Cardinal Joseph Zen has said he fears the Vatican will betray the underground Church in China by pursuing a deal with the government.
In an interview with LifeSiteNews, the Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong said he had written “many letters” to Pope Francis, pleading for him not to strike a deal with the Chinese government over bishops, but had not received any response.
The Catholic Church operates underground in China. Catholics are expected to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association – the government-controlled Church in which bishops are installed by the Chinese government and not the Vatican – but many choose to worship secretly. Bishops of the underground Church, loyal to the Vatican, often face imprisonment and persecution.
Earlier this month, Cardinal John Tong Hon announced that the Vatican and Beijing were nearing a deal on the appointment of bishops. He said Beijing would recognise the Pope’s right to veto any of the bishops they had selected.
But Cardinal Zen told LifeSiteNews that a deal with Beijing could be a betrayal of loyal Catholics who must live out their faith in secret and who often suffer under the communist regime.
“They don’t have much public voice, the underground,” he said. “People who come from China to see me, they all say, ‘Please, you must raise your voice. We cannot say anything,’ because they have no freedom to talk. So I keep talking, but it seems that they [the Holy See] don’t listen. They don’t like to listen.”
He added that the Vatican was heading towards a bad deal with Beijing. “And I can understand that the Pope is really naive … He doesn’t know the Chinese communists. But unfortunately the people around him are not good at all. They have very wrong ideas. And I’m afraid that they may sell out our underground Church. That would be very sad,” the cardinal said.
Pope ‘softened sanctions against abusive clergy’
Pope Francis has reduced sanctions against priests who abused children, it was reported this week.
In several cases, according to Associated Press, Francis has overruled the recommendation of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to laicise priests, instead sentencing them to removal from public ministry and to a lifetime of penance and prayer.
One priest who apparently received such clemency was later convicted by an Italian court for sex abuse of children as young as 12. The priest, Fr Mauro Inzoli, is now facing a second Church trial.
Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who is a member of the Pope’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, said such an approach was wrong.
“While mercy is important, justice for all parties is equally important,” she said. “If there is seen to be any weakness about proper penalties, then it might well send the wrong message to those who would abuse.”
An unnamed Church official told AP that abusive priests and their friends make direct appeals to Francis for clemency, using the Pope’s own language on mercy. “With all this emphasis on mercy … he is creating the environment for such initiatives,” he said.
Ms Collins suggested it was ill-informed for the Pope to refer to sex abusers as suffering from a “disease”.“All who abuse have made a conscious decision to do so,” she said. “Even those who are paedophiles, experts will tell you, are still responsible for their actions. They can resist their inclinations.”
Pope Francis has reportedly removed three long-serving staff from the CDF, two of whom worked in the section that handles sex abuse cases. But the Vatican insists the section will now be strengthened.
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