RELEASE BISHOPS JAMES SU ZHIMIN AND AUGUSTIN CUI TAI NOW!

Bishop James Su Zhimin. Bishop Augustine Cui Tai

“The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.”   

~Donald J. Trump,The Art of the Deal

Jorge Bergoglio was desperate to land a deal with the Chinese. A deal, any deal, would elevate Bergoglio’s global position with the powerful CCP. A deal with the Chinese would be the pinnacle  of his pontificate. 

Naturally, the Chinese smelled blood.  

Some deal.

For over 5 years, the Vatican and Chinese Communist Party negotiated back and forth to hammer out an agreement about the appointment and validity of Catholic Bishops in Communist China. Since 1957, the Chinese Communist Party created and imposed a faux Catholic Patriotic Church with its own seminaries, priests, churches and bishops chosen by the party. Today, Chinese Catholics are divided between this two-tiered system, the underground Church-faithful to the Vatican and Magisterium, and the Patriotic Church of the CCP. The Francis Vatican waded into this political and religious maelstrom. Francis was way over his head.

It is painfully obvious that the give and take resulted in more, rather than less, religious persecution for Catholics and Christians in China. The Vatican gave everything away and got nothing in return; the Communists Chinese took everything and gave nothing. The Commies not only secured apostolic power from the Holy See, they finagled papal silence over the dastardly deeds of the CCP. No wonder the details of the pact are still kept secret!

In return for nothing, the Vatican defends the Chinese handling and “containment of the corona virus.” In return for nothing, the Vatican hails China as “the best implementer of Catholic social justice policy.” In return for nothing, the Vatican remains silent over the violent repression and persecution of Catholics, Christians, and other religious minorities in China. In return for nothing, the Vatican incredibly remarked that China “defended the dignity of the human person.” In return for nothing, the Vatican praises the improvements in China’s genocidal organ donor program. In return for nothing, the Vatican remains silent over the Hong Kong freedom protests. In return for nothing, the Vatican never secured the release of hundreds of Catholic prelates, priests, nuns and laity who are illegally detained and imprisoned by the CCP. Not even one!

That, folks, is a win-win for the Communists. The Vatican failed miserably at the art of the deal. The cost of that failure is paid by countless religious freedom prisoners languishing in Chinese prisons and labor camps.

One of those religious prisoners is an elderly bishop who refuses to join the CCP Patriotic Church. In filings with the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Religious Freedom, Save the Persecuted Christians Coalition demanded the return of these two faithful Catholic Bishops who are in unlawful custody and detention by the CCP. The UN and the Vatican should demand the release of 88 year old Bishop James Su Zhimin of Baoding from the Chinese Communist Party. Bishop Su Zhimin has been missing since his illegal arrest and detention by the CCP on October 7, 1996. Here is the link to the story of his religious persecution at the hands of the Chinese Communists.

Another Catholic Bishop is also missing after his random unlawful arrest in February 2018 (before the Vatican deal was signed). Bishop Augustine Cui Tai of Xuanhua in Hebei Province disappeared and is believed to be in government custody. At the time of his disappearance, the bishop was staying at his sister’s house when government forces arrested him. Bishop Cui Tai is in deteriorating health and should be released immediately.

Since 1993, Bishop Cui Tai has been repeatedly subject to detention, house arrest or sent to labor camps by the authorities for preaching or holding “illegal religious assemblies.”  His crime, like that of Bishop Su Zhimin is that he refuses to join the Communist founded Patriotic Catholic Church.

Why hasn’t the Vatican secured their release? Why didn’t the Vatican demand their release during its 5 year negotiations with the CCP as a sign of good faith on the part of the Chinese?

Bishops Su Zhimin and Cui Tai are imprisoned for upholding the Catholic faith. For this, the Vatican ignores them. Incredibly, the Vatican urges all underground Catholic priests to join the Patriotic Church, a tool of the brutal and atheistic communist party. What does that directive reveal about the Francis Vatican? This papal instruction to the Chinese clergy is an accommodation with evil. Not surprisingly, it played right into the CCP’s hands. Any faithful priest of the Underground Catholic Church, who refuses to join the Patriotic Church is now terrorized by the CCP, chased out of his parish, harassed, arrested, detained and/or imprisoned. Welcome to the great dealmaking of the Francis Vatican.

It has been 7 long years since the Francis Vatican undertook negotiations with China over religious freedom of Chinese Catholic bishops. In June of 2013, Francis tapped and dispatched his close friend and notorious serial child sexual predator, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick to initiate discussions with the Chinese communist government. McCarrick enjoyed close friendships with high level Communist officials. The choice of McCarrick as negotiator tainted and corrupted this pact from the very beginning.

The 2019 USCIRF report on international religious freedom found that since the Vatican-Sino deal was executed the repression of the Underground Catholic Church has increased in a total crackdown.

Some deal….with the devil.

This article was published at Breitbart on June 11, 2020.