Pope Francis. (YouTube)
Cardinal Joseph Zen, the bishop emeritus of Hong Kong and long-time China observer, said “the Holy See does not support” the faithful and long-suffering members of the underground Catholic Church in China and is actually helping the Communist Party to further persecute the faithful in that despotic regime.
The underground Catholic church has existed in Communist China since 1950. In 1957, the regime created the Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), a Communist-run “church” designed to draw Catholics into its control and squeeze out those Catholics loyal to the Pope and the Faith. Despite the decades of persecution, the Holy See signed an agreement with the CPA in September, allowing the Communists to nominate bishops for the church there — the Pope has a veto — and force unity between the underground church and the CPA.
However, this is not working smoothly because the faithful bishops and laity are still being persecuted by Communist authorities and the clerics in the CPA are required to support practices that are contrary to fundamental church teaching, such as contraception, abortion, sterilization, and divorce.
Cardinal Zen flew to Rome on Oct. 29 and gave Pope Francis a seven-page letter outlining his concerns about the situation in China, reported the Union of Catholic Asian News (ucanews.com).
Government Communist thugs are forcing the underground priests and laity “to become open, to join the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, and to obtain a priest’s certificate,” said Cardinal Zen. They are citing the Sino-Vatican deal as the authority to enforce their measures but the entire document has not been revealed to the public.
“Some priests have escaped, and some have disappeared because they do not know what to do and are annoyed,” said Cardinal Zen. “The agreement is undisclosed, and they do not know if what officials say is true or not.”
An underground Catholic Church in China. (YouTube)