by Cardinal Zen... Tosatti's is the more ineresting because of some explosie passages he chooses to cite from the book.
A book by Cardinal Zen
at the time of theVatican-China agreement
Translated from
September 24, 2018
Precisely when Beijing and the Holy See announced their provisional agreement for the appoinment of bishops, a book by Cardinal Joseph Zen has been publihed in Italian.
A text that demonstrates his great love for the Church. And a dramatic one. Dramatic and tragic because it bares the profound incomprehensions that have accompanied the ‘road to reconciliation’ betwene the Catholic churc and the Chinese Communist government.
A road that the Cardinal says could well lead to failure because the agreement enormously disfavors the Church and punishes the members of China’s underground Church – those who, at the price pf enormous suffering and sometimes, of life itself – never wished to join the ‘official’ church and have paid dearly for their loyalty to the Vatican.
At a time when religious persecutions are intensifying in China, and religious freedom in that country is increasingly constrained, one must ask, he says, if it is rational to have an agreement that truly does little for the Church’s mission of evangelization.
Reflecting on the tenth annviersary of Benedict XVI’s Letter to Chinese Catholics, Cardinal Zen sheds light on the strategy towards China that the Church has had in place in recent decades, within which there has been no lack of luminous momments, but certainly, a lack of faliures, cleary denounced by Zen as a direct witness of events.
Here are some passages:
When Pope Benedict made me a cardinal, I understood that he wanted me to help him do something for the Church in China, but to confirm this, I asked him for a brief audience in September 2006. When I got his confirmation, I thought it was necessary for me to inform the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples [the late Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias, named Prefect by Benedict XVI in May 2006; he retired in 2011 and was succeeded by Cardinal Filoni, a China expert, appointed Prefect by Benedict XVI in 2011).],
As soon as he saw me, he said, “Don’t be too agitated. The Lord has his own time”. And I replied, “Yes, the Lord has his time, but we can also be impatient after so many years…”
I told him that I liked Psalm 44[43] which we priests recite every two weeks in the Breviary, and which ends with the words: “Awake! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Rise up! Do not reject us forever!”
And he said to me: "Cardinal Zen, do not forget that the Communists are also our brothers. The Lord died on the Cross even for them.” I replied: “But Eminence, don’t you think I believe that too? Yes, the Communists are my brothers, but the bishops they imprison are also my brothers. Whose side should I take?”
He ended our covnersation by saying, “There are so many things that we [presumably the Congregation] can do which you cannot”. In short, he wanted me to stay out of the question. So I replied: “Yes, you have the possibility to commit many errors, but we don’t!”
And here is what he says about the appointment of Mons. Pietro Parolin to be Secretary of State:
Even I was among thpse who applauded his appointment. But to my sorrowful surprise, he soon showed himself to be arrogant and overbearing, with greater regard for diplomatic success which is wordly rather than the triuph of the faith.
My first surprise was when, during an address commemorating his mentor, Cardinal Casaroli [former Secretary of State and architect of the Vatican’s Ospolitik during the Cold War], he described the heroes of the faith in that era (Cardinals Wyszynsko, Mindszenty and Beran, although he did not name them) as “gladiators, men who systematically opposed the government, who wished to place themselves in the political spotlight”! But to discredit them this way was to discredit the faith!
The other surprise was when he secretly dissolved the Commission for the Church in China [instituted by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 to study the questions of major importance concerning the life of Church in China, and met yearly till 2012], abandoning the tradition of good diplomatic manners in the Holy See even in the worst of times. Evidently, he no longer wished to hear my discordant voice.
Then there was the underhanded way of getting rid of the input of Mons. Savio Hon [a theologian from HongKong who had been a member of teh International Theological Commission for many years when it was headed by Cardinal Ratzinger as CDF Prefect, he was named by Benedict XVI in 2010 Secretary of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith – in his time, the highest ranking Asian in the Curia], who was sent away from Rome [first as Apostolic Administrator in Guam, and then as Nuncio to Greece] but making sure he was muzzled as an employee of the Secretariat of State.
But what concerns me most is his lack of respect for the truth. Intelligent as he is, the sophisms and half-truths he says canno but be lies said consciously.
Having gotten rid of me and Savio, Cardinal Parolin then had the field all to himself, without obstacles. He pushed the pope forward along the slope of his optimism about China. But Parolin knows very well the horrible face of Chinese Communism! Why has he kept the truth from the pope? [Maybe because the pope prefers to hear Parolin’s version of ‘the truth’!]
At the end of his book, Cardinal Zen writes: “Don’t the powers that be at the Vatican say that the purpose for getting an agreement with China was to favor the evangelization of this great nation? Let them not forget that Communist power is not eternal. If today they back this regime, then tomorrow, our Church may not be welcome for the reconstruction of a new China.
At this time, the whole world is seeing a terrible worsening of the restrictions on religious freedom in China. Are we to expect any gain from coming to terms with this government? It is not just a quip when I say that it is almost like expecting that st Joseph would have gained anything by talking to Herod.
What then must we do? Go back to Pope Benedict’s letter, in which he prays to the Lord that “you [the Catholics of China]may be’ filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding… strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” (From Paul’s Letter to the Colossians).
This is a book that shows great love for the Church and for the popes, but also a great need for truth.
