May 3, 2025 • 48 mins
SEGMENT 1: Frank Gaffney is joined by Rod D. Martin Pt. 1
SEGMENT 2: Frank Gaffney is joined by Rod D. Martin Pt. 2
SEGMENT 3: Frank Gaffney is joined by Steven Mosher Pt. 1
SEGMENT 4: Frank Gaffney is joined by Steven Mosher Pt. 2
SEGMENT 5: Frank Gaffney is joined by Steven Mosher Pt. 3
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to Securing America with me Frank Afney, the program
that's a kind of owner's manual for protecting the country
we love against all enemies foreign and domestic to the
glory of God and his Kingdom. A man who is
all about the glory of God as well as the Kingdom,
as well as protecting the country we love is a
(00:31):
dear friend of mine, the chairman of the board of
our new Institute for the American Future. His name is
Rod Martin. He is an entrepreneur, having cut his teeth
early on in his career with the PayPal mafia, as
it's known. He has also served as a policy director
(00:55):
for then Governor Mike Huckabee in Arkansas, and he is
these days splitting his time between entrepreneurial activity, the Institute
for the American Future, and Rodmartin dot org, which is
a wonderful resource online of analysis and commentary, some by Rod,
(01:20):
some by others that we're going to tap for the
purposes of both this program and as a part of
our regular feature at Securing America.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Welcome back to my friend. It's great to have you.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
With us, great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
As we speak, there is high drama in the National
Security Firmament in Washington, d C. Former Congressman army colonel
retired National Security Advisor to the President of the United
(01:56):
States Mike Waltz, has been relocated from the White House
to the appointment of US Ambassador to the United Nations
Marco Rubio. The Secretary of State has been assigned, at
(02:16):
least temporarily the dual hat of being the National Security
Advisor as well as the Secretary of State, as well as,
of course, the guy who's cleaning up the mess left
over from cashiering a USAID the Agency for International Development.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
What do we make of all of this, Rod Martin?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Is this further evidence of the chaos theory that people
ascribe to Donald Trump or some of his past personnel gyrations.
Is this wise reallocation of supvery talented people.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, this makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
He needed a UN ambassador obviously, and uh will Als
will be a great one.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I don't think there's any question about that.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
I don't know how much signal gait actually played into this.
I would honestly hope not very much.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
But the appointment and about.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Signal signal gate of course, refers to the Embroilio that
that that he was responsible for apparently of starting a
signal chat group which had a reporter added to it inadvertently.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Right, Well, you know, maybe he was responsible, maybe he wasn't.
That's what people are saying now. But what he's certain
is Donald Trump must not be too mad ad him,
or he wouldn't make him. You an ambassador. Everybody would
love to have an ambassador title. You mentioned my old
boss Mike Huckabees now ambassador to Israel and just loving that.
(03:52):
And uh, this is not a this is not a
cushy retirement post for Wall. This is right on the
main stage. So I don't know what the plan is
for a new NSA. I doubt it's Marco Rubio in
the long run. But what we've seen consistently is Trump
(04:13):
is enthused about these dual roles, at least as a
short term fix. And you saw that with Cash Betel
being named interim director of atf SO and actually Marco,
as you mentioned.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Yeah, the talent I have to say that Donald Trump
has put into place, particularly we focus primarily here at
securing America.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Of course, as you know, Rod, on the national security
foreign policy beat, it's pretty impressive, and so I think
that reassigning people where it makes sense, and this arrangement
does seem to make sense, at least temporarily in Marco's case.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Well, and it's the kind of most exact business leader makes.
It may shake up Washington, but this is pretty standard stuff.
