Be sure to read thoroughly the opinion piece in the NYT offered a couple days ago by His Eminence Joseph Card. Zen Ze-Kiun, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong. HERE
The Pope Doesn’t Understand China
I know the Church in China, I know the Communists and I know the Holy See. I’m a Chinese from Shanghai. I lived many years in the mainland and many years in Hong Kong. I taught in seminaries throughout China — in Shanghai, Xian, Beijing, Wuhan, Shenyang — between 1989 and 1996.
Pope Francis, an Argentine, doesn’t seem to understand the Communists. He is very pastoral, and he comes from South America, where historically military governments and the rich got together to oppress poor people. And who there would come out to defend the poor? The Communists. Maybe even some Jesuits, and the government would call those Jesuits Communists.
Francis may have natural sympathy for Communists because for him, they are the persecuted. He doesn’t know them as the persecutors they become once in power, like the Communists in China.
[…]
The Cardinal goes on to give a short history of the relations of the Holy See and China over the last few decades.
He ends with a plea.
