Theory 2 Action Podcast
Theory 2 Action Podcast
CC#47--When The Shepherd Stays Silent
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A 94-year-old cardinal walking into a Hong Kong courtroom might be the clearest sermon you’ll hear all week. Cardinal Joseph Zen sits beside Jimmy Lai’s wife as Lai, a 78-year-old Catholic and pro-democracy publisher, is sentenced to 20 years under Hong Kong’s national security law. Then a reporter asks Pope Leo XIV about Lai, and the answer is chilling in its restraint: “I cannot comment on that.” We sit with the contrast, because it raises a hard question about what Catholic leadership looks like when a believer becomes a political prisoner.
We connect that moment to the 2018 Vatican-China agreement on bishop appointments, a secretive Vatican-China deal that, in practice, appears to give Beijing leverage while Rome keeps a veto it never uses. We talk about what secrecy prevents: accountability, clarity for ordinary Catholics, and public advocacy for the underground Catholic Church in China as crosses come down, cameras go up, and clergy face detention or “re-education.” When the Vatican’s ability to speak depends on keeping a partner happy, the people who pay first are often the ones already under pressure.
We also look backward to look forward. Rome has tried “quiet treaties” with hostile regimes before, and history shows how quickly total-control governments break promises. We compare today’s approach to earlier Vatican diplomacy, the failures of Ostpolitik, and the model of naming evil plainly, even when it comes at a cost. If you care about religious freedom, Catholic persecution, and the moral limits of diplomacy, this conversation is for you.
Key Points from the Episode:
• Jimmy Lai’s 20-year sentence and Cardinal Joseph Zen’s public witness
• Pope Leo XIV’s response and what papal silence signals
• The 2018 Vatican-China agreement and why its secrecy matters
• Beijing’s leverage over bishops and Rome’s unused veto
• The underground Catholic Church in China under surveillance and coercion
• Historical parallel with the 1933 treaty and Pope Pius XI’s 1937 warning
• Ostpolitik versus public truth-telling and John Paul II’s example
• Named bishops detained or disappeared and the question of accountability
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Jimmy Lai And A Courtroom Witness
SPEAKER_01A 94-year-old man walks into a courtroom in Hong Kong to watch his friend get sentenced to what could be the rest of his life in prison. The head of his own church won't even say his name. Let's talk about it on this Catholic corner.
SPEAKER_00Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.
SPEAKER_01Hello, I am David, and welcome back to this Theory to Action podcast and to this Catholic Corner segment. So Jimmy Lai stands in front of a judge in Hong Kong. He's 78 years old. Decades ago, he built the Apple Daily newspaper from nothing into one of Hong Kong's loudest, strongest pro-democracy newspapers. In nineteen ninety-seven, a priest named Joseph Zen baptized him into the Catholic Church. The judge, he hands down a twenty-year sentence. Jimmy Lai violated Hong Kong's national security law enacted during COVID. Still on the books. Now look who's sitting in the public gallery. Cardinal. Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen. 94 years old. He sits beside Jimmy Lai's wife as an old friend. Zen is a retired bishop of Hong Kong, but he's still a Catholic cardinal. Nobody would blame Cardinal Zen for staying away. After all, it's the Communist Party that's watching him too. But he came anyway. You see, Cardinal Zen grew up in Shanghai. He lived through the Communist Chinese takeover. As a young man, for decades he had warned anyone who would listen about what Beijing does to pro to political and most especially to religious freedom. Showing up in that court next to Jimmy Lai's wife was Cardinal Zen's way of saying something without needing to say a word. Now here's the other half of this
The Pope’s Refusal To Comment
SPEAKER_01story. Weeks later a reporter asked Pope Leo XIV about Jimmy Lai's sentence. Here's his exact answer. Quote, I cannot comment on that. Let's pray for less hatred and more peace and work for authentic dialogue. God bless you all. That's it. He declined to comment specifically on the man his own cardinal baptized, the man now facing what could be a life sentence for running a newspaper, the man who, as a Catholic, as a British citizen, is now a political prisoner. A man that an older, more wiser Vatican would have spoken up against, or rather for.
SPEAKER_02So sit with that.
SPEAKER_01Cardinal Zen showed up in person, sat beside the grieving wife, and let his presence speak. The Supreme Pontiff, the shepherd of the universal flock, when asked directly, chose not to address the case at all, but yet will address many other cases. You can call that diplomacy if you want.
SPEAKER_02You can call that the virtue of prudence if you want. But look at it honestly.
