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Secretary Pompeo Foments Conflict with the Holy See

On September 30, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo was at the Holy See for its Symposium on Advancing and Defending Religious Freedom through Diplomacy. There he delivered a speech entitled “Moral Witness and Religious Freedom” that provided great details about China’s abuses of religious freedom and called upon the Vatican (Pope Francis) to take action against the Chinese abuses. He thereby fomented conflict with the Holy See.

Pompeo’s Recent Speech [1]

Most of the first part of this speech appropriately concentrated on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe and the courageous resistance to the Nazi’s persecution of its Jewish citizens by Roman Catholic Father Bernhard Lichtenberg in Berlin by his helping Jews with finances, advice and emigration assistance and by publicly criticizing the Nazi regime after Kristallnacht.

“That life or death struggle [against the Nazis] was a crucible, a proving ground of moral witness. Individual stories of valor were legion. But I remember especially Father Bernhard Lichtenberg. . . .[He] was a priest in Berlin in the 1930s, who fervently resisted the Nazi regime, and helped Jews with finances, advice, emigration assistance as the Nazi fist tightened. In 1938, in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, he began to speak up more loudly on their behalf, proclaiming at St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin, ‘Outside ‘the synagogue is burning, and that too, is a house of God.’ From then on, he fearlessly prayed each day publicly for the Jews and other victims of Nazi brutality.”

“Eventually, the Nazis arrested him in 1941. Rejecting a deal to go free in exchange [for] stopping his subversive peaching, he was given a two-year prison sentence. When asked if he had anything to add when the sentence was read, he said, ‘I submit that no harm results to the state by citizens who pray for the Jews.’ Towards the end of his sentence, the Nazis realized they could never break his spirit. They ordered him sent to Dachau concentration camp, but he died on the way before he reached that grim destination. Father Lichtenberg bore an incredible moral witness, and in 2004 he was honored by the State of Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, a non-Jew who risked his life to save Jews from Nazis.”

“Today, as we think about that man, I urge all faith leaders to exhibit a similarly moral, bold witness for the sake of religious freedom, for human dignity, and for peace.” (Emphasis added.)

Secretary Pompeo then shifted his remarks to say “the mission of defending human dignity – and religious freedom in particular – remains at the core of American foreign policy. That’s because it’s at the heart of the American experiment. Our founders regarded religious freedom as an absolutely essential right of mankind and central to our founding.”

“Indeed, I would say it’s an integral part to what Pope John Paul II described as the ‘universal longing for freedom’ at the United Nations when he spoke in 1995. Billions of people today . . . have always seeked to worship according to their conscience.”

But sadly, authoritarian regimes, terrorists, and even secularists, free societies are – in their different ways – trampling religious freedom all around the world. Vast swathes of humanity live in countries where religious freedom is restricted, from places like . . . Cuba, and beyond.” (Emphasis added.) Later in the speech he reiterated this contention: “Christian leaders have an obligation to speak up for their brothers and sisters in Iraq, in North Korea, and in Cuba.” (Emphasis added.)[2]

Then he went into his excoriation of China.

“Nowhere, however – nowhere is religious freedom under assault more than it is inside of China today. That’s because, as with all communist regimes, the Chinese Communist Party deems itself the ultimate moral authority. An increasingly repressive CCP, frightened by its own lack of democratic legitimacy, works day and night to snuff out the lamp of freedom, especially religious freedom, on a horrifying scale.”

The Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang are “not the only victims. The Chinese Communist Party has battered every religious community in China: Protestant house churches, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong devotees, and more.”

“Nor, of course, have Catholics been spared this wave of repression: Catholic churches and shrines have been desecrated and destroyed. Catholic bishops like Augustine Cui Tai have been imprisoned, as have priests in Italy. And Catholic lay leaders in the human rights movement, not least in Hong Kong, have been arrested. Authorities order residents to replace pictures of Jesus with those of Chairman Mao and those of General Secretary Xi Jinping.”

“All of these believers are the heirs of those Pope John Paul celebrated in his speech to the UN, those who had ‘taken the risk of freedom, asking to be given a place in social, political, and economic life which is commensurate with their dignity as free human beings.’”

“We must support those demanding freedoms in our time, like Father Lichtenberg did.”

For the Church, “Earthly considerations shouldn’t discourage principled stances based on eternal truths. And as history shows, Catholics have often deployed their principles in glorious, glorious service of human dignity.” These include Jacques Maritain, the bishops of Poland and West Germany in the 1960s, the bishops of Poland and West Germany, Pope John Paul II, who was unafraid, and Pope Emeritus Benedict. “And just like Pope Benedict, Pope Francis has spoken eloquently about the ‘human ecology’ essential to decent societies.” (Emphasis added.)

