Zen Responds After Being Labeled "Distorted Personality" for Defending a Persecuted Bishop
Fr. Han’s article described the replacement of the persecuted underground bishop with the state-recognized bishop as a positive sign of improving Sino-Vatican relations. He claimed that critics of the situation - implicitly referring to Cardinal Zen - were motivated by “stupidity,” “malice,” or a “distorted personality.”
“This struck a nerve with me,” Cardinal Zen replied via his personal blog on December 11: “I don’t admit to being a ‘bad person’ or having a ‘personality disorder,’ but I am indeed ‘stupid’ enough to ‘take it personally.’”
Zen also responded to Fr. Han’s reference to his criticism of the Synod on Synodality. He clarified that his description of “Church suicide behavior” does not refer to the synod as a whole or to synodality in general, but specifically to implementing the synod’s “execution phase” based on the final document.
Zen stated that the synod’s general secretary and relator have acknowledged that dioceses may interpret the document in widely different ways, leading to differing regional “experiments.”
He warned again that this could undermine the Church’s unity and lead to a form of structural diversity similar to that of the Anglican Communion.
Zen cited the Anglican Communion’s fragmentation, noting that only a minority of Anglicans remain aligned with the Archbishop of Canterbury, while a majority have separated into other bodies, including the Global Anglican Future Conference.
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