On China’s Catholics and the Communist Party, Pope Francis has got it all wrong

As Vatican correspondent Francis X. Rocca points out in The Wall Street Journal, even Pope Francis has his critics. And nowhere is that more apparent than his capitulation to the Communist Party of China over the appointment of bishops.

Addressing a conference in Rome, Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, a former bishop of Hong Kong, “lamented that the concerns of Chinese Catholics were going unheard in the Vatican”. He is not alone.

Many are asking why Pope Francis would bend the knee to China’s atheist regime for spiritual guidance. Is there any evidence to suggest that the party has the best interests of China’s Catholics in mind?

If not, why the effort to curry favour with a communist regime which is notorious for its persecution of Christians and its human rights abuses? It is China which needs the Church, and not the other way around. Alas, the pope seems to have it backwards.