Bishop Strickland Warns of Schism in Upcoming “Synod”

Edit: these things aren’t really meant to solve problems, they’re meant to build consensus, locate opposition and neutralize opposition. 

 AMDG

New Lockdown Coming UP! There’s a New Covid Variant in Town

 

Covid-19 Variant Could Cause Infections in Anyone Idiotic Enough to Get the Death Vaxx

Deja vu all over again!   Sue them!

We can be certain that Mark Shea, in addition to being up to date on his boosters, is locked away in his shithole with his mask back on.

Orthodox Priest Blesses Statue if Stalin

Edit: Latins simply lack the understanding of the uncreated essences and energies to understand this profound act.

Who’s statue will he bless next, Mehmet II?

 

This is surely the hotchpotch ideology of Putin’s Russia at its worst

An Orthodox priest blessed a new statue of Stalin before telling the assembled crowd: "Yes, the Church suffered under Stalin. But, thanks to this, we now have lots of new Russian martyrs to whom we can pray" pic.twitter.com/80qt65vTP0

— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) August 18, 2023

AMDG 

Curtis Sliwa Arrested For Protesting Immigration

Arrested with others today for Civil disobedience, trying to protect seniors from being unjustly evicted into streets to make way for migrants. We will not stop until justice is served. #NYC pic.twitter.com/fLCsBhgoxr

— Curtis Sliwa (@CurtisSliwa) August 20, 2023

[Fox News] Guardian Angels founder and former Republican nominee for New York City mayor Curtis Sliwa was arrested on Sunday while protesting the Midland Beach Migrant Shelter on Staten Island.

Video footage showed Sliwa and his supporters protesting in front of the Midland Beach Migrant Shelter, which was formerly the Midland Beach Senior Citizen Home.

"Eric Adams kicked out the elderly occupants of this nursing home in order to house illegal migrants," Sliwa said of New York City's mayor in a press release before the event. "He is despicable."

Related:

 

Asian Gunman Kills Female Shopkeeper Over Pride Flag

CEDAR GLEN, Calif. (KABC) -- The suspect accused of fatally shooting a Cedar Glen store owner last week during a dispute over a Pride flag had shared anti-LGBTQ+ posts on social media, according to authorities. The shooting happened on Friday, Aug. 18, at the Mag Pi clothing store near Lake Arrowhead. Investigators said Travis Ikeguchi, 27, shot and killed 66-year-old Laura Ann Carleton because she displayed a Pride flag outside her business.

AMDG

Bergoglio: Jesus “Changed” Himself

 (Rome) Yesterday, Sunday, at the Angelus in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis interpreted the Gospel for the 20th Sunday of the year, Cycle A (Mt 15:21-28) according to the Novus Ordo Missae.  The head of the Church came back to a kind of favorite topic: rigidity.  He countered that Jesus had “changed” and did not rigidly stick to his positions.  Here are the relevant passages:

 “The Change of Jesus.  He addressed his sermon to the chosen people;  but then the Holy Spirit drove the Church to the ends of the earth.  But here an anticipation takes place, one could say, so that the universality of God's work is already manifest in the story of the Canaanite woman.  This readiness of Jesus is interesting: in the face of the woman's request, "he anticipates the plans", he becomes even more indulgent and compassionate in the face of her specific case.  God is like this: He is love, and whoever loves does not remain rigid.  Yes, it stays firm, but not rigid.  He does not remain rigid in his own positions, but allows himself to be moved and stirred;  He knows how to change his programs.  Love is creative, and we Christians are called upon to be willing to change if we want to imitate Christ.  How much good it does in our relationships, but also in the life of faith: be meek, really listen, be touched in the name of compassion and the good of others, as Jesus did with the Canaanite woman.  The gentleness to change.  Meek hearts to change.

 (...)

 For example, starting from Jesus' change: Am I able to change my mind?  Can I be understanding and compassionate, or will I remain rigid in my points of view?  Is there a rigidity in my heart?  What is not strength: rigidity is bad, strength is good.”

 Text/Translation: Giuseppe Nardi

 Image: Vatican.va (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron@hotmail.Com

AMDG

Laicized and Heretical Bishop Hubbard Dies

 Edit: with several accusations of sex abuse against him, the evil Howard J. Hubbard has gone to his reward. He was 84 years old and left office at 75. Some will remember his pernicious and frequent mention by Catholic blogs for years as he worked hard to destroy Albany’s Catholic Church.

