FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE - Daniel Greenfield - SEP 20, 2022
Along with the NBA and Hollywood, count Pope Francis as another of the woke institutions that will gladly bash the free world, but cowers before Communist China.
Here’s Pope Francis on Trump.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian,” the pontiff said on Feb. 18 aboard the papal plane. “This is not the Gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote,” Francis said. “I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and I will give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Does Pope Francis have any thoughts on Communist China putting a 90-year-old cardinal on trial?
A 90-year-old Roman Catholic cardinal, who was arrested earlier this year by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for allegedly colluding with foreign forces by failing to register his pro-democracy charity fund with the government, begins his formal trial Monday in Hong Kong.
And the response from Pope Francis and the Vatican?
“The Holy See has learned with concern the news of Cardinal Zen’s arrest and is following the development of the situation with extreme attention” was the Vatican’s only official comment. The Vatican architect of the still-secret deal with Beijing, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, professed his “closeness” to his fellow cardinal—before revealing his true priorities. “The most concrete hope,” he said, “is that initiatives such as this one will not complicate the already complex and not simple path of dialogue.”
Just two years ago Cardinal Zen, who grew up in Shanghai, flew to Rome in a desperate attempt to get the Holy Father to reconsider his China deal. But a pope who always seems to have time for private audiences with celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio refused to meet a cardinal with long firsthand experience of Chinese communism. Cardinal Gerhard Muller noted that no senior Vatican official had offered an expression of solidarity or a prayer initiative for Cardinal Zen at last month’s gathering of cardinals in Rome.
On a return flight from Kazakhstan Thursday, the pope suggested this is no accident. When a reporter asked about Cardinal Zen, the pope offered not a word of support, noting only that the cardinal “says what he feels” despite knowing there are “limitations.” The pope declined to even say China was undemocratic.
Now obviously there are consequences for attacking China and none for attacking America. But only the fundamentally morally corrupt put on a show of self-righteousness when bashing those they know will not harm them while carefully remaining silent about the truly evil ones who will. Pope Francis won’t speak truth to power in China, but will denounce the free world.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
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