Calling Out China

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VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - As outcry mounts against China for allowing the Wuhan virus to spread, faithful Catholics are wondering why the Vatican won't speak out.

Attorneys general from 18 states (AGs) are now calling on Congress to investigate China's role in spreading the COVID-19 pandemic. Their letter on Saturday referenced recent condemnations of China by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

"In what Secretary of State Pompeo has described as a 'classic communist disinformation effort,' the Chinese government, aided by the World Health Organization, appears to have intentionally misled the world over the last six months," said the AGs.

Vatican 'Politics' Muzzles Prelates

Asked why the Vatican doesn't speak out on China's role in causing more than 300 thousand deaths worldwide, China expert Steven Mosher told Church Militant it comes down to Vatican politics.

"The Sino-Vatican Agreement signed 20 months ago comes up for renewal on Sept. 22 of this year," said Mosher. "The Vatican's secretary of state, Cdl. Pietro Parolin, appears to be interested in renewing it, thus the silence about CCP [Chinese Communist Party] responsibility for the origin and spread of the deadly plague."

The AG's letter was addressed to both the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, along with notable congressional leaders. It focuses on ever-increasing evidence pointing to China's complicity in not only spreading the pandemic but also rendering other nations helpless to defend against it.

'Willful' Concealment

"Recent reports suggest that the communist Chinese government willfully and knowingly concealed information about the severity of the virus while simultaneously stockpiling personal protective equipment," the AGs noted.

The letter detailed China's following "layers of deceit" that began as the virus emerged there in December:

• Censoring Chinese health officials
• Muzzling Taiwanese complaints
• Expelling media outlets
• Targeting the western world with disinformation

Pompeo nailed China during a State Department news conference on May 6. He affirmed that China did, in fact, know about the emerging pandemic yet did nothing to stop it from spreading worldwide.

"They knew. China could have prevented the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. China could have spared the world descent into global economic malaise," declared Pompeo.

He added, "China is still refusing to share the information we need to keep people safe."

'Enormous' Evidence: Drones, Hacking

On May 3, Pompeo told ABC's This Week that the evidence against China is "enormous."

"I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan," he confirmed.

The letter from the 18 AGs further revealed that China's propaganda efforts include "suspicious gifts of drones to state, as well as 'educational' grants to American universities connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

Regarding American research into the Wuhan virus, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are accusing the People's Republic of China of cyber hacking. The joint statement on Wednesday stated that China's hacking was endangering the development of a treatment for the virus.

"The FBI is investigating the targeting and compromise of U.S. organizations conducting COVID-19-related research by PRC-affiliated cyber actors and non-traditional collectors," read the joint announcement.

"The potential theft of this information jeopardizes the delivery of secure, effective, and efficient treatment options," it added.

Vatican's 'Kid Gloves' for China

Yet, in the face of China's past and present actions that continue endangering lives, the Vatican keeps its eerie silence.

Mosher says it's nothing new for the current pontificate to ignore the CCP's human rights violations in hopes of political gain. Such hopes, he added, were completely unfounded:

More broadly, this pontificate has treated the CCP with kid gloves from the beginning, apparently in the hope that Pope Francis will one day be invited to visit China. This is, in my opinion, highly unlikely to happen. The CCP is determined to stamp out religious sentiment in China, not encourage it by having the leader of the world's largest organized religious body visit.

Kiboshing China-Partner WHO

President Donald Trump in April put a freeze on funding earmarked for the World Health Organization (WHO) for being complicit with China in allowing the pandemic to spread. Trump made good on his promise to "put a very powerful hold" on money thrown at WHO. The president announced on April 14 that he was putting a "60-to-90-day" freeze on funding while the White House reviews the agency's suspicious response at the start of the pandemic.

Trump asserted WHO was "China-centric" and its decisions helped spread the virus.

Mosher told Church Militant in April that the director of WHO was China's man. He called out WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has been outed as pro-communist with a history of covering up epidemics.

"Tedros is a corrupt Ethiopian politician who works for China, not for the welcoming of the world's population," said Mosher.

Repercussions In the Works

Already in March, the U.S. House of Representatives drafted a resolution demanding the Chinese government accept full responsibility for the global pandemic owing to its mishandling of the Wuhan virus.

The resolution stated that China's "mistakes" include "the Chinese government's intentional spread of misinformation to downplay the risks of the virus, a refusal to cooperate with international health authorities, internal censorship of doctors and journalists, and malicious disregard for the health of ethnic minorities."

The AGs, however, declared their intention to take further legal action. Their letter took note of a lawsuit filed by Missouri's Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who sued the CCP in April. In their letter, the AGs warned that "many of us are considering similar legal actions."

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