He never admitted to abusing children, although there are at least two credible cases, one involving a man who killed himself. 

Hubbard is in the Magic Circle USA clique of bad bishops who have worked to undermine and destroy the Catholic Church. While Hubbard was laicized under Francis’s regime, he is very much after the style of other NewChurch operatives and Sankt Gallen conspirators who protected and covered up for predators for decades.

Hubbard attempted to marry a woman subsequent to being laicized but the Vatican refused to release him from his priestly vows.

Pewsitters got to pay this evil man’s pension.

Cardinal Dolan had received 1,700 pages documenting Hubbard evil conduct.

Some shepherd, more of a wolf, although an obese Suzie from the Parish Council will defend him.

AMDG

Pilot Dies Suddenly in Flight

The pilot community has pointed towards fatigue accumulated over several years of flying and demanded that the DGCA conduct a detailed investigation into the reasons for the pilot’s death. File | Photo Credit: Reuters

 [The Hindu] An IndiGo pilot, Manoj Balasubramani, fell unconscious while on duty on Thursday at Nagpur airport and passed away soon after.

“He took unwell at Nagpur airport and was rushed to the hospital where he unfortunately passed away,” the airline said in a statement. It is learnt that the pilot collapsed at the boarding gate at Nagpur airport.

He was rostered to operate a flight from Nagpur to Pune, along with three other flights. He was a resident of Chennai.

AMDG

Promising Candidate for President of Argentina

Edit: sorry for the foul language, but this is likely the first right-wing candidate I’ve ever seen speak the language of people fed up with the Multi-Culti. I’m certain Argies are fed up. 

It’s a hint as to why Bergoglio has never travelled to his home country!

Javier Milei is /our guy/.

 

Javier Milei, a libertarian, is the current favorite to win the presidential election in Argentina.

I can see why. pic.twitter.com/M7qBiP50gr

— Count Dankula (@CountDankulaTV) August 17, 2023

Photocredit…Rivadavia.com

AMDG 

JUNGE FREIHEIT Migrants in Germany Attack AfD Politician

 AfD state parliament candidate beaten up

 Germany

 August 14, 2023

[Junge Freiheit] After a barbecue with campaign workers, migrants are said to have beaten the Augsburg AfD chairman to the point of being hospitalized.  Before that, they make sure, the politician says, whether it's really him.

AUGSBURG.  AfD politician Andreas Jurca was badly mistreated.  After he thanked campaign workers at a barbecue for their work in the Bavarian state election campaign, he reported to the Deutschland-Kurier that a group of migrants attacked the father and another party friend on Saturday night.  So far there has been no confirmation from the police.  The investigative authorities have not yet responded to inquiries from JUNGE FREIHEIT.

The President of the Augsburg AfD and its city council faction appeared on the portal in a video interview on Sunday evening.  Jurca is a seventh-place candidate on the AfD state list for the Bavarian state parliament elections.  On the way from the celebration, he encountered a "larger group of southerners," he reported.  "By southerners, I don't mean Spaniards or Italians."

 Perpetrators ask Jurca if he is the AfD candidate

The leader asked him: "Aren't you the Andreas Jurca from the posters?" Then, according to the father of a five-year-old daughter and a six-month-old son, he pretended to hold out his hand.  He was immediately hit by an accomplice - it went "black", as Jurca said.  Words like “shit Nazi” were used.

Ok

When the 35-year-old fell to the ground, "they started kicking me."  Jurca not only suffered severe bruises on his face and other minor injuries, the perpetrators said they also broke his ankle.  The severely short-sighted politician also lost his glasses in the attack.  When the perpetrators left him, he wanted to help his fellow party member.

AfD Party friend also attacked

Jurca was disoriented, he said, and according to his own statements, went off despite the badly injured ankle – but in the wrong direction.  Then he found his colleague: "His T-shirt was torn, he also had injuries, but thank God he wasn't as bad as I was." The attack on Jurca had warned him.

Only afterwards did he understand that the attack "had to do with politics".  Due to the shock on the phone, he initially said to the police on the phone, “they beat us for no reason”.  When he thought about it further, it occurred to him: "There must be a connection, if he asks for my name, has it confirmed again, and then the blow hits the nail on the head."