SPEAKER_01So today I'm going to show you exactly what choices like this are costing real people right now, all over China, and political prisoners all throughout the world. So Jimmy Lai's own children spoke after his sentence. His daughter called it heartbreakingly cruel. His son called it a slow motion death sentence. Nobody from the Vatican has said either of those things. Nobody from the Vatican has said much of anything. So you ask of yourself, of the two men in that story, which one looks more like a shepherd to you?
The 2018 Vatican China Agreement
SPEAKER_01And here's what you have to understand the silence isn't an accident. It's the price of a horrific deal. Back in 2018, the Vatican signed an agreement with the Chinese government about whom gets to pick Catholic bishops in China. They called it temporary. Here's the first problem. Almost nobody has ever read the text, the actual text. No reporters, no cardinals. Not the underground Catholics in China whose lives depend on what is in this text, this deal. But here's what we do know Beijing gets a say in choosing the bishops. Beijing again gets a say in choosing Catholic cardinals and bishops. Rome gets the power to say no. Rome has never once used their veto to say no, so they've never effectively used that power in over eight years. Not when China picked bishops without asking. Not when China moved bishops around without telling Rome. Not when China arrested seven bishops. Not even the Vatican's own foreign minister admitted this isn't the best deal that they could have gotten. It was a polite way of saying, frankly, we got played. Cardinal Zen, he said it much plainer. He wrote that trusting this deal is almost like hoping Saint Joseph could get something good out of a conversation with Herod. And he wasn't joking. That's a bishop who has watched this communist government operate for decades, telling Rome you cannot make deals with a government that treats the truth as whatever helps the Communist Party that day. And unfortunately, this deal keeps getting renewed.
What The Secret Deal Enables
SPEAKER_01So here's five things that are happening right now. We know it's the deal is secret. Nobody can hold anyone accountable to it. It's probably the reason it's remained secret. Beijing gets the real power. Rome has a veto, but it refuses to use it. Frankly, it speeds up the destruction of the underground Catholic Church in China. Crosses have been torn down, priests are sent to re-education camps, much like in the 1950s under Mao. Cameras are installed inside churches to watch who attends. Rome's voice is completely muted. You can't defend Jimmy Lai out loud when your deal depends on Beijing staying happy with you. This deal keeps getting renewed during the worst of the persecutions, not despite it. In October of 2024, China cracked down harder on religion than at any time in the last several decades. That's the exact moment this deal should have gotten nixed with a strong statement and many things happening behind the scenes. By all accounts, everybody who has visibility to behind the scenes says nothing. As if nothing is happening. So the exact moment that China was cracking down hardest would be the exact moment that this deal would be getting renewed. And it got renewed for four more years under Pope Francis. So here's a question. If someone lies to your face over and over and you keep signing new contracts with them, who's really the fool in the story?
The Hitler Treaty Warning From History
SPEAKER_01And the funny thing is, we've seen this movie before. This isn't the first time Rome has tried this. History has already told us how this movie ends. In 1933, the Vatican signed a treaty with Hitler's Germany. The thinking was almost identical to today. If Rome stays out of politics, the Nazi government will leave the church alone. Signed piece of paper will keep the German Catholics safe. And you already know what happened. You've read your history book. Nazis broke that treaty almost immediately. Arrests, church closures, priest roundup, paper meant nothing. Same deal structure, same moral mistakes, same broken promises. And here's the hard truth underneath all of it. A government built on total control lies. That's not a personal flaw in one leader. It's a standard operating procedure for any regime that survives by controlling everything, including the religion. And that's any communist party.
SPEAKER_02We have over a hundred and ten years of watching this.
SPEAKER_01So here's the part that the Vatican today refuses to learn from. You see, Pope Pius XI signed that 1933 treaty. He had doubts going in, but he had hoped for the best. He did not, however, stay quiet forever. By 1937, after watching years of attacks on his Catholic schools, with the arrest of his priest, with the German bishops begging him to do something he did. He wrote an official letter in German, not Latin, so ordinary Catholics could actually understand it. And on Palm Sunday, 1937, it was smuggled into Germany, Nazi Germany, mind you, and read out loud from every single Catholic pulpit in the country. It accused the Nazi government of hatred towards Christ and his church. It listed the broken promises one by one by one. It condemned the Nazi worship of race and blood by name. And sure there was blowback. The secret police raided the printing houses that had copied it. Priests were arrested, sent off to concentration camps. The government fought back hard. Pius XI knew all this would happen. But he let the underground Catholic Church fight. He supported them rather than keep pretending that the treaty was working. That's the model. Not silence. A public warning. In plain words, the ordinary person in the pew can understand. And they know in their heart of hearts that you have their back. You are their shepherd. They shall know your name. And those words will be read from every pulpit. Now you compare all of this to what the Vatican calls strategy today.
