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Cardinal Joseph Zen (Getty) has accused the Vatican of 'selling out the Church in China'When Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected supreme pontiff in March of 2013, the world seemed to expect a softening of Pope Benedict XVI’s crystalline, intellectual style. At first, the new Pope Francis’ many gaffes and faux pas seemed part of this more relaxed approach to the papacy. I and many others pigeonholed Francis as a theological and mental featherweight, an affable simpleton whose papacy would be much more about embracing children and washing the feet of the faithful, and much less about issuing encyclicals and wading...

An authority on China says that it’s “naive” to assume the country’s communist regime is telling the truth when it says it has stopped harvesting organs from prisoners. Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute and author of Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order, told LifeSiteNews that China’s human rights record is “one of the worst in the world.” Responding to the news that Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, defended China’s reforms of its organ transplant system, Mosher expressed concern. “I don’t understand why any Vatican...

Mindong, Msgr. Guo is back, but banned from celebrating Chrism Mass as bishop John Baptist Lin Police have banned him from celebrating Mass as a bishop. Msgr. Guo refused to concelebrate with the official bishop Zhan Silu, who is still excommunicated. Police actions against Msgr. Julius Jia Zhiguo and Heilongjiang priests Mindong (AsiaNews) - Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin was returned yesterday to his house, after being held overnight in police custody.  He had been detained by public security officials on the evening of March 26, together with the chancellor of the diocese. Msgr. Guo, 59, is ordinary bishop of Mindong,...

Mindong, Msgr. Guo Xijin kidnapped by the police before Easter John Baptist Lin The chancellor of the diocese was also taken with him. Msgr. Guo was asked to step aside as ordinary and accept the role of auxiliary bishop to make way for Msgr. Zhan Silu, an illegitimate and excommunicated bishop. Mindong (AsiaNews) - Msgr. Vincent Guo Xijin, bishop of Mindong (Fujian), was kidnapped last night by police. The Chancellor of the Diocese, Fr. Xu, was also led away. Msgr. Guo, 59, is the ordinary bishop of the diocese, recognized by the Vatican, but not by the government. In recent...

Inner Mongolia, an underground priest expelled from his parish: forced to be a farmer Wang Zhicheng United Front Officers escorted him to his village, forcing him to abandon his ministry. Alternating threats and bribes to make him enrol in the Patriotic Association. "Even the Holy See has now made compromises". The implementation of the new regulations, to wipe out underground communities. Beijing (AsiaNews) – Fr. Ding Zhanmin, parish priest in Beishaliang (Baotoukun district, Hohot archdiocese, Inner Mongolia), was forced to abandon his parish and return to the countryside to work as a farmer in Xilin Gol (also in Inner Mongolia)....

EXCLUSIVE – After he escaped from Al Qaeda in Syria, American photojournalist Matt Schrier investigated his own kidnapping and uncovered what he describes as a pattern of "betrayal" by FBI agents handling his case. Schrier is now asking hard questions of former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who now leads the special counsel Russia probe, and former FBI Director James Comey who was fired by President Trump in May 2017. "Not every FBI agent is bad. Some are very good people," Schrier told Fox News. "But the ones that are bad need to be weeded out. And the ones who let...

Why would the Catholic Church accept a deal in which the Communist Party nominated Catholic bishops? Of all the disturbing and even silly things that have been said in defense of the deal between the Vatican and China reportedly being negotiated, the most offensive is that critics of this proposed arrangement to regularize Catholic life in the PRC don’t understand that the Cold War is over and the world is in a new situation.This is preposterous. Of course we critics know the Cold War of 1945–1991 is over — and we remember that those alleging we don’t know that weren’t...

Senate leaders have added the Taylor Force Act to the omnibus spending bill after two Democratic senators blocked an effort to pass it as a stand-alone bill. The measure would cut off U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority as punishment for its practice of paying salaries and benefits to terrorists and their families, including those who have murdered Americans. The Taylor Force Act boasts strong bipartisan support, prompting Senate leadership a few weeks ago to hotline the bill, which would set it up to pass by unanimous consent, a parliamentary procedure that expedites passage of noncontroversial legislation. If no senator...

I would like the express my gratitude to Cardinal Zen for agreeing to answer a few questions for Catholic World Report at this crucial moment in the history of the Catholic Church in China. Over the past several days we corresponded about pressing issues related to the current Sino-Vatican negotiations that are underway. I first met Cardinal Zen several years ago at his humble residence with the Salesians in Hong Kong, where we spent more than an hour discussing the state of China’s Church. Since then, Catholics in China have encountered new pressures from state authorities. Their situation has become...

Guest Op-Ed - Musings from the Chinese Underground: "The Vatican is forcing us to obey perverted bishops!" By Guest-contributor 小鱼儿 I recently read Msgr. Anthony Figueiredo's interview in the National Catholic Register. I initially wanted to ignore his statements, like I did with other Chinese "experts". However, these past few months, the Church in China received "seismic tremors" too strong to ignore. Considering the gravity of the matter, I thought I would share my humble musings with Rorate Caeli readers. Surprise surprise! We have another Chinese "expert" talking about the Church in China. Mind you, an "expert" who doesn't speak...