If you've got a talented guy and you need him
in a different role, you just move him into the
different role. And Trump is clearly rested and ready after
his four year sojourn in the wilderness. They have a plan,
(05:26):
they have a team. Everything's clicking. It's really quite impressive.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well, let's talk a little bit about that. You know, the.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Celebration or marking, depending on who you're talking to, of
the one hundredth day of the Trump presidency is a
tale of two cities, I guess, or two perspectives on
the city. One is that you have, of course Trump supporters, enthusiasts, admirers,
what have you describing it as one of great acomplishment
(06:02):
Trump says, unprecedented accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Maybe so.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
A lot of detractors, though, Rod, particularly in a space
you're very knowledgeable about, and that is the economy. What
is your assessment of the trade thrash? But also what
seemed to be some of the knock on effects and
consumer confidence, possibility of recession, and other dire analyzes of
(06:34):
you know, sort of forecasting that we're seeing from certain quarters.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Disruption brings a certain degree of hardship, there's no question
about that. But Trump has made very clear what he's
aiming at, and he seems to be getting there in
rapid order. We've spent since World War Two in these
lopsided trade deals where the markets we sell to get
(06:59):
to treat as quite badly and we open the door
to everybody who wants to come. That has made our
allies rich. It's also made China rich, and that's fine.
I mean, we wanted Germany to be rich so it
could stand up to the Soviets. We wanted France to
get back on its feet, We wanted Britain to recover.
(07:20):
These are good things, and of course we had a
certain desire to keep Japan from being overrun by the
Soviets as well. So these are good things. But okay,
it's thirty five years past the Cold War. Why are
we letting Canada completely free load on our defenses while
charging our dairy farmers a two hundred and eighty percent tariff.
(07:42):
That's insane, and that doesn't mean Ottawa collects taxes. That
means that American dairy farmers don't get to sell to Canada.
Same thing in India with one hundred percent tariff on motorcycles.
That's just keeping Harley Davidson out of their market. And
you can just go down the lip, I mean, go
to Europe. Those guys have been charging us four times
(08:04):
the tariff on automobiles that we charge them.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
That's just absurd.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
So Trump is expecting them to step up on NATO expenditures,
on their own defense spending and be able to carry
their own weight. It is ridiculous that they need us
to help in Ukraine, not that we would help, but
that they would need us to help. Europe has an
economy almost as big as the United States. Why the
(08:30):
heck are they so so just weak?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
It's absurd.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
And likewise, we're subsidizing that, not only by spending seventy
percent of what he is spent on defense in the
entire NATO alliance, we're further subsidizing it through these lopsided
trade deals. Trump's going to bring a halt to it,
and you know, we've got one hundred and thirty countries
now negotiating free trade agreements with the Trump administration. We'll
(08:58):
see how free they are, but it would be nearly
impossible for those agreements not to be better than the
ones we had.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, very interesting point.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
We have to take a short break here in a moment.
Let me just say, I think of the countries that
you mentioned that we've enriched, China is probably not such
a good thing to have done, and we're going to
talk a little bit about it, the possible changes in
the investment policies that we've been pursuing towards China. On
(09:30):
the other side of this very short break, stay tuned
for more of the wit and wisdom of my friend
Rod Martin.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Right after this.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Welcome back, Rod Martin is in the house virtually. We're
very pleased to say he is, of course, one of
the free range intellects that we have the privilege of
both being associated with and showcasing on this program, and I.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Couldn't be more pleased that he's a regular feature of it.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Rod, I wanted to ask you about Canada. You mentioned
that the trade imbalanced Arrangement is now being reworked. Unfortunately,
a collateral damage along the way was the election of
(10:37):
a man who professes to be particularly suited to standing
up to Donald Trump. Mark Carney the new Prime Minister. Well,
I guess he is the Prime Minister, but he's got
a new mandate for some years. Now. What do you
make of that? Is that a bad thing for America?
(10:59):
Collateral damage in the course of positive disruption.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I think it's very much like.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Gusts ending of Charlie Wilson's war We'll see.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
You know. Could Trump have played that better?
