Cardinal Joseph Zen, the 84-year-old former bishop of Hong Kong, says any agreement where Beijing would have a hand in approving clergy would be “a surrender”.

• The most senior Chinese Catholic has heavily criticized a potential harmonious agreement between the Vatican and Beijing, saying it would be “betraying Jesus Christ”.
• Talk of a deal between the two sides has been building for months, with some saying the Vatican would allow China’s Communist government to have a hand in selecting bishops.
• The Guardian quoted Zen saying, “Maybe the pope is a little naive, he doesn’t have the background to know the Communists in China,” Zen said at the Salesian school in Hong Kong where he still teaches. “The pope used to know the persecuted Communists [in Latin America], but he may not know the Communist persecutors who have killed hundreds of thousands.”
• Chinese Catholics are free to go to mass and attend government-sanctioned churches, but barred from attempting to convert others.
• Protestant Christians also face similar challenges, and a recent campaign by authorities in eastern China has seen more than 1,200 crosses removed from buildings and churches demolished
• Zen maintains that the agreement would allow the government to further control the church. He complained that most supporters of the deal did not truly know China, lacking first-hand experience with the state of the church under the Communists.
• One motivation for the Vatican is believed to be the relatively small number of Catholics in this country. There are roughly 10 million Catholics, just a 10th of the overall number of Christians in the country.
• Supporters of the potential deal believe that it would represent a major breakthrough for China, the Vatican and people of all faiths.

Original article by The Guardian / TRUNEWS summary.