George Weigel: "it is impossible to imagine that any candidate proposed by the Chinese authorities at the local level will not have been thoroughly vetted for reliability as a Communist puppet."
nationalreview.com
Another Vatican Diplomatic Blunder | National Review
Christmas Eve mass at a Catholic church in Shanghai, China, December 24, 2017. (Aly Song/Reuters) On the 85th anniversary of the Reichskonkordat, no less …
@De Profundis George Weigel seems nostalgic for JP2, but although wholly neo-con in foreign policy thinking, his writing is useful, and the Ostpolitik reference to Agostini Cardinal Casaroli, architect of that terrible Paul VI policy, is very apt. The Czechoslovak and Hungarian churches became life sapping tools of the respective Communist dictatorships. I honestly wonder if Francis sees the Czech …More
@De Profundis George Weigel seems nostalgic for JP2, but although wholly neo-con in foreign policy thinking, his writing is useful, and the Ostpolitik reference to Agostini Cardinal Casaroli, architect of that terrible Paul VI policy, is very apt. The Czechoslovak and Hungarian churches became life sapping tools of the respective Communist dictatorships. I honestly wonder if Francis sees the Czech deal as a template. The Communist appointed bishops there are surely a factor in the near death of the Faith there.
I would disagree in regard to Bashar al-Assad. When the Syrian Arab Army drove Daesh / 'Moderate Rebels' from around Krak de Chevalier, a Dominican Rite Mass was offered there for the first time in perhaps centuries (if not done under the French Mandate). al-Assad is a friend to Christians, and has chastised the Islamists.
George Weigel lists "one ill-advised move after another over the five and a half years of this pontificate" "Syrian initiative that gave President Obama an excuse not to enforce his putative “red line” and thus strengthened the murderous Assad regime." "Disastrous and counterproductive kowtowing to the Maduro regime in Venezuela and the Communist dictatorship in Cuba that has demoralized the …More
George Weigel lists "one ill-advised move after another over the five and a half years of this pontificate"
"Syrian initiative that gave President Obama an excuse not to enforce his putative “red line” and thus strengthened the murderous Assad regime."
"Disastrous and counterproductive kowtowing to the Maduro regime in Venezuela and the Communist dictatorship in Cuba that has demoralized the opposition in both countries"
"A lot of papal moral capital expended on ephemera like the threat posed by plastic bottles and straws in the oceans."