Ostpolitik And John Paul II’s Rebuttal
SPEAKER_01They say it's small steps. Wait for the right time. Don't make them angry. Be patient. Cardinal Zen had heard all this rubbish for decades. He traced it all back to a failed old approach called ostpolitik. Just a fancy word for the idea that you protect the church by quietly negotiating with communist governments behind closed doors. You go through private channels. You don't rock the boat. You don't publicly shame them. Cardinal Zen's answer to that idea was simple. It doesn't work, it just makes them bolder. He once broached this topic with Pope Benedict, who told him when it came up with when that subject came up with St. John Paul II. Pope Benedict was in the room. The Polish Pope who had heard this, who had actually lived under communism, who had stood up to it in public, who had helped bring down the Iron Curtain, John Paul's answer to all of that was enough. There's no more patience. There's no more small steps. Enough. John Paul II never signed secret deals, handing communist governments power over the church. He named evil out loud in public and trusted that the truth was stronger than any backroom deal.
SPEAKER_02And what did it get him? Well, eventually.
SPEAKER_01Catholics in Poland didn't win their freedom through quiet talks with the KGB. They won it because their Pope refused to stay silent. Now we look at what the small steps the new strategy from the Vatican has actually produced.
Detained Bishops And A Muted Rome
SPEAKER_01The real names, the real people right now. Bishop Peter Zhao Zuman, he's been detained. Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daquin, under house arrest since 2012 for over ten years now. Bishop Joseph Li Zing Hong, he's disappeared, haven't heard from him. Bishop Francis Zhu Xin, he's disappeared, haven't heard from him either. Bishop Lao Zinghai, he's been detained. Bishop Vincent Zulu detained. Bishop Antonio Hua Zhun, he's been detained. Seven bishops. Not one public demand from Rome that they be freed. Frankly, some of these men haven't been heard from in years. This deal was supposed to protect them, it's supposed to protect their flocks. Instead, it gives Beijing cover to move faster because there's a signed treaty on paper saying Rome is a good partner, and partners don't criticize each other. The wolf got exactly the paper it wanted: proof that the shepherd would not bite, the shepherd would not strike.
SPEAKER_02This isn't a failure of tactics.
SPEAKER_01This is just clever diplomacy gone wrong. When you make deals with a government that arrests Catholic bishops, that sends a 78-year-old newspaper owner to 20 years, that crushes an underground church any way it can, and you just keep renewing that deal anyway, you're not doing diplomacy, you're going along with it. You're frankly just a coward. So Jimmy lies in prison, he's in solitary confinement for the last six years, he'll probably die there. Cardinal Zen showed up at his sentencing while Rome said it could not comment. The underground church is being crushed day by day. Seven bishops or more are missing or detained, and that deal just keeps getting renewed. So, what is exactly Rome waiting for?
Books To Read And The Closing Challenge
SPEAKER_01Two books I will leave you with that I think are worth your time. For love of my people, I will not remain silent by the aforementioned Cardinal Joseph Zen, the shepherd who has spent his whole life watching this wolf, and as a good shepherd, has kept watch over his flock and defended them. In an academic work, Sino Vatican Relations by Ambrose Mmung, he's a scholar who lays out 90 years of failed Vatican deals with dictators. The lesson underneath all of this is simple enough for anyone to understand you can't build the kingdom of God using the tools of Herod. A shepherd who makes deals with a wolf while his flock is being eaten isn't a diplomat. He's a coward and an accomplice. Cardinal Zen is 94 years old. He won't be around forever. And when he's gone, the church will lose its bravest, loudest voice on China. Not because he was wrong, but because Rome just didn't want to hear what he was right about.
SPEAKER_02Rome has a choice in front of it.
SPEAKER_01Every month. Say it out loud, say it in plain words, and say it from every pulpit. Or frankly, just say it from the chair of Peter. Or it could go the coward's way. It could keep renewing the deal and keep hoping Saint Joseph is going to get something out of talking to Herod. For now, let's just keep praying. Most importantly, let's keep fighting the good faith.
SPEAKER_00We hope you enjoyed this action podcast.com. We have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great ways to work. Until next time, getting your emojo on.