‘Vatican seems to be working with Beijing’ against Chinese Christians

Michie said:

“…the Vatican seems to be working with Beijing against Christians in China – this is inexplicable,” Gordon Chang told EWTN.​

PerMariam) — As the Holy See prepares to renew its secretive deal with Beijing for the third time, a Christian journalist and prominent China analyst has stated there is no “justification” for the Vatican’s actions.

“I’m angry beyond belief. I’m not a Catholic but I’m angry beyond belief because the Chinese violated the 2018 deal as soon as it was inked. The Vatican renewed it despite the repeated pattern of violations. I really don’t know what to say.” These were the opening comments of Gordon Chang when asked recently by EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo about the Vatican’s infamous 2018 deal with Communist China.


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His assessment of China’s nearly instant violation of the deal is supported by AsiaNews, a site that regularly documents the actions of the Chinese government towards Christians. In November 2018, AsiaNews reported that “nderground Catholics bitterly suspect that the Vatican has abandoned them” – just weeks after the deal was publicized and and signed in September that year.

Continued below.

‘Vatican seems to be working with Beijing’ against Chinese Christians

“…the Vatican seems to be working with Beijing against Christians in China – this is inexplicable,” Gordon Chang told EWTN.

www.permariam.com

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This might be a wake up call for us Catholics, that the Vatican is not as infallible as we once believed it to be. The End Times are slowly winding up, faster and faster. There are a lot of Christians being persecuted in Asia, so we must pray that China and other Asian countries end their persecution. We must also pray that the Vatican and Church authorities support the underground Christians and protect Christians from persecution.

Catholic Prayer: Traditional Prayers for Persecuted Christians | Latin Mass Society
Almighty, everlasting God, look with compassion on all those who suffer persecution for justice’ sake. Grant them grace to carry their cross with patience in the name of Thy beloved Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let the chalice pass from them is such by Thy holy Will: yet, in all things, may Thy Will be done. Grant to those who persecute, light to see the truth, and the grace of mercy and forgiveness, for they know not what they do. Mary, Mother of Jesus, Comfort of the Afflicted, help thy children in their time of bitter trial. O Lord our God, by the sign of Thy holy cross deliver us from our enemies.

Protestant (Lutheran) Prayer: Prayers
Heavenly Father, in the midst of our sufferings for the sake of Christ grant us grace to follow the example of the first martyr, Stephen, that we also may look to the One who suffered and was crucified on our behalf and pray for those who do us wrong; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Michie said:

The pope is only infallible when he speaks ex-cathedra. I do not think the Vatican itself with all its moving parts has ever claimed infallibility in all they say and do.

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That is true. For instance, with the inquisition, the Vatican was most certainly corrupt, and eventually had to correct their own mistakes years later.

I am very hesitant to be overly critical of the Vatican's actions in this area on the basis that I--and for that matter it seems the people who are doing the criticizing--don't have all the information. Heck, the article admits that the deal between the Vatican and China is secretive, and can only say it "allegedly" has something or "is believed to" include something. Neither the article's author nor anyone it cites has this information and thus all criticisms are based on speculations. One could criticize the agreement for being secret to begin with, but perhaps China wouldn't agree to one if it wasn't. None of us and I expect none of the critics have full information about what's in it and what options were even available to the Vatican.

But what I've especially noticed in these criticisms is people complain and then... don't say what the Vatican should be doing. Re-negotiate for an agreement more favorable to the Vatican? This might very well be the best one they can get. Let the agreement lapse and not make a new one? While the article and other such critics basically say that the agreement isn't doing much because there's still a lot of suppression of Christianity, wouldn't revocation of this agreement only make things worse by removing whatever protections--however small they might have been due to China allegedly making a lot of violations--that there were as a result of these agreements?

The fact is, neither I, the article writer, anyone cited in the article, or anyone else I've seen be critical of agreements the Vatican has made with China actually had the necessary information to try to judge whether those agreements should have been made. It seems presumptuous to try to be extremely critical of someone's actions when you lack a lot of the information they had when they made those actions. They could be right, and the Vatican really screwed up here and they had better options. Or maybe this was the best thing they could do. I'm not comfortable with being too critical on something while lacking important information about it.

AlexB23 said:

That is true. For instance, with the inquisition, the Vatican was most certainly corrupt, and eventually had to correct their own mistakes years later.

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Don't forget that if you're referring to the Inquisition that was in operation in Spain in the 15th and 16th centuries, it was not an inquisition sanctioned by the Holy See---it was an organ of the Spanish crown, operated by a renegade friar named Tomas Torquemada; the Vatican had nothing to do with it. The Holy See condemned the cruelty and excesses perpetrated by the Spanish Inquisition several times.