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Possibly, but I don't know that he didn't get exactly
what he wanted. The truth is the Conservatives being defeated
has created tremendous instability in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Premiere
of Alberta introduced a new threshold on an initial on
(11:37):
a voter initiative, radically cut the number of signatures necessary
to get one done, and they immediately have more than
enough signatures on a petition to separate from.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Canada the fIF after all.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Yeah, so they may be fifty first state, they may
be an independent country, doesn't really matter. I mean, honestly,
that would be good for Alberta and Saskatchewan far more
than it would be good for the United States, although
it'd be good for US too, But a free trade
zone with Alberta and Saskatchewan or in the alternative statehood
(12:17):
America would be completely energy independent. We would dominate export
markets and honestly, Alberta would quit having to pay for
all the welfare takers in the rest of Canada. They're
subsidizing the whole country. It's absurd, it's wrong. They don't
have representation to match that. They should have left Canada
(12:39):
long ago.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, to say nothing of the dominance that we're seeing
the Chinese Communist Party exercising and.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Most of the rest of Canada.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Unfortunately, I hope it's not true in Saskatchewan and Alberta,
but that maybe another consideration.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
One of us Ottawa clearly doesn't.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
One of the other questions is in your previous comments
about Ukraine, I wanted to get your take on the
deal that finally has now been signed between the United
States and Ukraine that commits US to some part in
the well hopefully restoration of Ukraine, but also access to
(13:27):
rare earth minerals that are of considerable importance, especially if
we are finally decoupling from the Chinese Communist parties supply.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Chains well as your viewers know that's essential. We are
grossly dependent on China for these things that are necessary
to make iPhones and F thirty five.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
It's just absurd.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
And by the way, not because we don't have rare earths.
We actually have enough rare earths to be able to
supply eighty five percent of the globe Google market, not
just our own. We just don't refine them here and
it's environmentally unpleasant. There needs to be a technological breakthrough
(14:10):
there to do it more cleanly so that it's more
appropriate for the US.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
But you know, it's not like we're not using the things.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
We know perfectly well that China's screwing up their environment
and we just don't seem to care. So if you
actually care about the environment, restoring this to the United States,
and we used to actually be okay on this until
about nineteen eighty Jimmy Carter messed that up as he
did thorium reactors and lots of things. Oh yeah, this
(14:42):
is this is a way for us to be able
to secure our allies and pump money into.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
The United States.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And as far as Ukraine is concerned, Ukraine does not
have the money, and it certainly doesn't have the technology
to be able to develop its resources adequately. We need
those resources, but we also need that to be there
so that our allies aren't dependent on China either, And
so America going in and developing that stuff is great
(15:11):
for Ukraine, it's great for us, and I think everybody
would be thrilled with that in keV if it weren't that.
They wanted more, and they also want commitments. We're just
not going to give them. There's no way we're putting
the US army on the Russian border.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
That's just not going to happen.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
But that you know, and he wants primea and he
can't have everything he wants.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Well, that's I guess the question. Do you think this arrangement,
as Donald Trump has suggested, is sufficient under the day
to keep putin at bay without having to put boots
on the ground, have you know, I guess wingtips on
the ground or construction boots if you will.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I think it helps a lot. It's not a panacea.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
They're going to have to be some other arrangements probably
to make that peace lasting. It's it's very much like
what we keep talking about in China. The Russian demographic
problem is catastrophic. And you know, if you can just
out last a certain period of time, Russia is not
going to have the ability to project power back into Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
So that, dude, really the crucial time.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
But yes, just to clarify on as a result of
demographic trends.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Yes, absolutely, I mean Russia is dying off and this
war has made it vastly worse. And actually we've got
some really fascinating information on this at Rodmartin dot org
that I hope everybody will check out the demographic implosion
that people like Elon Musk has been warning about now
for some time, and praise God for him. People are
(16:56):
finally beginning to wake up to this. This has been
in progress now for several decades. The population bomb Paul
Erlick's screed from nineteen sixty eight was always wrong and
all of his predictions failed, And here we are now
we're seeing now, we're seeing the real possibility, for example,
(17:17):
that China could lose seventy five percent of its population
by the end of the century. And that's just catastrophic,
but more so because guess who you don't have. First,
you don't have working age people because the leading edge
of this is the young. So you have this huge
bulge of retirees that have to be paid for by
(17:38):
this ever shrinking working age group, and they're just really,
really in trouble. China got old before it got rich.
