Disir
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ROME, May 23, 2015 – At the end of the general audience last Wednesday, Pope Francis had words of comfort for the Catholics of China, urging them to “live spiritually united to the rock of Peter upon whom the Church is built” and to pray with particular devotion on the day of her feast, May 24, to “Our Lady Help of Christians, venerated at the shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai.”
The pope did not say that Sheshan is also the place where the bishop of the economic capital of China, Thaddeus Ma Daqin, has been held under house arrest for almost three years, having been deprived of his liberty immediately after his episcopal ordination on July 7, 2012, for the sole offense of having resigned that same day from the Patriotic Catholic Association, the organism of communist party control over the Church, and therefore precisely for having wanted to be in full communion, as bishop, with the successor of Peter.
But he who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Separating the Chinese bishops, clergy, and Catholics from Rome in order to subjugate them to the regime and ultimately to annihilate them is an objective that dates back to the time of Mao Zedong and has never been abandoned since then.
This was reiterated yet again in recent days by current Chinese president Xi Jinping, meeting with the United Front, the ensemble of little vassal parties, associations of commerce and industry, and representatives of the various ethnicities and religions:
> For Xi Jinping, religions must be "Chinese" and without "foreign influences"
Once again Xi Jinping denounced the Roman Church as a “foreign power.” Once again he branded the papal mandate over the appointment of bishops as “interference in China’s internal affairs.”
China is one of the places in the world where the Catholic Church has been subjected to the longest-standing uninterrupted martyrdom.
And yet too little is known about this martyrdom. That goes for the relatively blander forms of recent years. And that goes for its peaks of extreme cruelty, in the 1950’s and ’60’s.
China has not had its Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, nor any account of the inferno of the “laogai,” its camps of forced labor and extermination, of a grandiosity comparable to the “Gulag Archipelago.”
But a few days ago a volume came out in bookstores in Italy that lifts the veil precisely on the darkest years of the persecution:
Diaries of Martyrs in the China of Mao
This is the article that was linked to in text:
At a meeting of the United Front, the Chinese president reiterated the leadership role of the Communist Party in religious matters, warning against foreign forces. His targets include Xinjiang Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists and the Vatican. For a Chinese Catholic, doing so would distort the Catholic religion.
CHINA VATICAN For Xi Jinping religions must be Chinese and without foreign influences - Asia News
Clearly I am against detaining individuals and persecution of people. That said, there is a reason why the Vatican is not trusted and it extends to before Mao. There is a long history of the Vatican intervening, spying and nonsense in countries. It has been earned. I am amazed every time the Church plays this "I don't get it. Who us? We would never." routine.
The pope did not say that Sheshan is also the place where the bishop of the economic capital of China, Thaddeus Ma Daqin, has been held under house arrest for almost three years, having been deprived of his liberty immediately after his episcopal ordination on July 7, 2012, for the sole offense of having resigned that same day from the Patriotic Catholic Association, the organism of communist party control over the Church, and therefore precisely for having wanted to be in full communion, as bishop, with the successor of Peter.
But he who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Separating the Chinese bishops, clergy, and Catholics from Rome in order to subjugate them to the regime and ultimately to annihilate them is an objective that dates back to the time of Mao Zedong and has never been abandoned since then.
This was reiterated yet again in recent days by current Chinese president Xi Jinping, meeting with the United Front, the ensemble of little vassal parties, associations of commerce and industry, and representatives of the various ethnicities and religions:
> For Xi Jinping, religions must be "Chinese" and without "foreign influences"
Once again Xi Jinping denounced the Roman Church as a “foreign power.” Once again he branded the papal mandate over the appointment of bishops as “interference in China’s internal affairs.”
China is one of the places in the world where the Catholic Church has been subjected to the longest-standing uninterrupted martyrdom.
And yet too little is known about this martyrdom. That goes for the relatively blander forms of recent years. And that goes for its peaks of extreme cruelty, in the 1950’s and ’60’s.
China has not had its Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, nor any account of the inferno of the “laogai,” its camps of forced labor and extermination, of a grandiosity comparable to the “Gulag Archipelago.”
But a few days ago a volume came out in bookstores in Italy that lifts the veil precisely on the darkest years of the persecution:
Diaries of Martyrs in the China of Mao
This is the article that was linked to in text:
At a meeting of the United Front, the Chinese president reiterated the leadership role of the Communist Party in religious matters, warning against foreign forces. His targets include Xinjiang Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists and the Vatican. For a Chinese Catholic, doing so would distort the Catholic religion.
CHINA VATICAN For Xi Jinping religions must be Chinese and without foreign influences - Asia News
Clearly I am against detaining individuals and persecution of people. That said, there is a reason why the Vatican is not trusted and it extends to before Mao. There is a long history of the Vatican intervening, spying and nonsense in countries. It has been earned. I am amazed every time the Church plays this "I don't get it. Who us? We would never." routine.
