A Czech cardinal who communists imprisoned has spoken out against Pope Francis and the Vatican’s handling of human rights violations and oppression of Catholics in Communist China.
The Church’s inaction regarding human rights violations committed by Communist China undermines Catholic life in China, according to Cardinal Dominik Duka, O.P., the archbishop emeritus of Prague. His country’s silence and collaboration with the communist regime harmed them and made it possible for its rulers to imprison dissidents.
Eight Catholic bishops are now being held indefinitely with no trial in China. China has been keeping tabs on the illustrious Cardinal Joseph Zen since his incarceration there in 2022.
Duka, consecrated a priest in 1970, lectured and instructed seminarians covertly in Czechoslovakia under communist rule. He received a 15-month sentence in 1981.
The Czech cardinal additionally spoke out against efforts to keep the Church and human truths out of public discourse in the West, including threats against educational institutions and teachers who oppose transgenderism and the dismissal of individuals who defend marriage and the inherent worth of every human life.
Communist authorities in China have ramped up their persecution of Catholics, leading to more arrests and torture of Catholics, the destruction of Catholic shrines, and the installation of a monitoring system for clergy.
Many see this round of crackdowns on religious freedom as China’s most severe crackdown on religion since the Cultural Revolution.
There have been over a million cases of forced abortions, sexual assault, and involuntary sterilization among the religious and ethnic minorities imprisoned in the Xinjiang region by the Chinese authorities since 2014.
By claiming that China’s churches are full, Pope Francis has minimized religious persecution and hardly brought up China’s misconduct. Human rights groups and scholars claim that his Vatican-China accord has made the persecution of Catholics in China worse.
Catholics in China still do not have more freedom to practice their faith as a result of the 2018 Vatican-China accord. The Chinese government has used the agreement that permitted the Communist government to choose bishops and acknowledge the CPA to suppress underground Catholics who do not align with the state-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA). Two loyal bishops from the underground Chinese Church were replaced with CPA bishops, and seven illegitimate bishops were acknowledged by the Vatican.