It may look rich from the outside, but go into
the interior and you see just how poor it truly is,
just like you do in Russia, and they have real
problems that they really can't get out out of, which
(18:00):
puts them at maximum danger to us right now exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Rod, let me just commend to the listeners your work
on demographics, quite apart from this China piece and Russia
for that matter, is extraordinarily helpful and real real resource. Lastly,
for the day, you've also written up recently at Rodmartin
dot org a very powerful piece about the fiftieth anniversary
(18:29):
of the Fall of Psychon.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Give us a minute on that if you.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Would brought well.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
It's just tragic, of course, and it's tragic not because
it's sad. It's tragic because it was an American betrayal.
You can argue all you want about whether we should
or shouldn't have been in the war, but the truth
is we were and Once you're there, you have obligations,
and we made specific obligations in the Treaty of Paris
in January seventy three. We were obligated to resupply the
(19:01):
South Vietnamese in perpetuity. We were obligated to bomb the
North if they took Soviet resupply, if they transgressed the treaty,
if they continued infiltrating through the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
all the things. And the Democrats in Congress cut all
of that off within months of the treaty, and by
(19:25):
the time South Vietnam fell, they didn't have gas for
their jeeps.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Set in motion, though the massacres that followed in millions
of day. Thank you Rod so much for your insights,
for joining us this week, and we look forward to
doing so next week.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
God bless you man.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Excellent welcome back, and a very special welcome to our
(20:07):
next guest. His name is Steve Moser, and we're going
to talk with him about communist China and specifically the
threat that it poses to the Roman Catholic Church as
well as Judeo Christian civilization and certainly our country. Before
we do, I want to give you just a little
texture for the conversation we're going to have about the church.
(20:31):
It's a time of choosing for the Roman Catholic Church. Obviously,
its cardinals will be making a choice of a new
pope one week from today as we speak, but an
extremely powerful webinar yesterday revealed that they face an even
more immediate and arguably more fraught choice in the meantime.
The cardinals must decide whether the Church will stand with freedom,
(20:51):
Judaeo Christian civilization, and Yes, Jesus Christ, or submit to
a Chinese communist dictator, Jijipang, who the Vatican has secretly
to supplant all three in China. Underscoring the choice, Beijing
yesterday announced that it had unilaterally appointed two new Catholic
bishops and direct violation of a secret deal negotiated by
(21:13):
the reported front runner to be the next pope, Vatican
Secretary of State Pietro Perolyn. The cardinals must repudiate this
odious deal. Learn more, and urge them to do so
at Repealthdeal dot Org. We're going to turn to Steve
Moser for some further insights into this particular secret deal,
(21:40):
which back in twenty eighteen when it was first negotiated
by Cardinal Parolyn. He had the insight to say was
going to be disastrous and warned Parolyn and warned the
church more generally that that was the case. Cardinal Zen,
(22:02):
the historic and iconic Catholic bishop, initially church leader, Cardinal
of Hong Kong, actually put it in a very powerful way.
He called it a suicide pact. And we're going to
take stock both of why that is so and how
(22:26):
it has become more and more obviously the case with
Steve Moser, and then talk about some other aspects of
what's going on with China. Let me just say Steve
is an author of a number of books, including Bully
of Asia, important one about pandemics, but also most recently
(22:48):
The Devil and Communist China, perfect introduction to this very
important topic. He is a member of our Committee on
the Present Danger China, for which I am very grateful,
as well as the president and driving force behind the
Population Research Institute. Steve Motion, it's great to have you
(23:09):
back in the house.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Welcome sir.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
It's good to be with you again, Frank, and congratulations
to you and all of the committee for the great
work that you're doing on this issue of the Sino
Vatican Agreement, as well as so many other issues concerning China,
which of course is the paramount threat to the United States,
indeed to the existence of human freedom across the world.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Well, back at you, thank you for your very important
leadership in our committee. So, Steve, your understanding of this
secret agreement and what it would almost certainly result in
is a matter of not just historical note, but relevance
(24:00):
to today. If you can give us a bit of
the backstory, among other things, of your conversations with the negotiator,
Cardinal Perilin on the subject.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
I'm not sure that Cardinal Peroline actually negotiated anything. We'll
get to that point in a minute. But let me
back up here and say that the founder of the
People's Republic of China, like all committed Marxist was absolutely
hostile to organized religion and was determined when Mao Zittong
(24:37):
took power in nineteen forty nine in China, overall of China,
he was determined to stamp out all religious faith in China,
which he described as one of the four thick ropes
ropes binding the Chinese people. Well, he was going to
bind the Chinese people in a different way with a
thick rope of communism, but he set out to destroy,
(25:01):
especially Christianity, which he regarded as a foreign religion even
though it had been in China for over a thousand years,
and specifically Catholicism, because Catholicism is not only in his view,
a foreign religion, but one that was led by a foreigner,
specifically the Pope in the Vatican in Italy in Europe.
