Vatican says papal trip to Iraq is 'an act of love'
- Mar 3, 2021
Amid a chorus of criticism, the Vatican announced Thursday the highly-anticipated renewal of its provisional agreement with China on the appointment of bishops meaning that for the next two years, the door is still open to possible diplomatic ties.
To call a public blast by one cardinal against another “rare” is to traffic in understatement. To find any sort of precedent we have to go back a decade, and a public conflict between Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, Austria, and Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano.
“Parolin knows he himself is lying. He knows that I know he is a liar. He knows that I will tell everyone that he is a liar,” wrote Cardinal Joseph Zen, a former bishop of Hong Kong and a longtime critic of appeasement when it comes to China’s Communist authorities.
Cardinal John Tong Hon of Hong Kong asked priests not to resort to using “slanderous and offensive statements” in their sermons.
The arrest of prominent Catholic millionaire and media tycoon Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong along with two of his sons and two executives of his Next Media company under China’s new national security law has raised concerns that prominent Catholic leaders he has supported could be next.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong and a longtime critic of the Chinese Communist Party, has called a new national security law the end of democracy and said he does not envy the area’s current Church leaders, who he said will be walking a tightrope as Beijing exerts more control.