“I wanted to go back to my children”

 His wife and mother then persuaded him, according to Jurca, to "stop by the hospital."  During a CT scan, the doctors found that the bone in the ankle was broken.  Because of his head injuries, the doctors wanted to keep him in the clinic, "but I wanted to go home and also wanted to go back to my children."

Jurca sees the blame for the violence "in the agitation against us, that we are so demonized".  When asked by Deutschland-Kurier interviewer Gabrielle Mailbeck, who is also leader of the AfD-Augsburg parliamentary group, what he would say to those who might say he deserved this attack, Jurca said: "That's exactly why I'm doing politics.  These are the people who want to lead us back into tyranny.  There is no political edict for violence.  If we live in a democracy, then we have to be able to put up with the fact that other people have different opinions.”

 A new state parliament will be elected in Bavaria on October 8th.  According to polls, the AfD is about the same as the Greens and Free Voters in second place. Just last week, Antifa in Hesse called for violence against AfD politicians.  There will be elections on the same day.  (fh)

AMDG

AfD Politician Brutally Beaten by “Southerners” in Augusburg

Andreas Jurca was on his way home from a barbecue on Friday night (11th and 12th August) when he was attacked and beaten by a group of unidentified men.  For the AfD politician, it is clear that his party affiliation was the reason for the attack.

Augsburg – The AfD politician Andreas Jurca (35) is the President of his parliamentary group in the Augsburg city council and President of the Augsburg district association and a candidate for the state elections in Bavaria.  On the night of Saturday (August 12) he was on his way home with a party colleague from a barbecue for campaign workers when he said he was approached by a group of unknown men.  "You're the one from the AfD posters" the strangers are said to have addressed him when he suddenly got a slap in the face.

Jurca fell to the ground and was kicked in the head.  In the meantime he is said to have fainted.  He was badly bruised, mostly on his face, and injured his ankle and required hospital treatment.  Media close to the party distribute video recordings showing Andreas Jurca with serious injuries and a badly swollen face.  Jurca says the group were southerners, but he doesn't mean Italians or Spaniards.  The severely short-sighted man cannot say how many people were involved in the attack.  He lost his glasses in the attack and it was very dark.  His companion also fell to the ground.

The press office of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament has published a statement, according to which the attack is a direct consequence of the constant agitation against their party, which is "constantly insulted by the established parties as right-wing extremist and anti-democratic".

The Swabian North police are aware of the incident and initial investigations are underway.  An official press release is expected on Monday (August 14) that will explain the course of events in more detail.  A police report from Augsburg had previously been shared on social networks, which involved a violent confrontation without a political background in a pub in Augsburg.  A connection to the attack on the AfD politician was mistakenly drawn.

AMDG

Archbishop Georg Gänswein is Seeking Employment in Freiburg

Archbishop Georg Gänswein has offered to help out in the Archdiocese of Freiburg where he is needed.  "I'm here now, I'm looking for a job, so to speak," said the Archbishop, according to the German Press Agency (dpa) on Thursday evening at a book launch in Kirchzarten.  In conversation with the publisher Manuel Herder, the word "job center" was also mentioned.

Gänswein has been living in his home Archdiocese of Freiburg since the beginning of July.  After the death of Benedict XVI, Pope Francis  decrees that the 66-year-old former private secretary of Benedict returns to his home diocese.  The Archdiocese of Freiburg announced in July after a meeting between Freiburg's chief shepherd, Stephan Burger, and Gänswein that the former papal secretary would lead services in Freiburg's cathedral from the fall.  However, he did not get another, permanent job in the Archdiocese.

Gänswein comes from the Black Forest and worked for Pope Benedict XVI for many years.  Since 2013 he has also been Prefect of the Papal Household under Francis.  Francis gave Gänswein leave of absence in 2020. Most recently, Gänswein's book "Nothing but the Truth" made international headlines and discussions because it contains details of the lines of conflict between Pope Francis and his predecessor.  (ben)

Bishop without people and land - what are titular bishops allowed to do?

Archbishop Gänswein's legal position is not entirely clear

Two archbishops live in Freiburg: diocesan bishop Burger and titular bishop Gänswein, who used to be a priest of the diocese.  However, its legal status has not yet been clarified.  In an interview, canon law expert Georg Bier explains how canon law deals with titular bishops.