BIG P.S. Everyone seems to have forgotten - perhaps due to the reality shock from a provisional agreement that amounts to a surrender by the Vatican of one of the most important prerogatives of the pope - is that the goal of the Vatican in negotiating with China was not to get an agreement on the appointment of bishops but to establish diplomatic relations. There is not one whisper about that obviously frustrated objective in all the commentary, pro and con, about the disgraceful agreement.
But isn't that the worst slap in the face that the Bergoglio Vatican can get, for all its calculated abjectness towards China all these years? In short, for now: No diplomatic relations, no Bergoglio visit to China. Were it not for the catastrophic implications of Bergoglio's surrender of the right to appoint bishops to a totaltarian atheis egime, I would be jibing "NYAH-nyah-nyah-nyah-NYAH!"
Meanwhile, take note of Bergoglio's spin on the deal - our narcissist-in-chief playing the 'hero'. Be ready with your barf bags!
Pope Francis takes responsibility for China deal
Aboard the papal plane, Sep 25, 2018 / 03:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis took responsibility Tuesday for the agreement between the Holy See and the People's Republic of China, noting that in any such negotiation, “both sides lose something.”
He was asked about the agreement Sept. 25 during the flight from Tallinn to Rome by Antonio Pelayo of Vida Nueva.
The agreement on the appointment of bishops in mainland China was signed Sept. 22 in Beijing. It will allow for bishops who are in communion with the Holy Father and at the same time are recognized by the Chinese government.
Francis said the agreement was the fruit of a dialogue that has taken several years.
“The Vatican team worked a lot,” he said. He noted the efforts of Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for social Communications; Fr. Rota Graziosi, an official of the Roman curia; and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State.
Cardinal Parolin, he said, “has a special devotion to the lens; he studies all of the documents down to the period, comma, notes, and this gives me a great assurance.”
“You know that when you make a peace agreement or a negotiation, both sides lose something,” Pope Francis reflected. “This is the law. Both sides. And you move ahead.” [Did anyone dare to sk him what it is exactly that China 'lost' in this deal???]
The Bishop of Rome said that the dialogue which led to the agreement was a process of going two steps forward and one step back. “Then, months passed without speaking to each other and then the time of God, which appears to be [the time of the] Chinese. Slowly. This is wisdom, the wisdom of the Chinese.” [YECCCCCH! Still kowtowing and will go on doing so till he gets an invitation to China.]
He said that “the bishops who were in difficulty were studied case-by-case,” [Right! The same way he 'studied' Mons. Ricca's case back in 2013! So how come the bishops who have concubines and children were given a pass? Oh, I forget - they erhaps come under a special application of Amoris Laetitia!] and that “dossiers came on to my desk about each one. And I was responsible for signing the case of the bishops.”
Following this, drafts of the agreement were put on his desk, Pope Francis said. They were discussed and “I gave my ideas.”
“I think of the resistance, the Catholics who have suffered. It’s true. And they will suffer. Always, in an agreement, there is suffering. They have a great faith.” [Does that sound heartless, or what? And what is the Beijing side suffering, if at all????]
He said they have written him, saying that “what the Holy See, what Peter says, is that which Jesus says. The martyrial faith of these people today goes ahead. They are the great ones!”
“I signed the agreement,” Pope Francis stated. “I am responsible.”
“The others, whom I appointed, in all have worked for more than 10 years. It’s not an improvisation. It’s a path, a true path.”
He noted that after a “famous communique of an ex-apostolic nuncio, the episcopates of the world wrote me, saying clearly that they felt close, that they were praying for me.” [Lie? Half-truth? wishful thinking?]
“The Chinese faithful wrote, and the signature of this writ was from a bishop, let’s say it this way, of the traditional Catholic Church and from a bishop of the patriotic Church, together and faithful, both of them. For me, it was a sign from God,” Pope Francis stated.
The pope also recalled, saying “thanks be to God that this is over”, that in Latin America “for 350 years it was for the king of Portugal and of Spain to appoint the bishops, and the Pope only gave jurisdiction.”
“We forget the case of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: Maria Teresa was tired of signing the appointments of bishops and gave jurisdiction to the Vatican. These were other times, and thanks be to God that they aren’t repeated.”
He stated that under the agreement with China, the Chinese government will not appoint the bishops: “No, this is a dialogue about eventual candidates but Rome appoints, the Pope appoints.” [GASLIGHTING!]
“And let us pray for the suffering of some who don’t understand, and who have behind them so many years of being clandestine.” [Pray for their suffering? Is that a Freudian slip?]
Announcing the deal on Saturday, the Holy See had said that “the shared hope is that this agreement may favor a fruitful and forward-looking process of institutional dialogue and may contribute positively to the life of the Catholic Church in China, to the common good of the Chinese people and to peace in the world.”
Beijing established the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in 1957 to regulate Catholics living in China, and Catholics in the country have been divided between members of the patriotic Church and the “underground Church”.
The agreement between the Holy See and the People's Republic is meant to end the split between the patriotic and underground Churches. [HOW??? BY WHAT LOGIC???]
The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association is under the day-to-day direct supervision of the Chinese Communist Party since a March 2018 decision by which the Chinese government shifted direct control of religious affairs to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department.
In recent years, Chinese authorities have cracked down on underground Christian churches, as well as on Muslims throughout western provinces.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/09/2018 01:37] |