Vatican's Role in Chinese Catholicism

The Vatican has confirmed two new bishops in China,

both in dioceses in Inner Mongolia.

Now, these appointments and the subsequent Vatican approvals

continue under this secret China-Vatican agreement, Gordon.

Now, 15 compromised bishops are now ordained

under the framework of that 2018 deal.

Should Catholics take any comfort that

the pope retains a formal veto over these appointments,

or is Rome at this point just rubber stamping

whoever the communist Chinese appoint?

Yeah, the Catholics should take no comfort

in what's happening in China right now.

That 2018 agreement, which has been extended

and will now be enforced until 2028,

has really been used by the Communist

Party to decimate Catholicism in China.

Matter of fact, this is so bad,

I think that essentially you can say that

the Vatican is participating in the destruction of Catholicism in China.

It gets a little bit complicated,

but it does not appear that the

Vatican has ever vetoed a Beijing's selection.

That we don't know, because that has been secret.

But we do know that the Vatican has

not appointed any bishops in the underground Catholic Church.

And the underground Catholic Church is withering away because of that.

And so we're seeing basically the Communist Party

just basically taking over the official Catholic Church.

The underground Catholic Church is dying.

And this is one of the great tragedies in the world today.