Putin-Zelensky Meeting “at the Request of Pope Francis in Abu Dhabi”

Pope Francis with Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi, President of the United Arab Emirates

 (Rome) On Tuesday the Lebanese newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour published the news that the United Arab Emirates and the Vatican are jointly launching a new peace initiative.

The Emir of Abu Dhabi and President of the United Arab Emirates, Muhammad bin Zayid Al Nahyan, wants to bring together Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "at the request of Pope Francis".  L'Orient-Le Jour relies on "exclusive information from Western and Arab diplomats.”

Pope Francis has been working closely with Muhammad bin Zayid in the field of Interreligious Dialogue for several years.  The Emir hosted a meeting in Abu Dhabi in February 2019 where Pope Francis signed the infamous document on human fraternity.  That, as the Austrian philosopher Josef Seifert put it, contains the "heresy of heresies."

The Emir is also the initiator and financier of the new temple complex in Abu Dhabi, which combines a synagogue, a church and a mosque side by side in one complex.  Critics see the so-called house of the Abrahamic family as a building block on the way to a world religion.

The fact is that Pope Francis and Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed are united in the "spirit of Abu Dhabi".  This also explains why Pope Francis is looking at the Arab world in his “peace offensive”, as he recently told a Spanish newspaper on World Youth Day in Lisbon.

So far, Vatican diplomacy has been discreetly mediating on the issue of prisoner exchanges and the repatriation of Ukrainian children who had been evacuated by Russia from the conquered territories.

At yesterday's first general audience after the summer break, Francis opposed those who plan wars "in certain secret rooms" to the peaceful gathering of young people from all over the world and all nations at World Youth Day.  World Youth Day showed "that another world is possible: a world of brothers and sisters, in which the flags of all peoples fly together, side by side, without hatred, without fear, without partitions, without weapons".

In the eyes of Pope Francis, Abu Dhabi could be the first stage for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.  Muhammad bin Zayid, the head of state of the United Arab Emirates and Emir of Abu Dhabi, wants to try to bring together the heads of state of the two warring parties at the COP 28 climate change conference, which will be held in Dubai from November 30 to December 12.  According to the Lebanese daily, this is happening at the express “request of Pope Francis”.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Pope's special envoy for the Ukraine conflict, is preparing to visit Beijing.  The Holy See sees both Washington and Beijing as key to easing the conflict.

The framework for the meeting between Putin and Zelenskyj in the course of the COP 28 world climate conference could be the "peace meeting of religious leaders" that the Vatican is preparing.  Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin is the coordinator.  He said that it was important to offer a "neutral place" for the Putin-Zelenskyi meeting, which should also be outside the Vatican.

As part of this meeting of religious leaders, a visit by Pope Francis to the temple complex of the Abrahamic Family House is also commemorated in the Vatican.

According to the plans, Pope Francis could open the meeting.  The details of the implementation were transferred to Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed.  Yesterday, Francis stressed that this is exactly why he went to Fatima during his stay in Portugal to "pray for peace".

 Text: Giuseppe Nardi

 Image: VaticanMedia (screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.Com

AMDG

Pope Francis Stabs Opus Dei in the Back

Pope Francis with Prelate Fernando Ocáriz (far left) and Auxiliary Vicar Mariano Fazio, both from Opus Dei, in November 2021

(Rome) Pope Francis has published a new motu proprio that not only has a direct impact on Opus Dei, but is directly aimed at it. It also dismantles an option that was recently offered to the SSPX.

With the motu proprio, Pope Francis transformed personal prelatures into "public clerical associations of pontifical right with the power to incardinate clergy", so that the laity are excluded from the work, although "the laity can devote themselves to the apostolic works of the personal prelature".

The intervention is of a fundamental nature. The only personal prelature of the Church is Opus Dei. In 2017, Rome offered the Society of St. Pius X (FSSPX) the canonical legal personality of a personal prelature, but this did not happen. Two central points that were supposed to be attractive to the SSPX at the time were now, only six years later, abolished or redesigned by Francis.

The Preferential Option for Sodomy

 

[Outreach] One of the major documents of the Second Vatican Council includes this stirring claim that has become a central norm of Catholic social teaching:

With respect to the fundamental rights of the person, every type of discrimination, whether social or cultural, whether based on race, sex, color, social condition, language, or religion, is to be overcome or eradicated as contrary to God’s intent. (“Gaudium et Spes,” 29)

These words committed the Catholic Church to opposing all unjust discrimination. They come from the pivotal 1965 document “Gaudium et Spes,” otherwise known as the “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.” At the end of a momentous, four-year-long council, the first in nearly 100 years, the assembled bishops of the world committed the Roman Catholic Church to pursuing an agenda of extending human rights to all people.

