But you know what? As a AmeriKan Catholic it is just not enough to get me to go to war with those honorable folks. Sorry.
"Pope hails China from aloft" by William Wan | Washington Post August 15, 2014
BEIJING — While flying over China on Thursday, Pope Francis sent a telegram to President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people. His message was seen as a possible sign of thawing relations between China and the Vatican.
But such hopes were dashed almost immediately as reports emerged that Chinese officials were blocking some Chinese Catholics from participating in the pope’s five-day visit to South Korea.
Meanwhile, the pontiff received an even more unfriendly signal from North Korea, which fired three short-range rockets shortly before his arrival in Seoul.
OMG, North Korea tried to assassinate the Pope.
The pope routinely sends messages while flying over different countries, but Thursday’s was singled out because it was the first time that China had allowed a pope to fly through its airspace since issuing a refusal in 1989.
‘‘I extend my best wishes to your excellency and your fellow citizens, and I invoke divine blessings of peace and well-being upon the nation,’’ Francis said in the telegram to Xi on his way to Seoul.
The Vatican and China have been on uneven terms since the Communist Party took power in 1949 — as both sides have sought control over Catholics in China. But in recent years, the relationship has hit its lowest point in decades.
Bishops touted by the Chinese government were excommunicated by the Vatican. Meanwhile, China’s government called the Vatican ‘‘unreasonable and rude’’ and stepped up its surveillance and detention of Catholics who worship in illegal churches and remain loyal to the pope.
The fight between two of the world’s most hierarchical and authority-driven powers has become so fraught that, according to the Vatican, Chinese authorities have in some cases kidnapped bishops approved by Rome and pressured them into laying hands upon government-chosen bishops at their ordinations — a move meant to lend such ceremonies legitimacy despite Vatican opposition.
The Vatican also maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan, a source of anger for Beijing.
Then why are they talking?
Now I'm getting angry, God forgive me!
For those reasons, papal travels through the region — which in the West frequently draw huge headlines — have often been largely ignored in the Chinese news media.
But Thursday’s flyover drew plaudits in China’s state-run media.
I really can no longer stand this contradictory crapola. Forgive me, father.
The often nationalistic Global Times called it a ‘‘positive development in China-Vatican relations,’’ but the newspaper cautioned that it would take much time for the two to establish formal diplomatic relations.
Nationalism is bad in my globalist pre$$, unless you are a Jewish nationalist or it can be used to get you to fight wars for them.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Committee for the Papal Visit to Korea told reporters that several dozen Chinese were prevented from attending an Asian Youth Day event during the pope’s South Korea visit because of ‘‘a complicated situation inside China.’’
Because this is the first tour through Asia for Pope Francis, some have speculated that he would try in some way to send messages beyond South Korea to followers in China and to Christians in North Korea living under hardship.
In China, the government lately has drawn renewed international criticism for its crackdowns on religion. In February, local officials in the eastern province of Zhejiang began a campaign to demolish church buildings that ‘‘violated government regulations’’ because of their prominent crosses.
Israel demolishes mosques and it is not a big deal.
More recently, foreign news outlets have reported that China is also cracking down on Christian charity groups near its border with North Korea.
Related: China Captures Canadian Spies
They were hackers.
Also see:
Canadian court: US can extradite terror suspect
ISIS is in Tunisia
Protests in Pakistan
All spies coming from Canada.
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And the trip had such high hopes:
"Korea trip full of promise and peril for a ‘Peace Pope’" by John L. Allen Jr. | Globe Staff August 09, 2014
ROME — Pope Francis leaves on Wednesday for five days in South Korea, his first outing to Asia and a trip that seems almost perfectly to capture both the promise and the peril of his ambition to be a “Peace Pope.”
Seems like anyone who wants to be Peace anything is in peril.
The pontiff is scheduled to meet government leaders and to take part in an Asian Catholic youth festival. He’ll beatify a group of Korean martyrs from the 18th and 19th centuries, giving him a chance to shine a spotlight on contemporary martyrdom from nearby North Korea to Iraq, where last week the pope named a personal representative to voice his concern for Christians and other minorities fleeing the radical Islamic forces.
Francis also will meet family members of victims of the recent Sewol shipwreck that claimed more than 300 lives, and will lay out a role for the church’s mission in Asia in a speech to bishops from the continent.
That event has has been sunk down the ma$$ media memory hole.
The outing poses challenges to Francis the peacemaker on multiple levels.
First is the division of Korea itself. Francis will try to send signals of openness across the DMZ that separates the peninsula, without provoking the North Korean regime. He’ll want to promote reconciliation but can’t afford to turn a blind eye to the problems in the north, including an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 Christians believed to languish in forced labor camps.
There’s no indication Francis will spring another surprise by inviting leaders of the two Koreas to join him for a peace prayer in the Vatican, as he did with the Israelis and Palestinians while visiting the Middle East in late May, or that he’ll deliver an iconic moment as he did in Bethlehem by stopping at the security barrier dividing Jerusalem from the West Bank.
Related: Francis is Safe
Thank God.
On the other hand, as Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, put it last week, “The pope can always surprise us.”
The trip has already drawn a reminder of how complicated reaching across the divide can be, as North Korea has spurned an invitation to send a delegation to an Aug. 18 papal Mass in Seoul.