“Pope Francis has exhorted the Church to be ‘permanently in a state of mission.’ It’s a hope that resonates with this evangelical Protestant who believes, as the Holy Father does, that those of us given the gift of Christian faith have an obligation to do our best to bless others.” (Emphasis added.)

“To be a Church ‘permanently in a state of mission’ has many meanings. Surely, one of them is to be a Church permanently in defense of basic human rights. A Church permanently in opposition to tyrannical regimes. A Church permanently engaged in support of those who wish to take ‘the risk of freedom’ of which Pope John Paul II spoke, especially, most especially where religious freedom is denied, or limited, or even crushed.” (Emphasis added.)

“As Christians, we all know we live in a fallen world. That means that those who have responsibility for the common good must sometimes deal with wicked men and indeed with wicked regimes. But in doing so – in doing so, statesmen representing democracies must never lose sight of the moral truths and human dignity that make democracy itself possible.” (Emphasis added.)

“So also should religious leaders. Religious leaders should understand that being salt and light must often mean exercising a bold moral witness. And this call to witness extends to all faiths, not just to Christians and Catholics. It’s for leaders of all faiths at – indeed, at every level.” (Emphasis added.)

“I call on every faith leader to find the courage to confront religious persecution against their own communities, as well as Father Lichtenberg did against members of other faiths as well.” (Emphasis added.)

“Every man and woman of faith is called to exercise a moral witness against the persecution of believers. Indeed – we’re here today to talk about religious freedom – the very future of religious freedom depends upon these acts of moral witness.”

“Pope John Paul II bore witness to his flock’s suffering, and he challenged tyranny. By doing so, he demonstrated how the Holy See can move our world in a more humane direction, like almost no other institution.” (Emphasis added.)

“May the Church, and all those who know that we are ultimately accountable to God, be so bold in our time. May we all be so bold in our time.” (Emphasis added.)

Pompeo’s Preceding Comments [3]

Just twelve days before his recent trip to the Holy See, Pompeo published an article in First Things, “a conservative Christian magazine that has called [Pope} Francis a failure as Pope.” https://www.firstthings.com/about

Entitled “China’s Catholics and the Church’s Moral Leadership,” Pompeo’s article vigorously attacked the 2018 agreement between the Holy See and China that recognized the validity of Chinese appointment of some of the Catholic bishops in the country and the current Holy See-China negotiations about renewal of that agreement. (Emphasis added.)

The next day, Pompeo issued the following tweet: “Two years ago, the Holy See reached an agreement with the Chinese Communist Party, hoping to help China’s Catholics. Yet the CCP’s abuse of the faithful has only gotten worse. The Vatican endangers its moral authority, should it renew the deal.” (Emphasis added.)

Reactions to Pompeo’s Comments and Speech [4]

These Pompeo words were seen by an “indignant Vatican . . . as a calculated affront.” As a result, the Vatican denied Pompeo a requested meeting with Pope Francis. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who, as secretary of state, is the Vatican’s second-ranking official, told reporters that the Pope had not granted the meeting because Francis had “clearly said that he does not receive political figures ahead of the elections.”

Moreover, Pompeo’s subsequent speech at the Holy See can be seen as an indirect challenge to Pope Francis by Pompeo’s talking about the Chinese abuses at great length and the courage of previous popes and Father Lichtenberg, by calling on “every faith leader to find the courage to confront religious persecution against their own communities,” by his using Pope Francis’ own challenge to the Church to be “permanently in a state of mission” as a way to say Francis is not doing that and by Pompeo’s saying, “May the Church, and all those who know that we are ultimately accountable to God, be so bold in our time.”

In addition, Pompeo met with “prelates and others who are hostile to Pope Francis.” As a result of these developments, many observers believe “Pompeo’s [recent] visit is as much about the coming [U.S.] presidential election as about China policy. Mr. Pompeo dismissed that suggestion as absurd, but intended or not, his trip signals that President Trump is on the side of those conservative American Catholics who worry about the church’s direction under Francis and think he is soft on China.”

The New York Times also reports that the event at the Vatican where Pompeo gave his speech on September 30 was organized by Callista Gingrich, the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, and who received warm words from Pompeo at the start of his speech while she sat in the front row with her husband Newt Gingrich, the Republican former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.”

