The Fatima revisionists are constantly referring to the “fall of communism.” What fall? A third of the world’s population continues to shoulder communism’s killing yoke, and in Russia the “fall of communism” is more like a bankruptcy reorganization under Chapter 11. Even the secular media now admits that “former” KGB spy, Vladimir Putin, is no paladin of democracy but rather an authoritarian ruler surrounded by “former” communist henchmen.

     On June 20, 2001 CWNews.com reported that in China “a group of twelve Christians arrested by Communist Chinese police last month have been sentenced to ‘reeducation through labor’ camps for up to three years.” These appear to be Protestants who were members of an “illegal” house church.

     Of more immediate interest from the Fatima perspective is CWN’s comment that “The Communist Chinese government requires Christians to worship only in state-controlled associations including the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which eschews any connections to the Vatican or the Pope. Many Catholics worship in churches that, while openly loyal to the government association, secretly pledge allegiance to the Pope.”

     The claim that the schismatic Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA) can be loyal to the Red Chinese regime while “secretly” pledging loyalty to the Pope is utter nonsense. The CPA bishops—all one-hundred of them illicitly ordained without a papal mandate—must agree to accept CPA’s constitution, which forbids allegiance to or submission to the Pope. One cannot proclaim one’s independence from the Pope while “secretly” pledging loyalty to him. Further, in 1995 the CPA “Bishops’ Conference” issued a “pastoral letter” calling for all Chinese Catholics to support China’s Platform for the Development of Women.” As the Cardinal Kung Foundation reports on its website: “We all know well that this Platform includes birth control, sterilization, and the one family-one child policy whereby women who are pregnant after having one child are forced by the Chinese government to abort their unborn babies.” One cannot publicly defend child-murder while “secretly” upholding the Church’s teaching on the evil of abortion. More nonsense.

     The CPA bishops are not Catholics; it is that simple. They are schismatic, illicitly consecrated, communist-controlled bishops who are betraying Our Lord by their silence. Unlike the great Cardinal Kung, who suffered 30 years in solitary confinement rather than utter even one sentence dictated by his captors, the CPA bishops want it both ways. They cannot have it both ways. “ No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Matt. 6:24

     Shame on the Fatima revisionists for suggesting that one can be a “secret” Catholic while openly swearing allegiance to mammon. Shame on the Fatima revisionists for not proclaiming the simple truth that the true Catholic Church is found only in the catacombs of communist China. The “underground” Catholics of China, who refuse to serve mammon, know only too well that communism is far from fallen.