As the Vatican Secretary of State continues to pursue Ostpolitik with a papal apology to the diabolical Red Chinese regime, we Catholics can only wonder whether the Pope, crippled by Parkinson's and loaded up with painkilling drugs, retains any effective control over the daily administration of Vatican affairs. For nothing could be more humiliating to the Vicar of Christ than this piece of trash issued in his name.

         I feel obliged to attribute this disgraceful text to Cardinal Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State. It has all the earmarks of current Vatican diplomacy - currying favor with the powers of the world at the expense of truth. Consider the following declarations in this apology to Red China on October 24, 2001:

"The Church must not be afraid of historical truth and she is ready - with deeply-felt pain - to admit the responsibility of her children."

         What responsibility? Of which children? For which supposed wrongs? This is precisely the sort of open-ended mea culpa the Red Chinese will exploit endlessly to the detriment of the Church and the loyal Catholics of China who have been driven underground.

"This is true also with regard to her relationship, past and present, with the Chinese people. Historical truth must be sought serenely, with impartiality and in its entirety."

         This is really too much to bear. Now the Vatican Secretary of State has the Pope apologizing for the present "responsibility" of "her children" for wrongs committed against Red China - at the very moment the Red Chinese regime is arresting, imprisoning and torturing Catholic priests and bishops. What sort of lunacy is this?

         It is even worse. Here is what the text of the papal apology says about the current regime of China: "It is no secret that the Holy See, in the name of the whole Catholic Church and, I believe, for the benefit of the whole human family, hopes for the opening of some form of dialogue with the Authorities of the People's Republic of China. The Chinese people, especially in more recent times, have set themselves important objectives in the field of social progress. The Catholic Church for her part regards with respect this impressive thrust and far-sighted planning. The Church has very much at heart the values and objectives which are of primary importance also to modern China: solidarity, peace, social justice, the wise management of the phenomenon of globalization, and the civil progress of all peoples."

         Far-sighted planning? Solidarity, peace, social justice? Does the Vatican Secretary of State think that these words are appropriate to describe a regime that practices genocide of the unborn and vicious persecution of the Bride of Christ? This is an outrage.

         And then there is this:

"Historically, in ways that are certainly different but not in opposition to one another, China and the Catholic Church are two of the most ancient 'institutions' in existence and operating on the world scene: both, though in different domains - one in the political and social, the other in the religious and spiritual - encompass more than a thousand million sons and daughters."

         The attempt to posit some kind of equivalence between the "two institutions" - a pagan nation and the spotless Bride of Christ - is nothing short of obscene. And to say that the Holy Catholic Church and Red China are "not in opposition to one another," well one struggles to find the words to describe such a despicable lie.

         And what will the Church gain in return for all of this self-abasement before a satanic communist dictatorship? Some paltry diplomatic concessions by the devils who now tyrannize China? No wonder Pope Paul VI was torn by doubt over whether he was betraying the Gospel by continuing to pursue Ostpolitik during the tenure of Archbishop (later Cardinal) Casaroli, second in command in the Vatican Secretariat of State. If this shameful bowing and scraping of the Church before pure evil is what Ostpolitik requires to keep it going, then Ostpolitik itself is a work of the devil.

         I cannot believe that Pope John Paul II, who has spoken so often of "human rights," would personally author this detestable and degrading apology - this insane tribute! - to the worst violator of human rights on the face of the earth, and perhaps in all of human history.

         May God save His holy Church from the work of Cardinal Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State - the same Cardinal Sodano who is a pseudo-pope and who mercilessly hounds Father Nicholas Gruner while he supplicates the devils of Red China. Nothing - nothing - can justify this sullying of the Bride of Christ.