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New dispatches from China
Translated from
December 30, 2018
Dear friends, the Dispatches from China this week are particularly tragic – both as to what Maestro Porfiri reports on the situation of ‘clandestine’ Chinese Catholics after the secret pact between the Vatican and China, and for the terrible news about the journalists in China who have been trying to reveal to the world about the tightening screws exercised by the Communist regime in Beijing on every manifestation of freedom.
It is a picture that contrasts greatly with what Italian media and journalists, especially those with close ties to Casa Santa Marta, have chosen to paint so far to justify the secret pact, about which the least that can be said so far is that it is questionable from many aspects. Here is Maestro Porfiri:
December 30, 2018
Response to a comment from one who read
the ‘Vatican Insider’ interview with
a pro-Bergoglio bishop who was once underground
‘Natan’ commented on my last post, as follows: “At this point, after having read Gianni Valente’s interview in Vatican Insider, either you are a conman, or Valente is. Confusion continues to reign supreme. Valente interviews a once-clandestine bishop who says that things, although difficult, are really ‘going well’. Whereas Cardinal Zen expresses many reservations. So I would like to know where the truth is – at the Vatican or with cardinal Zen”.
My response: Neither I nor Valente is a conman. Obvously, we each have a different interpretation of an important turning-point such as the pact between the Vatican and the Chinese government. About Mr. Valente's interview with Mons. Wei Jingyi – who certainly suffered much in the past for his loyalty to Rome – the bishop gives a very ‘spiritual’ reading of the situation, a reading I certainly respect, but which also confirms the state of things I have been writing about.
Wei says:
Priests and faithful alike [from the underground Church] ask me: “Now that there is supposed to be ‘unity’ in the diocese, what then are we supposed to do?” And I tell them that in that act of unity between the two bishops [the official one and the clandestine bishop reduced to being his subordinate], it includes the acceptance of the official bishop by all ‘clandestine’ Catholics, as well as the registration with government agencies of all underground priests declaring also their activities. This requires sincerity on both sides.
Obviously, the registration with civilian authorities of priests and their respective activities requires communication and dialog with the government. We must be prepared psychologically to do this. In any situation, whatever the problem, we should proceed step by step, seeking to make our ‘unity’ grow, and this demands our faith.
But the demand for registration is not just an administrative measure: for the priests who register, it means submitting themselves to very close control by the government and to join the Patriotic Association which has no canonical existence. I think that this situation cannot lead to anything good, a view that is shared by many others who are more informed than I am. I am literally swamped with news about the current situation in China after the Vatican-Beijing pact, of which I can only give part, because otherwise my Dispatches would become infinitely lengthy.
‘Bitter Winter’ and represssion of its informants
Vatican Insider itself reported this news about the Turin-based international magazine on China, Bitter Winter, which has been reporting on religious persecutions in China.
Forty-five journalists have been arrested in China these months and accused of transmitting news, videos and pictures to Bitter Winter, a magazine on religious freedom and human rights in China, published in eight languages since May 2018 in Turin by CESNUR (Centro Studi sulle Nuove Religione), andedited by CESNUR direector Massimo Introvigne himself…
CESNUR itself and Bitter Winter have reported the arrests. Introvigne said, “We have definite news that some of those arrested have been tortured to find out who else they have been sending news and documents to. Unfortunately, the reporter who took the video inside the re-education camps [for Uighur Muslims] in Xinjiang has disappeared without a trace. We fear that as in the case of other arrested journalists, that we may not see him again. We trust that whoever takes freedom of the press seriously should raise their voices to protest these serious episodes. I also think that we under-estimate the number of journalists in China who are willing to risk their lives to tell the world about human rights violations in China. The network that has been serving Bitter Winter does not just number in the dozens but in the hundreds.”
In the light of my earlier answer, is it necessary to comment further?
Christmas protest in Hong Kong
Journalist Su Xinqi in an article in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) [HongKong's leading English-language newspaper] reports on a Christmas protest by hundreds of Christian faithful in Hong Kong who oppose the religious persecution on the mainland.
Five Christian groups and 100 individuals in the city are behind the courageous call to action exhorting believers to attend church services on December 23 and December 30 wearing black clothes ”because Christ is being persecuted – the church in China is persecuted”.
By Saturday night, 352 persons had signed an online petition calling for such action and committed themselves to participating and soliciting other participation, according to Phyllis Luk Fung-ping, co-founder of Mission Citizerns, one of the five organizing groups.
The initiative came about because two weeks before Christmas, the Beijing regime tightened the screws on two important undergound Churches on the mainland.
SCMP had recently attacked Cardinal Zen for his position against the Vatican-China pact. The infuential newspaper is owned by Jack Ma, founder of the colossal business conglomerate AliBaba with very close ties to the government in Beijing.
More on that pact…
In the Dec, 23 issue of the Sunday Examiner of HongKong, Michael Sainsbury notes:
“In 2018, the Vatican finally signed an agreement it had long desired with the Communist Party which governs in China, ostensibly on the appointment of bishops, but it did so at a time when Beijing had significantly increased its religious persecution.
The agreement appears to have emboldened Beijing in its desire to destroy all its enemies, real and imagined, including regligious groups which refuse submission”.
Of course, obedience to the laws of one’s country is right – provided such laws do not stridently violate one’s religious principles – but in this case, it is not just obedience that is demanded. It is government control over how the citizen practices his religion, so that the Christian citizen, in effect, is no longer able to function as ‘salt of the earth’ as the Gospel asks him to be.
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