Pope Names Pro-Communist Cardinal
Pope Francis announced on July 9 that he will be raising 21 prelates to the rank of cardinal this autumn. Of these prelates, 18 are currently under the age of 80. Thus, they are eligible to vote in a papal conclave. This means that as of September 30, Pope Francis will have created 99 of the 137 cardinal electors. And one of these new electors, Bishop Stephen Chow of Hong Kong, is a radical supporter of the Chinese Communist Party (ccp).
Secretive concordat: Bishop Chow is an advocate for Pope Francis’s Vatican-China concordat. This secret deal was signed in September 2018 and gives the ccp a role in appointing bishops. Francis and his allies have hailed the deal as a major breakthrough in Vatican-Chinese relations. Others, like retired Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, have said the deal is analogous to signing a contract with Adolf Hitler—something the Vatican did on July 20, 1933.
The ccp persecutes underground Catholics who refuse to recognize Communist control over their faith. And the Vatican-China concordat allows this persecution.
Communist Catholic: Even though China is an atheist state, the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences has praised Communist China as the world’s “best implementer of Catholic social doctrine.” Ever since its economic liberalization reforms in the 1970s, China has become a mixed economy that uses parts of both Communist and capitalist theory. The politburo allows private enterprise but manages it similarly to what Pope Leo xiii described in his 1891 encyclical letter describing Catholic corporatism.
The Vatican is betraying Chinese Catholics in hopes that it can use its alliance with China to pressure Europe and the United States into reforming capitalism.
Global church: Bible prophecy describes a great church in the end time that holds significant influence with “the kings of the earth.” It has special power over a union of nations described in symbolic terms as a “beast” (Revelation 17). This description can only apply to one church in modern history—a church that meddles in the affairs of nations and considers itself mother to all—a church aligned with the Holy Roman Empire.
Catholic leaders are making economic and political deals around the world to blot out free-market capitalism and its primary defender—the United States of America. If the pope can bring America’s enemies into an economic alliance against the U.S., people will learn what it means to be victims of the Holy Roman Empire.
Learn more: Read “The Pope’s New World Order.”