“Mr. Gingrich said that Mr. Pompeo’s piece in First Things has stirred support and ‘probably’ motivated Catholic voters who read it to vote for President Trump. ‘The reaction to his op-ed the other day was very strong.’ Mr. Gingrich, who converted to Catholicism after his third marriage [to Calista] is a co-chair of Catholics for Trump [that] has attacked Mr. Biden over his ties to China and . . . supports Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Vatican ambassador to Washington, who has accused the pope of shielding child abusers and demanded that he step down.”

As he went to the podium for his Vatican speech, Pompeo “gave a pat on the shoulder to Cardinal Raymond Burke, a U.S. leader of the conservative opposition to Francis within the church hierarchy. Burke, who ruled out giving communion to John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, said he believed American voters ‘more and more so’ cared about the issues Mr. Pompeo raised. And when it came to China, he said ‘I know I do.’” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Leo_Burke)

“Thomas Williams, the Breitbart bureau chief in Rome and a consistent critic of Francis who attended the event, argued that there was a clear electoral angle to the nominally diplomatic trip. He said that while he believed Mr. Pompeo genuinely hoped to change the Vatican’s stance on China, any political benefit back home was ‘a welcome and I’m sure sought after side effect.’”

Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University [and a supporter] of Francis, said these Pompeo actions are “an appeal to an electorate that is bigger than the Catholic vote, it’s also the evangelical vote. Being anti-pope helps with these Catholics but also evangelicals.”

“Alberto Melloni, the director of the Foundation for Religious Sciences John XXIII in Bologna, Italy, called Mr. Pompeo’s moves ‘a divisive operation targeted to the American electorate, not to the Holy See.’” Afterwards Pompeo, rejecting the suggestion that his speech was an attack on Pope Francis, said at a press conference, “I wrote that piece to honor the moral authority of the Catholic Church and its capacity to influence and make things better for people all across the world. They have historically stood with oppressed peoples all around the world. The piece was written and our policy has been all along to bring every actor who can benefit the people of China from — to take away the horrors of the authoritarian regime the Chinese Communist Party is inflicting on these people. That was our mission set, and it will remain our mission set. It’s been so long before the election; it will remain so after the election.”

This response was endorsed in a Wall Street Journal editorial with these words: “It is a welcome message from a U.S. Secretary of State, and the Vatican would do well to at least hear him out as it enters its latest negotiations with Beijing.”

All of this leaves this non-Catholic blogger from Minnesota bewildered. However, there should be more diplomatic ways to discuss and negotiate differences with the Holy See.

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[1] State Dep’t, Michael Pompeo Speech, Moral Witness and Religious Freedom (Sept. 30, 2020).

[2] In his 2019 speech at the Holy See, Pompeo said, “Because when the state rules absolutely, God becomes an absolute threat to authority. That’s why Cuba cancelled National Catholic Youth Day back in August [of 2019].” This statement was erroneous and misleading as discussed in a prior post. (Secretary of State Pompeo Delivers Speech at the Holy See, dwkcommentaries.com (Oct. 4, 2019).) https://dwkcommentaries.com/2019/10/04/secretary-of-state-pompeo-delivers-speech-at-the-holy-see

[3] Pompeo, China’s Catholics and the Church’s Moral Witness, First Things (Sept. 18, 2020), https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/09/chinas-catholics-and-the-churchs-moral-witness; Pompeo, Tweet (Sept. 19, 2020), https://twitter.com/secpompeo/status/1307366983890018311?s=21.

[4] Horowitz & Jakes, Rebuffed by Vatican, Pompeo Assails China and Aligns With Pope’s Critics, N.Y. Times (Sept. 30, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/world/europe/pompeo-pope-francis-china.html; Winfield, Pompeo urges Vatican to condemn human rights abuses in China, Wash. Post (Sept. 30, 2020), https://www.wsj.com/articles/pompeo-and-the-pope-11601507813?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2; Morelio, Harlan & Shih, Pompeo and Vatican officials face off over negotiations with China, Wash. Post (Sept. 30, 2020), https://www.wsj.com/articles/pompeo-and-the-pope-11601507813?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2; Winfield, Pompeo, Vatican talk China after tensions spill out publicly, Wash. Post (Oct. 1, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pompeo-meets-with-vatican-after-us-china-tensions-spill-over/2020/10/01/1d9b1c16-03d4-11eb-b92e-029676f9ebec_story.html.

