Sandro Magister brings us the musings of the head of the Vatican news service on the China deal:
Dialogue between the two cardinals on the Sino-Vatican Agreement is urgently needed
by Bernardo Cervellera
It is with great pain that I write these words having watched two cardinals whom I have the honor of knowing, two witnesses of the faith and coworkers of the pontiff in the mission of the Church, have a very public discussion without perhaps ever having spoken directly to each other (see letters of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re and Cardinal Joseph Zen Zekiun). It leaves me with the impression that in the Vatican, as in the rest of the world, the affirmation of one’s own truth or rather one’s point of view, without ever seeking to listen to the other, is what matters most, thus making it rather difficult to reach any synthesis.
Card. Zen has told me that in his visits to Rome he often found himself in front of a wall of silence.
Precisely during the pontificate of Francis, who so often stresses that “the whole is superior to the part” (E.G., nn. 234-237), two opposing and impermeable fronts have established themselves in the Church: traditional and liberal; pro-China and anti-China; pro-Agreement and anti-Agreement… It would seem that everything can be assimilated into two fundamental parties: pro-Francis and anti-Francis, so much so that the expression of a minimum perplexity on a fact or on the life of the Church is immediately judged a priori: is it pro or anti Bergoglio?
Even Card. Re’s letter risks falling into this pattern when he says that the “very serious claims” of Card. Zen “contest the same pastoral guidance of the Holy Father”. Yet even Card. Re recognizes that in China “on a doctrinal level” and “on a practical one … tensions and painful situations remain”, which is what the emeritus bishop of Hong Kong highlights.
The necessity for dialogue is evidently clear, to find a synthesis between the position of the Card. Re, according to which the Sino-Vatican Agreement is positive and “at the present time, it seemed the only possible one”, and that of Card. Zen, who is close to “all my desolate brothers and sisters” who are under pressure, violations, expulsion, suffocation and destruction every day. They include the faithful of underground communities, but also many priests and bishops of the official Church who see no improvement in religious freedom after the Agreement.
It is time for the two sides, pro-Agreement and anti-Agreement to talk and find a common position, also in view of the deadline of September 21, 2020, when this agreement expires. If it is necessary to renew it, it must be greatly improved, correcting some discrepancies in the one already signed in 2018.
1. As I have said before, the Agreement – which provides for the “last word” of the Pope on the appointment of new bishops – has a positive aspect because it somehow links the appointments of Chinese prelates to the pontiff. And this is a new fact that has not appeared since the days of Mao. But the doubt remains whether this bond is merely an external “blessing” because it is not clear whether the pope has a right of veto and whether this right is permanent or temporary. It should also be explained why there has been no episcopal ordination in China since the Agreement. The two ordinations that took place in 2019 had in fact already been decided long before and we cannot lie – as the so-called “pro-Francis” press did – saying that they “are the result of the agreement”. From this point of view, it must be said that the Agreement, even if it has a positive aspect, has never been put into practice.
Go here to read the rest. No alchemy known to Man, can transform this sow’s ear of an agreement into a silk purse.
The Vatican agreement with China is another indication that the Church is being ‘handed over’ to secular interests. Anti-pope Bergoglio is our time’s Judas.