AMDG

Torah Scholar Attempts ShapeShift to Escape Justice in Scots Courts

 

CNN

 — 

A Scottish court ruled Wednesday that a rape suspect who has been accused of faking his own death can be extradited to the US to face charges, according to UK news agency PA Media.

Nicholas Rossi, 35, currently faces a string of accusations in separate US states.

On Wednesday, Sheriff Norman McFadyen told Edinburgh Sheriff Court that Rossi’s extradition “would be compatible with the Convention rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998,” PA Media reported

AMDG

Gonzalo Lira Has Been Kidnapped by GPU

Edit: after being incarcerated since May 1st and undergoing torture at the hands of prison inmates instigated by the guards, Gonzalo Lira made a break for freedom to Hungary and was captured. As reported by Constantin von Hoffmeister at Arktos. 

The media in the US has been anything but helpful, which is hardly surprising since the wicked witch Victoria Nuland, the Cokehead of Kiev and other shadowy entities wouldn’t mind if he disappeared for good.

It’s a little disappointing because it appeared the Ukrainian GPU had left a door open for him to escape as he raced hundreds of miles in a motorcycle toward the Hungarian border.

Now, it appears Gonzalo is in their claws again. 

In a bizarre video, an American trans spokesman for the Ukrainian government, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, announced the capture of essayist and vlogger Gonzalo Lira by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) today:

AMDG

New Jersey Lt. Governor “Dies Suddenly”

Edit: looks like the authorities aren’t reporting a cause of death. Naturally she must have gotten the death vaccine, just in case you need it spelled out. 

 AMDG

“Extremists” Attack Melkite Monastery in Haifa

Edit: a fence was built to keep the Jews out. This is merely a more frank manifestation of Jewish hostility to Catholicism. 

Israeli hostility to the Christian population of Palestine is a longstanding problem which has driven many to find refuge away from the places they’ve lived for centuries.

Haifa, Israel, Jul 31, 2023 / 15:40 pm

[Catholic News Agency] Extremist [sic]  Israeli groups have on several occasions in recent weeks attempted to storm the Melkite Catholic Church and Monastery of  St. Elias in the northern port city of Haifa, Israel, prompting Christians to take measures to protect the holy site.

After several attempts last week, intruders managed to infiltrate the outer courtyard of the monastery and disrupt the prayer session taking place, causing fear and anger among the Christian community.

In an effort by the church to deter any future attacks, work began today to install an iron fence around the monastery. The monastery was founded by the Carmelites, who have been practicing their faith from Mt. Carmel in Haifa since the 12th century, when hermits began to gather in a caves in imitation of the prophet Elijah. Tradition says that the prophet’s cave is located underneath the altar of the church.

AMDG

Cardinal Marx Offers Thanksgiving Service for Aberrosexual Prince

 [Gloria.tv] Munich's Cardinal Marx presided over a "thanksgiving service" on 22 July to mark the 90th birthday of Duke Franz of Bavaria on 14 July.

The service took place in St Michael's, a Jesuit parish church in Munich.

Marx praised the Duke's "openness" and work "for the Church and society." He thanked him for his "beneficial commitment" and his "testimony of life" (sic).

Von Bayern is the head of the House of Wittelsbach, the ruling family of Bavaria.

As a child, he spent the National-Socialist era in various concentration camps. After the war, he administered his family's assets, art treasures and castles.

He receives the lion's share of the approximately €14M that the family fortune generates annually, is the legitimate king of England, an honorary member of the Munich Marian Men's Congregation and for decades a homosexual concubinist with Thomas Greinwald, which he made public in 2023.

Is Cardinal Zuppi Going From Washington to Peking?

Pope Francis with Cardinal Zuppi, whose next destination is said to be China.

 (Beijing) Since 1980, only two cardinals -- one French and one American -- have visited Beijing more than once.  Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the papal special envoy for the Ukraine conflict, would be the third since 1951 when the then Apostolic Nuncio Msgr Antonio Riberi was expelled by the Communist rulers.