U.S. Efforts To Prevent Global Atrocities

On August 4, U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced the State Department’s submission to Congress of the second annual report on U.S. efforts to prevent, mitigate and respond to global atrocities. According to his statement, the U.S. has “enhanced early warning, strengthened civil society and multilateral engagement, and increased the capacity of U.S. government personnel to coordinate, integrate, and institutionalize atrocity prevention across our foreign policy.”[1]

The Secretary said, “Preventing atrocities is critical to promote U.S. values, including respect for human rights, the sacred value of life, and fundamental freedoms. The 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy states, ‘No nation can unilaterally alleviate all human suffering, but just because we cannot help everyone does not mean that we should stop trying to help anyone.’ We will not ignore the suffering of those who experience atrocities. We will continue to promote accountability for perpetrators of genocide and other atrocities.”

Pompeo added, This work was advanced by the Atrocity Early Warning Task Force, “which includes representatives from the National Security Council; Departments of State, Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and the Treasury; the United States Agency for International Development; and the Intelligence Community” and which “takes timely and effective action to assess and address atrocity risks.”

This report is mandated by the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018, which President Trump signed in January 2019 and which directs the State Department to provide additional training for Foreign Service Officers assigned to a country experiencing or at risk of mass atrocities, such as genocide or war crimes and for the President to submit annual reports to Congress on U.S. efforts to prevent mass atrocities.[2]

Weisel (1929-2016) was a Romanian-born Jewish prisoner at the Nazi’s Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps, from which he was liberated in April 1945 by the U.S. Army. For the next 10 years, he lived in France where he became an author and journalist. In 1955 he moved to the U.S., where he wrote over 40 books, mostly non-fiction about the Holocaust and taught at Boston and Yale universities and Eckerd and Barnard colleges. In was awarded many honors, including the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize as a ”messenger to mankind . . . of peace, atonement and human dignity.”

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[1] State Dep’t, Submission of the Second Congressional Report Pursuant to the Elie Weisel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 (Aug. 4, 2020).

[2] Elie Weisel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018, Public Law No. 115-441 (01/14/2019).

Declaration of Christian Freedom at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church

On the day before the national celebration of the freedom obtained by American Independence, Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church instead celebrated Christian freedom.[1]

This was the message delivered by Rev. Dr. Sarah Henrich, Minister of Adult Education and Visitation, in her sermon, ‘What Kind of Freedom Does Faith Proclaim?” Its Biblical foundation was Galatians 5:1, 13-16, 22-25 (NRSV):

“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
“For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.”
“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.”

Rev. Henrich opened her sermon by remembering that archaeologists had just “let the world know that they found the tunnel dug in 1944 outside of Vilnius Lithuania by Jewish prisoners in order to escape the evil in which they were trapped. 100 feet dug with bare hands and spoons. Such a desperate drive for freedom.” She also recalled that in July of 1776 the American Declaration of Independence was immediately printed and posted up and down the east coast of the colonies.

“I wonder if St. Paul wished for a printing press right around the corner in Galatia millennia earlier. His short letter to a little group of Jesus followers would have fallen harshly on many local ears. Let freedom ring, he says. How warmly welcomed is that claim to freedom when sung out by some minority group? Yet Paul insists, “For freedom Christ has set you free.” And that conviction, that powerful conviction has also come down through the ages to us.”

“Two strong claims to freedom shape us. The overlap of the word freedom in our foundational scripture as Christians and in the America’s founding document has often led us to think that both freedoms are the same. Freedom from the unjust practices of imperial England and freedom from the legalism of ancient Jewish life. But not exactly.”

“What kind of freedom do Christians proclaim? Paul writes about a different kind of freedom. True, he wants to assert that being part of God’s covenant people does not require taking on practices of a pre-Christ age. More important to his little church, though, is the belief they are all free, free to live the good life. No matter their status…slave or free, male or female…empowered to live a good life.”

“That sounds a little like our constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness, but again Paul had something quite different in mind. These new believers, he declared, were freed by the Spirit’s power to live a life of goodness, of depth, of peace. The good life was to be a life of goodness with God’s love as plumb line, to borrow a phrase. Freedom is for something bigger than my pursuits . . . it is for life lived in love of God and neighbor.”

“Paul defines the good life for new believers by what folks do. They bear one another’s burdens and they take responsibility for their own lives. This is where’s Christian freedom is not simply American freedom.” (Emphasis in original.)

“Has there ever been a time in the world when we were more aware of our interconnectedness? Despite a deep international desire to build walls around ourselves right now as protection from dangers that crop up around us, despite our yearning for a safe place to live the good live, we know with every fiber of our being that we can’t. We can’t live a good life by disconnecting. Our freedom is not freedom to live in safe and splendid isolation from all that causes us grief or fear. We are only free to be the village that raises the children, respects older citizens and attends to everyone in between. To live the good/godly life. We experience and we are to be that village as we gather around the table. Come, just come. As you are to receive in this company the blessing of God’s presence.” (Emphasis in original.)

