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Progressive News & Views (since 1982)
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Vatican commits a 'No-No'
In a profoundly troubling move, the Vatican plans to divorce from Taiwan, and
switch diplomatic recognition to Communist China, while religious persecution,
genocide, and forced abortion continue in China
March 28, 2006 (CSN) - News that the Vatican is planning to switch diplomatic
recognition - away from free and democratic Taiwan, and in favor of Communist
China - is profoundly troubling to leaders of the China Support Network.
According to reports, the Vatican is preparing to move its apostolic nunciature
- its embassy - from Taipei, Taiwan to Beijing, China.
Communist China was founded officially atheist. The Chinese government now
claims that China has freedom of religion, but in fact allows only a limited
number of state-approved religious institutions and carefully monitors clergy,
doctrine, members, and procedure. Many familiar beliefs and practices may not
be permitted; if government authorities feel threatened by the idea of the
Second Coming, for example, they will not allow it to be preached. Any worship
outside this closely-restricted framework is a target for forcible opposition
and cruel persecution.
The treatment of Chinese Catholics has been an example of the deliberate
persecution that Communist China reserves for the faithful. Beijing has refused
to recognize the Pope as the leader of Catholics, and has run a state-sponsored
version - its own version - of the Catholic Church, answering only to officials
of the Communist Party. Any "true" Catholics with loyalty to the Vatican have
been left to worship in secret, house churches. And, when they are caught, they
may be jailed or face worsening fates.
Catholics have been among those caught in a wave of religious persecution, run
by the Communists in the past seven years. Also targeted and victimized are
Protestants, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, and qi gong practices including
Falun Gong and Zhong Gong. (Qi gong should be pronounced 'chee gong' and is a
traditional Chinese practice. 'Qi gong' translates literally as "life force
cultivation.") Thousands have been killed in the crackdown that has been
especially harsh on Falun Gong, and that continues now with Falun Gong
prisoners in a death camp, where human organs are harvested out of their bodies
(and sold for profit) before prisoners are killed and cremated. See news of the
Sujiatun death camp, elsewhere in our news from the China Support Network.
"How do we feel about religious persecution?" asked CSN's Director emeritus
John Patrick Kusumi rhetorically. "-We should not punch its ticket. How do we
feel about genocide? -We should not punch its ticket. How do we feel about
forcible abortions and forced sterilizations that China requires of women under
its 'One Child Policy'? -We should not punch its ticket. Now, what is the
Vatican doing about this state of affairs? -Incredibly, the Vatican is punching
its ticket. World leaders should be resisting, not countenancing, China's state
of affairs."
He continued, "In this case, the Vatican is out of touch, and should remember
that China represents all of this immoral persecution, and all of the evils of
communism, in the eyes of many faiths around the world. To have a tin ear, or
to be politically tone-deaf, was recently a charge leveled at the U.S. White
House (on the Dubai ports issue), but don't count the Vatican out - they're
blundering mightily to catch up with George Bush."
The China Support Network's President, D.J. McGuire, reacted to the news by
saying, "To call Archbishop Lajolo's comments troubling would be an
understatement. The Holy See, under Pope John Paul II, was instrumental in the
victory of faith over fear during the first Cold War. It would be tragic and
unseemly for the Vatican to choose fear over faith under John Paul's immediate
successor."
At CSN, Executive Director Curry Kenworthy was outspoken as well. "Politically,
to support China's Communist tyrants is a mistake," he said. "Morally, it is a
sin. It's ironic that there is only one obstacle that the Papacy can't ignore,
and that's the Communists refusal to acknowledge the Vatican as authority over
Chinese Catholics. Politically, they just don't get it; having the Communist
Party as the supreme authority of all Chinese in all ways is the whole point of
China's religious policy. Morally, the Vatican is embracing evil, because it is
willing to overlook all wrongdoing and only balks at surrendering its own
authority," he concluded.
Kusumi added, "To bless a genocidal holocaust of persecution simply does not
compute. Furthermore, there is one country on each side of the Taiwan Strait.
There is no reason why China's new embassy should come at Taiwan's expense, and
indeed, the Catholics of Taiwan have done nothing whatsoever to deserve a
gratuitous slap in the face, which this move represents. I hope that the
general public can smell a foul deal among the powerful, when one is clearly in
evidence as here in this case. And now, it looks like John Paul II has a
successor with a U-turn, in the same way that Ronald Reagan had a successor
with a U-turn about communism. This is a low water mark for the tides of faith
and freedom. The tentacles of Communist evil should not extend so far as to
achieve Vatican buy in!"
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Published March 28, 2006 by the China Support Network (CSN). Begun as the
American response group in 1989, CSN represents Americans who are "on the side"
of the students in Tiananmen Square"-standing for democratic reform, human
rights, and freedom in China. For dissident news to support a stronger China
policy or get more information, see http://www.chinasupport.net.
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