In addition to the North Koreans, Francis will be speaking to another party that won’t be physically present but will certainly be listening: China, especially President Xi Jinping, with whom Francis has already had backdoor contact.
China is one of just a handful of nations without diplomatic relations with the Vatican and it’s long been the apple of Rome’s eye, seeing ties with Beijing as essential to extending the church’s reach as a voice of conscience.
They lost that with the, well, you know.
Oddly, you never hear of Asian priests doing the pooper-pump.
The Vatican also wants to improve the lot of China’s roughly 13 million Catholics, many of whom are compelled to practice their faith underground.
For the first time, a pope will actually fly over China en route to South Korea. (When the late Pope John Paul II visited Korea in 1984 and again in 1989, he skirted Chinese airspace.) It’s traditional for a pope to send telegrams to each of the countries he flies over, and in this case that brief message will be scrutinized for signals of an opening.
Francis is not a European, and on conflicts such as Syria his line has been closer to Russia and China than to the Western powers. That may position him to succeed where other recent popes have failed in terms of détente with China, with this trip a chance to move the ball.
Beyond geopolitics, Francis will also be stretched as a peacemaker on interfaith and ecumenical levels.
Catholicism in South Korea has experienced strong growth, with its share of the population more than doubling in the last 20 years to reach 10 percent, roughly 5 million people. Yet they remain a minority in a majority Buddhist culture, and this will be the first time Francis has been tested in terms of his ability to reach out to one of the great religious traditions of East Asia.
John Paul II got off to a rocky start with Buddhists, angering many by asserting in a 1994 book that Buddhism “is in large measure an atheistic system.” Francis doubtless hopes to avoid a similar stumble while laying the basis for stronger ties.
In terms of the Christian scene, Korea is home to a flourishing Evangelical and Pentecostal revival. Catholic/Pentecostal relations have been notoriously uneven in Korea, as in many other places, but Francis seems to have a special affection for the charismatic spirituality typical of Pentecostalism and could use his trip to build bridges.
Finally, there’s a local conflict Francis may not be able to avoid.
Family members of victims of the Sewol shipwreck currently are camped out in a square in Seoul where the pontiff is to say Mass on Aug. 16, demanding that the government launch an independent investigation. They’ve vowed to resist if police try to run them out, potentially setting the stage for an ugly confrontation, and Francis may be pressed to soothe the situation.
That must be why they are not getting much coverage. South Korea's Occupy movement may be Christian, but it could give others the wrong ideas.
For the first pope named “Francis,” being a peacemaker is a necessary part of the job description, in the spirit of the great medieval saint who once crossed a battle line during the Crusades to try to breach the divide.
Doesn't it seem like the war-promoting media is pushing more crusades these days?
The pope’s Aug. 13-18 journey to South Korea looms as one of the sternest tests to date of his ability to translate that lofty aim into concrete reality.
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Also see: Top Korean bishop answers criticism of pope’s trip
That did not make my printed paper. I guess I was not supposed to know about Jeju Island, where the Korean government is building a highly controversial naval base for US forces, even if they are following him around.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Pope faces tough sell on materialism in South Korea" Associated Press August 16, 2014
DAEJEON, South Korea — Pope Francis called on Friday for Catholics to combat the allure of materialism, an appeal that might be a hard sell in South Korea, a newly rich and hyper-competitive country.
Far from being considered an evil, the trappings of wealth are often linked here to the hard work, sacrifice, and gritty persistence of generations who hustled their nation out of war, dictatorship, and poverty into an Asian powerhouse.
We get the same propaganda here, the $elf-made billionaires and all, and the church is sitting on piles of wealth.
‘‘I don’t want to knock successful people off their pedestal just because they have a lot of money,’’ said Kim Eui-kyun, a 61-year-old from Seoul who described himself as a lapsed Catholic. ‘‘If someone has made a fortune for himself, fair and square, and has a lot of money, I don’t think that’s something to be condemned. I look up to them, actually, and I wonder, ‘What did I do wrong?’ ’’
Okay, I don't mind the first part. I don't like the greed and looting that seem to come with it, but I'm not against people making money and a decent life. I am against that last part where the implication is it is your fault for the situation many find themselves in when the whole goddamn $y$tem is rigged for the upper cru$t.
Francis made the call during his first public Mass in Asia. He received a boisterous welcome from tens of thousands of young Asians gathered for a Catholic festival. In his homily, Francis urged the faithful to reject ‘‘inhuman’’ economic policies that disenfranchise the poor and ‘‘the spirit of unbridled competition which generates selfishness and strife.’’
That's why the Catholics must be flogged over sex abuse in the agenda-pushing media. Control and influence of a large mass of people could threaten the entire Jew World Order project.
It is a theme he has raised frequently during his pontificate, railing against the ‘‘idolatry of money’’ and the excesses of capitalism that leave the poorest even further on the margins of society. While his message has been met with skepticism among some US conservatives, it has been welcomed in much of the developing world and even some South Koreans said Friday he had a point.
I $ee prophecy if you go for that sort of gig.
‘‘We are living in the age of limitless competition. But are we truly achieving happiness?’’ asked Chang Seouk-kyung, a 57-year-old youth counselor.
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Also see: China announces birth of rare panda triplets
