Sign:
Pope Francis is on the verge of making an historic agreement with the Communist nation of China. If approved, the new deal would mean that the Chinese government would be in charge of nominating Bishops for the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, a state-sanctioned, counterfeit organization that stands in place of the real Catholic Church in China, which has been forced to go underground due to persecution.
The decision by Pope Francis to allow the murderous Chinese regime to select Bishops has been severely criticized by Cardinal Joseph Zen, emeritus archbishop of Hong Kong. Zen has stated that the Vatican "is selling out the Catholic Church in China” and that it is backing “fake” Bishops and a ”schismatic Church.”
Zen also accused Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin of being a “man of little faith” and of mis-representing Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 letter to Catholics living in China, which stated “compliance with those authorities is not acceptable when they interfere unduly in matters regarding the faith and discipline of the Church.”
China and the Vatican have not had formal diplomatic relations for decades. In the early 1950s, the Chinese government adopted atheism as its official “religion.” Over the ensuing sixty years, China has instituted laws diametrically opposed to the Catholic faith.
It is estimated that roughly 6.7 million women are forced to have an abortion each year thanks to China’s restrictions on family size. Hundreds of thousands of women undergo forced sterilizations. Workers are also paid anemic wages. China collaborates on a regular basis with the genocidal North Korea and in recent years the Chinese government has bulldozed Christian churches to the ground.
Despite these crimes against humanity, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, said China is the “best” at “implementing the social doctrine of the Church.”
Approximately 10 to 20 million Chinese citizens belong to the underground Catholic Church.