My brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His universal Church,
I address you on a matter of great importance for our present time and potentially for all eternity - and also one that is near and dear to my mind and heart as a Catholic American of Chinese ancestry. This is the matter of the reported deal between the Vatican and the communist government of the People's Republic of China concerning the appointment of bishops on the mainland.
I understand why some of you are incensed that this apparent capitulation to the most central demands of the authoritarian atheist regime in Beijing is now close to fruition, with Pope Francis himself edging close to marking his papal seal of approval on it. I realize your concern for the long-suffering underground Catholic Church in China, which has endured with great courage and perseverance over nearly seven decades of unchallenged communist rule to pass on the torch of the faith to present and future generations of Chinese Catholics.
But my Chinese ancestry and heritage and my unique background and history as an immigrant to the United States, this great bastion of individual liberty and religious freedom, where in turn I was blessed to find what I believe to be the only ultimate authentic freedom - that of willful submission to Christ Jesus via His ordained Vicar on earth - compels me to admonish and exhort you to avoid jumping to such immediate and definitive conclusions, especially if it leads you to suspicion as to the personal spiritual and moral integrity of our Supreme Pontiff, Francis; or even if it undermines your trust in his judgment.
Remember first and foremost that you are Catholic - not merely Christian, but Catholic. Your loyalty and obedience to the Pope does not require that you agree with everything he says or does; it does not require that you have a high or even particularly positive opinion either of his moral character or of the soundness of his teaching; it certainly does not require that you keep your dissenting opinions to yourself, as if these aren't invaluable in contributing to a deeper and broader understanding of our common holy faith.
But that faith should ever challenge and remind us of the words of the Eternal Word Himself to Simon in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, by which the unshakable Petrine office was established: "Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church; and the gates of Hell will not overcome it."
These words have ever been the sanctuary of the countless holy men and women that have paved the way before our present time into the Kingdom of Light promised by Our Lord and actualized in the earthly pilgrimage by the Real Presence of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist through the most sublime intercession of Our Blessed Lady; they must likewise now be our own mighty and invincible fortress against all internal and internalized doubts we may find ourselves harboring - however uncomfortably or even unwillingly - against the hierarchy of the Vatican going up to the very Throne of Peter itself.
For Our Lord has always known that the mere specter of what the faithful themselves may perceive or fear to be self-betrayal - a self-denial of the Truth of His very Word - is a far graver menace to His flock and the untold masses of souls therein than can be all the violent powers of physical and material persecution that all the enemies of the Church over two millennia combined can ever muster. Were this not so, would He have gone to such lengths to state the superlative degree of trial by fire that His beloved Church would be expected to endure and finally prevail over - all while ever firmly planted on the Rock of Peter?
Our glorious Catholic and Apostolic Church has survived through internal schisms and heresies since its earliest days; it has prevailed over numerous and repeated instances of temporal authorities attempting to usurp its spiritual prerogatives, even if this was sometimes a long, hard attrition in which some battles appeared irretrievably lost at times; and perhaps most important of all, the Barque of Peter has even persisted and emerged stronger through the tempestuous adversity of very great - even overt - sinners occupying the helm's post and staffing its command crew.
Through none of this are we to succumb to the temptation of doubt as to where the final victory will be and to whom it will belong: it will not belong to those for whom the world seems more powerful than the Word, but to those to whom even a Church seemingly gone astray can only be cause for purer sacrifice of thanksgiving producing deeper joy; it will not be with those who curse our holy Church, but with those who bless it; it will not be borne and celebrated by those whose scandal at the denial of Jesus is so great that they resign it to being a mistake in the mysterious Providence of the Most Holy Trinity, but by those who with indomitable assurance can hope with certainty that the greater the betrayal, the greater will be the mercy of redemption that Peter himself experienced when he was finally able to accept the Lord's offer of complete forgiveness with the simple admission, "Lord, you know everything; you know I love you."
