Rome’s Iron Fist and Velvet Glove

There are few things more revealing in public life than the uneven application of principle. And the Vatican has just given us a rather striking example of it.

When traditionalist Latin Mass Catholics of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) consecrated four bishops without papal approval at Écône on 1 July, Rome moved at lightning speed. Within 24 hours, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith had declared excommunications, called the act schismatic, warned clergy and laity, and stated that SSPX confessions and marriages were unlawful and, in key cases, invalid.

Pope Leo XIV had publicly pleaded with the SSPX not to proceed with the episcopal consecrations, warning them against “tearing” at the “unity” of the Church. The Vatican’s message was translated widely and made painfully clear. Defy Rome and there will be consequences.

That was the tone: Firm, public, immediate. But when the Chinese Communist Party, through its state-controlled Catholic apparatus, has pushed ahead with episcopal appointments outside proper Vatican agreement, Rome suddenly finds a much softer voice.

In November 2022, Beijing installed Bishop John Peng Weizhao as auxiliary bishop of Jiangxi, a diocese the Holy See does not recognise. The Vatican said it had learned of the event with “surprise and regret”, noted that it did not conform to the spirit of the 2018 agreement the Vatican entered into with Communist China, and expressed hope it would not happen again.

Surprise and regret. That is Vaticanese for “please stop embarrassing us”.

Then in April 2023, Chinese authorities installed Bishop Joseph Shen Bin as bishop of Shanghai without prior Vatican approval. The Vatican spokesman said Rome had been informed of the transfer only days earlier and had learned of the installation from the media that morning.

Again, no thunderbolt. No sweeping excommunication. No global reconciliation protocol. No urgent doctrinal submission demanded from Catholics caught inside a state-run Church structure answerable to an atheist dictatorship.

Barely three months later, the late Pope Francis regularised the matter by formally appointing Shen Bin to Shanghai. Cardinal Parolin explained that the Pope had acted for the good of the diocese and to heal the canonical irregularity. He also admitted that the Holy See had not been consulted in the Chinese moves involving Shen Bin and Peng Weizhao.

So there it is. Traditionalist Catholics defy Rome and receive the full canonical artillery. Communist China defies Rome and receives regret, dialogue, and eventually retroactive recognition.

It is bizarre. Latin Mass traditionalists are treated as an existential threat to Catholicism, while Beijing’s Communists are treated as difficult negotiating partners who must be managed carefully over tea and paperwork.

Rome appears far more comfortable disciplining traditionalists than confronting a regime that surveils, manages, and subordinates religion to the state. Anyone who has dealt with modern institutions will recognise the pattern. They are often very brave with people who cannot hurt them, and very careful with those who can.

We see it everywhere now. Governments lecture citizens about speech while tiptoeing around hostile regimes overseas. Bureaucrats crush small businesses over paperwork while large corporations are invited in for consultation. Police somehow find the time to turn up for offensive Facebook posts but take their sweet time when ordinary people are dealing with real crime. The sternest language is usually reserved for the least powerful target in the room.

The Vatican is not immune to this habit.

It is one thing to insist that Catholic unity requires obedience to the Pope. That is a coherent Catholic position. What grates is when that insistence starts to look selective, especially when those being crushed are attached to tradition, while those being accommodated operate under the watchful eye of a communist state.

The faithful notice these things. They notice when “dialogue” is extended to ideological enemies of the Church but withheld from those praying in Latin. They notice when mercy appears to be linked to geopolitics. They notice when ecclesiastical authority roars like a lion at traditionalists but squeaks like a nervous mouse at Beijing.

Of course, the Vatican will say diplomacy with Communist China is necessary to protect Catholics there. That is not a trivial point. Chinese Catholics live under real pressure, and Rome has to weigh consequences that armchair critics, including people like me, can too easily overlook. But prudence is not the same as contradiction.

If the principle is that bishops cannot be imposed without papal mandate, then apply the standard everywhere. If schism wounds the Church, then so does state capture. If unity matters, then unity cannot mean obedience demanded of the weak and negotiated with the strong.

Not all defiance is treated equally. Not all offenders receive the same pastoral patience. Not all wounds to communion seem to provoke the same Roman fury.

The Church has survived emperors, barbarians, revolutionaries, heretics, tyrants, and fools. It will survive this too. But institutions lose moral authority when they apply principle with obvious preference. Ordinary Catholics do not need a canon law degree to see the difference.

The scandal is not that Rome punished defiance. The scandal is that Rome seems to know exactly how to punish it when the offenders are traditionalists, and exactly how to explain it away when the offender is Communist China.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
– Martin Luther King