McCarrick’s Betrayal of Cardinal Zen, The Underground Church, and Traditional Catholic Principles Through Vatican-China Deal, by Tommy Cindric

1. Overview of McCarrick’s Role and Financial Misconduct

Theodore Edgar McCarrick (July 7, 1930 – April 3, 2025), a disgraced Catholic cardinal, inflicted profound harm on the Church through his predatory behavior and financial misconduct, culminating in his unprecedented defrocking on February 16, 2019—the first cardinal stripped of his clerical state in modern history. McCarrick, in collusion with Pope Francis, orchestrated a disastrous Vatican-China relationship that betrayed Cardinal Joseph Zen and the underground Church in China, prioritizing diplomatic compromise with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the sanctity of the Church’s independence. Their actions not only undermined Zen’s heroic efforts to protect the faithful but also starkly deviated from the traditional Church’s principles, as upheld by the Church Fathers like St. Athanasius, who fiercely resisted state interference in ecclesiastical matters. McCarrick’s financial schemes, involving millions in Church funds, further reveal a pattern of self-interest and betrayal, casting a dark shadow over his legacy (America Magazine, February 16, 2019; Catholic News Agency, May 30, 2019; The New York Times, April 4, 2025).

2. Betrayal through Vatican-China Relations: Harm to Cardinal Zen and Deviation from Tradition

McCarrick’s diplomatic machinations with China, supported by Pope Francis, were a grave betrayal of Cardinal Zen and the underground Church, aligning with CCP interests in a manner that starkly contradicted the traditional Church’s commitment to autonomy and fidelity to doctrine.

• McCarrick’s Role as a Traitorous Envoy:

  McCarrick, acting as a Vatican envoy, made at least eight trips to China between the 1990s and 2010s, consorting with state-controlled entities like the seminaries in Beijing and meeting figures such as Wang Zuo’an, head of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, and Bishop Fu Tieshan of the CCP-backed Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA). His 2006 visit involved discussions with Chinese bishops, and in 2016, he met a close associate of Xi Jinping, shamelessly praising the Communist leader as “extraordinary” (Catholic News Agency, August 12, 2020; The Global Times, February 10, 2016). Emails from Msgr. Anthony Figueiredo reveal that Pope Francis, ignoring McCarrick’s known misconduct, entrusted him with China negotiations from 2013 to 2017, a decision that reflects Francis’s complicity in this betrayal (Figueiredo Report, 2019). This unholy alliance prioritized worldly diplomacy over the Church’s sacred mission, abandoning the faithful to CCP oppression.

• The 2018 Agreement: A Sellout of the Faithful:

  McCarrick’s efforts, under Francis’s direction, culminated in the September 22, 2018, Vatican-China Provisional Agreement, a shameful capitulation that allowed the CCP to nominate bishops with a papal veto. This deal legitimized a schismatic, state-controlled Church, directly contradicting the traditional Church’s insistence on ecclesiastical independence, as exemplified by St. Athanasius’s 4th-century resistance to imperial control (Athanasius, “History of the Arians,” Part IV). Cardinal Zen decried it as “suicide,” “an incredible betrayal,” and a “complete surrender,” warning it would place China’s 12 million Catholics in a “bird cage” under CCP domination (America Magazine, September 20, 2018; Reuters, February 9, 2018; Complicit Clergy, May 4, 2019). McCarrick and Francis ignored Zen’s pleas, dismissing his concerns with a callous argument that suffering should not divide the Church—a stance that reeks of indifference to the faithful’s plight (National Catholic Register, March 11, 2016).  …….

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