Fatima Perspectives #1368
The butchers of Beijing tighten the noose on underground Catholics in China. Soon the hanging?
“Bitter Winter”, the online journal of Massimo Introvigne on the state of human rights in China, reports the wholly expected news that the butchers of Beijing have decreed the death of religious freedom in China following the Vatican’s sellout of the Underground Church. Doubling down on the already draconian New Regulation on Religious Affairs enacted in 2017, the Communist Party of China [CCP] has announced new “Administrative Measures for Religious Groups” that “will come into force on February 1, 2020.”
“Two years after the 2017 Regulation on Religious Affairs, the religious policy of [President] Xi Jinping will have a new legal tool at its disposal,” notes Introvigne. Introvigne’s article summarizes the “Administrative Measures” about to come into effect. First of all, the local religious affair departments will “serve as the ‘administrative bodies’ for all religious organizations and systematically control them through ‘guidance and supervision.’”
These religious affair departments will be responsible for:
- “the establishment, change, cancellation of registration of religious organizations, and business review before the approval of the articles of association… the registration and liquidation of religious organizations;
- “supervis[ing] and guid[ing] religious groups to carry out activities and perform functions in accordance with the laws and regulations, and to deal with violations of laws, regulations, rules, policies and the articles of association of religious groups according to the law;
- “Examining, supervising, and managing matters that religious groups will submit to the religious affairs department of the people’s government for approval in accordance with the law;
- “supervis[ing] and guid[ing] religious groups to establish and improve rules and regulations in accordance with the Constitution, laws, regulations, rules, policies, and actual work needs, and strengthen ideological, organizational, style, and institution-building…”
In short, Beijing’s total bureaucratic management and control of religious organizations, including the Catholic Church.
But that’s just for starters. The new measures also provide that “Without the approval of the religious affairs department of the people’s government, or registration with the civil affairs department of the people’s government, no activities can be carried out in the name of religious groups.” That means, notes Introvigne, “a death bell for the Gray Market activities of house churches, dissident Catholic communities, and other unregistered religious bodies.”
It gets even worse. Article 17 of the new law declares what anybody with any sense, including the wizards of Vatican diplomacy, could have seen coming:
“Religious organizations shall spread the principles and policies of the Chinese Communist Party as well as national laws, regulations, and rules, to religious staff and religious citizens, and educate and guide religious staff and religious citizens to support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, support the socialist system, and adhere to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics…”
But wait, there’s more! Article 32 provides that “Religious groups shall establish a learning system and organize their staff to learn from the major decision-making arrangements of the Chinese Communist Party, national policies and regulations, excellent Chinese traditional culture and religious knowledge.” As for “excellent Chinese traditional culture,” that means, writes Introvigne, Chinese culture “as interpreted by Xi Jinping and the CCP.”
Introvigne concludes by observing that “As happened for the regulation of 2017, much will depend on how the new provisions will be enforced, starting on February 1, 2020. But clearly the crackdown on religion continues, and the legal framework is going from bad to worse.”
In the immortal words of Gomer Pyle: “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” The evil policy of Ostpolitik, the Vatican’s still-operative Vatican II era appeasement of communist regimes, which Father Gruner never ceased to denounce as a betrayal of the heavenly dictates of the Virgin of Fatima, now bears its most bitter fruit of all.
What now, Francis? Not a word from him or his Vatican apparatus in protest of the depredations of the butchers of Beijing, who force abortions on women while they persecute the Underground Church that Francis and his collaborators have delivered into their hands.
Meanwhile, Francis busies himself with denouncing border walls in Western democracies, CO2 emissions — to which he himself is a major contributor as a prominent member of the globe-trotting “climate change” jet set — the excesses of capitalism (but never those of socialism or communism) and the capital punishment of convicted murderers.
Now we see precisely why the underground Catholics of China have refused to join the “official church” the Vatican has legitimated with its acts of ecclesiastical treason. They wish simply to practice the Catholic faith without compromise, which is impossible under the framework that the Vatican itself has helped Beijing to erect.
Pray for the faithful Catholics of China and for the hastening of the inevitable Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary upon the consecration of Russia by the Pope and the world’s Catholic bishops — an event that now appears to be, despite the optimism I once expressed, the last thing this Pope would initiate.
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