For several days, the Holy See has been promoting media expectations in various ways that the papal special envoy, after his visits to Kiev, Moscow and Washington, could also visit China in the near future.  There is talk of him traveling to Beijing as early as mid-August, immediately after World Youth Day in Portugal.

Zuppi's four travel destinations show the conflicting parties in the Ukraine war and at the same time the global balance of power.

Cardinal Zuppi would be the first official senior Vatican official to visit Beijing since Cardinal Roger Etchegaray.  He would even arrive with the rank of papal special envoy and, it is said, with a personal letter from Pope Francis to China's head of state and party leader Xi Jinping.

After Cardinal Etchegaray, however, another wearer of the purple traveled to China.  This is a very opaque chapter.  In 2016, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was in the Communist "Middle Kingdom".  The mission with which the then extremely powerful US cardinal set foot in China is still unclear to this day.  He had even traveled to Beijing several times to cultivate confidential contacts with high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials.

McCarrick, who sat at the center of Western power as Archbishop of Washington until 2010, was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI., had been sanctioned for allegations of abuse, which were not yet known in detail at the time.  However, these were lifted by Pope Francis in 2013.  Under the Argentine Pope, McCarrick even rose to become the most influential US cardinal, influencing a whole series of bishop appointments in the USA, appointments of Americans to Rome and promotions of those in Rome.  McCarrick fell out of favor in 2018 when The New York Times exposed his double life as a homosexual pederast.  The reasons why this disclosure came about and why exactly at that point in time are still unclear.

In any case, McCarrick lost his cardinal dignity and was then also laicized.  However, his numerous homo-progressive protégés are still in office and continue to be promoted and promoted by Pope Francis to the best of their ability.

His China contacts only became known relatively late.  Since there is no official information on this, one can only speculate about the purpose, content and scope of these relationships.  They are commonly associated with the secret agreement signed between the Holy See and the People's Republic of China on September 22, 2018 and renewed in 2020 and 2022.  According to this interpretation, McCarrick, who had already fallen at the time of signing, had prepared the agreement.  However, observers only agree that the US cardinal's trips to China can only have taken place with papal approval.

Since it is a secret agreement, its contents have not been made public to this day.  What is known, however, is that the procedure for appointing bishops is regulated in it.  However, there is a problem with the implementation.  Beijing only adheres to this to a limited extent, but the Holy See nods benevolently, as it did recently in connection with the appointment of the new bishop of Shanghai.

The question is how high Francis' pain threshold is and why he accepts that the Communist rulers simply ignored him in several cases despite the agreement.  Some observers therefore assume that Francis is not primarily concerned with the appointment of bishops, but with setting the geopolitical course.

After the Communists had won the Chinese civil war in 1949 and seized power in the country, they broke off diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1951.  The then Apostolic Nuncio Msgr. Antonio Riberi was expelled from the country.  Since then there have been no official diplomatic relations between the two subjects of international law.  Cardinal Etchegaray was the first Vatican representative to return to China in 1980.  At that time, the newly elected Pope John Paul II tried to resume relations with Beijing.  He cherished the desire to be the first pope to visit Russia, but also China.  Both were denied to him and so far also to his successors.

In order not to block the way to Beijing, all the popes of the past decades turned down invitations to Taiwan, the former Chinese province (Formosa) to which the defeated national Chinese forces withdrew and where they set up their own state with US support.  Both parts of China claim to represent the whole of China.

In 1983, John Paul II wrote a long letter to the then Chinese ruler Deng Xiaoping, which he never answered.

His successor Benedict XVI tried no less, around China and the free exercise of religion for the Catholic Church.  He wrote a letter to China's Catholics and in 2008 published a prayer to Our Lady of Sheshan, China's most important Marian shrine, which is very popular and frequently prayed among Chinese Catholics.  He also had the later Cardinal Fernando Filoni, when he was Apostolic Nuncio in the Philippines, strengthening contacts with Hong Kong.  This former British crown colony was handed back to China in the late 1990s on the promise of maintaining democratic conditions and extensive self-government.  Cardinal Filoni set up a so-called study mission for relations with China in Hong Kong, which acted as a kind of diplomatic representation.  In the meantime, this institution was closed by Pope Francis as part of his "new Ostpolitik" in order to provide a kind of advance payment to Beijing.

 Text: Giuseppe Nardi

 Image: VaticanMedia (screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.Com

AMDG