https://aleteia.org/2021/05/26/chinese-authorities-arrest-bishop-priests-seminarians/#
Arrested in May 2021, Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu has not been seen or heard from
in six months. Hoping to find some kind of workable arrangement with Beijing,
Pope Francis signed the 2018 accord which afforded Beijing a voice (and
presumably a veto) in Vatican selections for Chinese episcopal sees.
Three
years later, there are still dozens of vacancies and the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) has continued its clampdown on dissent and dissenting clerics. And it has
stepped up its intrusion into the affairs of church life.
The non-sanctioned
or underground Catholic community has been effectively abandoned by the Vatican,
though there's reason to believe it still receives some quiet support from the
state-sponsored CPCA – the Beijing approved 'official' Catholic Church in
China.
One would think that
given the CCP's conduct, Francis would tear up the agreement. Beijing was
worried about Catholicism as a Fifth Column operating to subvert the state.
Francis did not envision Catholicism in such a capacity, however in order to
assuage the fears of Beijing, he has now placed the Roman Catholic Church in a
state of subjugation.
Controversy has swirled
around Francis – some of it hype fomented by his enemies, some of it is valid.
The China Accord may go down as the biggest stain on his papacy. It is
veritable betrayal of Chinese Catholics.
Zhang's career
straddles the period of Vatican-approved/Beijing rejected underground bishops
and the new order. Zhang apparently refused to register after the 2018 accord and
yet it would seem he received little support from the Vatican. Additionally one
would have thought the 2018 accord would have 'grandfathered' in already
appointed bishops, or made some other kind of provision for them, but
apparently not. The details of the accord remain a secret but one struggles to
find just where Beijing conceded much of anything. It would seem Francis almost
wholly bent to the will of the CCP.
New Testament
Christians are for obvious reasons opposed to Roman Catholicism but like it or
not the plight of underground Catholics goes somewhat hand-in-hand with the
underground Protestant Church in China.
The
Protestant-Evangelical unregistered or underground Church has in some cases
disgraced itself and destroyed its own testimony by collaborating with Western
political interests and thus has played into the Fifth Column narrative which
Beijing has feared and warned against. The officially sanctioned Three-Self
Patriotic Churches have simply bowed to Beijing and are viewed by the Protestant
underground as apostate.
The underground Catholic
Church on the other hand has been all but abandoned by its own hierarchy.
And thus the CCP is
emboldened and the clampdown on underground churches will affect not just
Catholics, but Protestants – even those who have refused to ally with Western
Dominionist theology and the American Right. And it would seem, things are
about to get a lot worse.
We need to pray for
the Church in China but unfortunately American Christians are lining up with the
likes of ChinaAid's Bob Fu and others – their actions only further politicising
the Church's plight in China and tying it directly to the US Empire and its
allies – the same forces that even now are preparing for war against Beijing.
It's tragic but many Western Christians would actually support such a war and
believe it to be the task of Western nations and empires to 'liberate' the
Church as if such a thing were possible. And as a consequence the identity of
the Church is confused and subsumed and its testimony destroyed. Pray, but make
sure your prayers aren't postured as pro-America and Anti-China. We're citizens
of Zion and all the nations of the world are Babylons, their evil is only
differentiated by degree. No one will weep when the CCP falls, but neither
should we cheer on the wicked schemes and bloodlust of Western nations which (despite
the veneer they've been given by some) do not represent Christ's Kingdom in any
shape or form.
See also:
https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-investiture-controversy-in-china.html
https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-jesuit-commentary-on-chinese.html
https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2016/12/underground-catholics-in-china.html
https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-sino-vatican-agreement-error-of.html
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