“This isn’t the pursuit of happiness as we usually think of it–friends, family, a home, freedom of worship, the ability to pursue our own dreams. Paul is writing to those early believers about freedom to live by standards other than those of the world around them. I think those Jewish prisoners, commandeered to burn or bury their own as they were killed by the Nazis in 1944, they would understand. Freedom to get out, to tell the story of evil, to call the world to hear. Freedom to help each other for God’s sake…freedom to live. They bore the burdens of each other’s lives, a spoonful at a time.” (Emphasis in original.)

“It was Sunday morning at another table just a few weeks back where I learned something about bearing each other’s burdens. At 6:15 am, my brother-in-law drank coffee and talked about a new book he was reading. Now, you have to understand. This man was raised as a Quaker, is a smart, edgy agnostic. And he loves moving fast–from the delivery truck he drove in high school to the motorcycle he zips around on as a grandpa. And he watched his beloved Dad slow down with Parkinson’s disease until he finally stopped. Now watching my sister go through the same thing.”

“Suddenly he needed a response. ‘I’ve read Matthew,’ he said, ‘in the New Testament. So what’s the gospel? What?’ I waited, hoping he’d answer his own question. But no, this one was for me. ‘The gospel—it’s that the reign of God is at hand, right at hand and it’s for all God’s people” [I said.] ‘Right’ he shouted. ‘That’s it. Right now, Living is to love, God and your neighbor, whoever.’ I’ve never come to God’s table with my brother-in-law in church, but God came to that kitchen table where the two of us sat. The energy freely to embrace a life of care – it was there.”

“I don’t know how, but my speed-loving brother-in-law knew that he was free to live the good life/the God and gospel life by slowing down to walk with those he loves. Whatever it took, whatever it takes – he’s free to do it, to give it. What kind of freedom do Christians and all led by God’s spirit proclaim? What kind of freedom do we live? The freedom to love God and others as we learn to love ourselves, recognizing the village God has already created us to be. The freedom to tell THIS story to a world yearning for walled in happiness. Even if we do it slowly, a spoonful at a time.”

Conclusion

Yes, the central Christian message for me is to love God with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself! It is not complicated to say. And we are free to live our lives in joyful fulfillment of this instruction. Yet it is not always easy to do. We all too often fail to satisfy this great commandment. By God’s grace we are forgiven—time and time again—when we fall short.

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[1] The bulletin and the text of the sermon for this service are available online. The Prayer of Confession for this service was set forth in a prior post.

The Birth of the Word “Genocide”

In the fall of 1944, the word “genocide” appeared for the very first time in the book “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe” by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer who lost most of his family in the Holocaust and who fled to the U.S. in 1941. The book, which was published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, introduced the word as “A New Term and New Conception for Destruction of Nations.”[1]

Lemkin was inspired to create the term after listening to a 1941 radio speech by Winston Churchill, who talked about “the barbaric fury of the Nazis” and the world being “in the presence of a crime without a name.” Lemkin considered and then rejected terms like “barbarity,” “vandalism,” and “ethnocide.” Finally he created the word “genocide” by combining the Greek “genos” meaning “people” or “nation” with the Latin-derived suffix “-cide” for “killing.”

Lemkin then embarked on the mission of convincing governments to use the term to define a new crime under international law. In 1948 the United Nations General Assembly agreed with its approval of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. As of October 27, 2014, there are 146 states that are parties to this treaty.[2]

The treaty defines the crime of “genocide” as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [or] (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Now genocide is one of the crimes that is within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and within the customary international law principle of universal jurisdiction whereby any state may prosecute an individual for the crime regardless of where the crime occurred.

A new documentary film, “Watchers of the Sky,” brings Lemkin’s creative process to the screen by animating pages of his notebooks and by telling the stories of contemporary crusaders like Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and the author of a book about post-World War II commissions of genocide, “A Problem from Hell.”

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[1] This post is based upon the citations embedded above and upon Ben Zimmer, How ‘Genocide’ Was Coined, W.S. J. (Oct. 27, 2014). The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was created by Andrew Carnegie in the early 20^th century as discussed in a prior post.

[2] Although the Convention was unanimously adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 and signed two days later for the U.S. by President Harry Truman, it was not ratified by the U.S. until 1988 as discussed in a prior post.