The Vatican was trying to “score sympathy points” in granting a recent interview about Hong Kong, to pacify frustrations about its lack of response to China’s cover-up of the deadly COVID-19 outbreak, Apple Daily learned.

Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the secretary for relations with states, recently broke the Vatican’s near two-year silence about suppression in Hong Kong, explaining to the Catholic magazine America that he believed grandstanding statements might not be effective in helping the city.

The interview was conducted because the Holy See was under great internal pressure to speak up in the wake of deaths among elderly priests from the coronavirus, according to an unnamed person familiar with the Vatican situation.

Both Italy and the Vatican had suffered greatly in the pandemic, and discontent among clergy was rising, given the Chinese authorities’ bungled handling of the COVID-19 crisis in the early stages.

They were very dissatisfied with the Holy See tolerating China for the sake of establishing formal diplomatic ties, so it wanted to gain some sympathy by giving an interview with a friendly media outlet, the source said.

The Manhattan-based America is a national weekly publication of the Jesuits of the United States.

A clergyman in Hong Kong said Gallagher was being hypocritical and “a modern fascist” when he tried to clarify to the magazine why Pope Francis had remained silent on Beijing’s human rights abuses and crackdown in Hong Kong.

The Holy See bowed down to power, and its statements about freedom, democracy and human rights were but empty words, the clergyman said. He said that it was worse than “loyal garbage,” a phrase previously used by a pro-China scholar to describe incompetent Beijing loyalists in Hong Kong.

The clergyman also drew a parallel with Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees as being full of hypocrisy. “Who would expect the Holy See of today, the modern version of the fascists, to do an even better job,” he said.

On the delay in naming a new Hong Kong bishop, Gallagher told the magazine that he did not know if an appointment was on the horizon as the responsibility lay with the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

It was understood that Gallagher had in private opposed getting Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Ha to be the new head of the Hong Kong diocese, as he believed the latter was “in cahoots” with the outspoken retired bishop Cardinal Joseph Zen, the person familiar with Vatican affairs said.

The congregation worked under the instructions of the Section for Relations with States, the source said, claiming that Gallagher was lying and trying to shirk responsibility.

Click here for Chinese version

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play