LUOTIANBA, China — The bishop can’t really talk about religion right now.  His unofficial church is caught in a fight over the future of the Roman Catholic faith here, a struggle for control between the Vatican and the Communist Party that will determine the fate of the estimated 10 million Catholics in China and shape the legacy of Pope Francis. Bishop Zhuang Jianjian, 88, under watch and already in trouble, knows it is not safe to speak out. But he can still deliver a sermon. Just before 7 a.m. on a recent Sunday, he walked to the front of a small, white church...

The Vatican bows and China gives thanks. Here's how > Italiano > English> Español> Français> All the articles of Settimo Cielo in English*Here's something worth passing along. This commentary, with the paired photos, came out on March 2 on "Asia News," the online agency of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions that specializes in China, with the director's byline.*XINJIANG. CROSSES, DOMES, STATUES DESTROYED: THE NEW "SINICIZED" CULTURAL REVOLUTION by Bernardo Cervellera"It's a new Cultural Revolution": this most frequent online comment in reaction to photos of the church of Yining (Xinjiang) stripped of the crosses that stood on the building, of...

Steven Mosher Warns: Vatican Is Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory for the Church in China by Christopher A. Ferrara March 2, 2018 An article at Life Site News, republished by permission of One Peter Five, has educated me to an aspect of the Church’s situation in China which has received little coverage in the press. The article, by Steven Mosher — a Catholic convert, president of the Population Research Institute, and social scientist who specializes in Chinese demographics and population control — reveals how the Church in China was slowly reassembling itself despite Beijing’s creation of the Chinese...

VATICAN, March 2, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Chinese Cardinal Joseph Zen voiced more criticism about the forthcoming Vatican deal with China’s Communist government on the appointment of bishops, terming it “suicide” and an act of “shameless surrender.” According to the Cardinal, the problem is not so much with Pope Francis, but with his papal advisors. Pope Francis is “optimistic and full of love, and is eager to visit China,” Zen said, but his advisors are “obsessed” with an “Ostpolitik” answer to the problem of bishop appointments in China.  They want “compromise without limits,” the Cardinal said, “they are already willing to...

BRISBANE, Australia, March 2, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — An Australian archbishop has angered Catholics by criticizing two cardinals who have been outspoken advocates of orthodoxy. Mark Coleridge, Archbishop of Brisbane, tweeted yesterday that he wished Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong, who has been impassioned in his support of the persecuted underground Catholic Church in China, would smile. “Things can be tough in China, I know,” he conceded, “but I just wish the Cardinal would smile once in a while.” Archbishop Coleridge was reacting to a photo of Zen on an article about the cardinal’s strong opposition to the Vatican’s impending deal...

On February 27, a Chinese Catholic church had its crosses, statues, and bell towers demolished by order of Communist authorities. Before and after.

Pope Francis‘ political collaboration with Communist China has direct precedents in the Ostopolitik of John XXIII and Paul VI.  But yesterday, just as today, Ostoplitik had strong opponents who deserve to be remembered. One of these was the Slovakian Bishop Pavol Hnilica (1926-2006), whom I’d like to recall, based on my own personal memories and by referring to a precise study dedicated to his figure, to be published shortly by Professor Emilia Hrabovec, to whom I express my gratiude for allowing me to consult and quote from her manuscript. In the 1960s when Vatican diplomacy began to put Ostpolitik into...

Since yesterday’s afternoon, our petition website of the Open Letter was under distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack, and the internet protocol addresses of the attackers were from Tianjing. The page resumed normal operation at around 12:30pm today after repairing. We condemn such cowardice act. We will not be cowed into silence by such attack, and we will never stop voicing out for the Church. Again, we appeal to the faithful who loves the Church: Please join the petition, and continue to pray for the persecuted Church in China. An Open Letter to Conferences of Catholic Bishops Across the World Regarding the Possible...

They aren’t calling him “Lyin’ Ted” anymore. Sen. Ted Cruz’s stock is rising among members of President Trump’s base who feel double-crossed after the president offered amnesty to illegals in the immigration debate. Some who opposed Mr. Cruz in his 2016 run for the White House are even clamoring for the Texas Republican to mount a primary challenge to Mr. Trump in 2020. The newfound esteem for Mr. Cruz, whom Mr. Trump dubbed “Lyin’ Ted” when they battled for the 2016 Republican nomination, is coming from people who were die-hard supporters of the president. “Ted Cruz has kept his word...

No one has said it better than Helen Raleigh, an Asian-American commentator, writing inThe Federalist: “On this particular Ash Wednesday, millions of Catholic faithful in mainland China have an extra reason to pray for God’s mercy: their earthly leader, Pope Francis, has betrayed them.” And now the betrayal is about to be confirmed. Guo Xijin, 59, one of the two legitimate Catholic bishops of the “underground” Church in China that the Vatican has asked to step down in favor of illicitly consecrated puppet bishops of the communist-created Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), has just declared that he will obey the order to...