(25:24):
That project lasted seven years, during the course of which
many Catholics were tortured, some were martyred, and the project
to eliminate the Catholic Church in China over those few
years failed miserably, and so Chairman now at that point,
(25:45):
backed up and decided to instead of destroying the Catholic Church,
to set up a faux church, the Patriotic Catholic Church,
in order to infiltrate Catholicism, control Catholicism, and co op
the Catholic Church from the inside. That project, of course,
continues to the present day with the Catholic Patriotic Church,
(26:06):
but it failed in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties.
I know it failed because in nineteen ninety five I
was in Hong Kong and I met with the then
papal nuncio to China, Monsignor Feloni, later Cardinal of Filoni,
and we had a long meeting about the state of
the Catholic Church in China, and he told me that
(26:30):
the Catholic Church in China was united. It was not
divided between the patriotic Church and the underground church. He
astonished me by saying it was united. And I said,
what do you mean, Monsignor. He said, Well, all of
the Catholics.
Speaker 7 (26:42):
In China are loyal to the Vatican.
Speaker 6 (26:44):
Nearly all the priests are as well, he said, And
with the exception of two bishops, all of the bishops
in China have been recognized by the Vatican as legitimate
illit bishops.
Speaker 7 (26:55):
He said.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
The only two exceptions are the Bishop of Shanghai and
the Bishop of Beijing. They've made too many compromises to
the Chinese Communist Party. But as for the rest, the
Church is unified, he said, with a smile. Well, that
was the happy state in the late nineteen nineties. In
the early two thousands, and then in twenty twelve, two
things happened that dramatically changed this happy situation. The first
(27:20):
was that Pope Benedict the sixteenth passed away and elected
in his place was Pope Francis. The second thing that
happened was that a new leader of the Chinese Communist
Party emerged, Si Gene Ping, who is virtually an ideological
clone of Mau Zetto, who, like Mao, hates religion and
(27:41):
wants to stamp it out, replacing it with the cult,
the ideological cult of communism, and so he began to
tighten the screws on the Catholic Church at the same
time that Pope Francis began to seek some sort of
concord at some sort of agreement with the Chinese Communist Party.
In his naivete, in his embrace of socialism, in his
(28:07):
desire to have some sort of formal agreement with the
Chinese Communist Party, he sent to China the worst possible
emissary to negotiate such an agreement. People will be astonished
to learn that he sent the disgraced, defraudt ex Cardinal
(28:28):
Theodore mccarriy to China to represent the Vatican in its
negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party over the future of
the Catholic Church in China. Now I can't imagine a
worse emissary as we all know.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Mccarriy, could I just ask a question clarification.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Had mccarrot been disgraced to defraudt prior to that yes?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Mission, Yes he had.
Speaker 6 (28:55):
Frank he had been told by Pope Benedict to withdraw
from active ministry. He ignored that order even at the time,
and once Pope Francis emerged as the new Pope, he
came out publicly and openly and was sent by the
Pope as his emissary to China. We actually have copies
(29:19):
of his correspondence to Pope Francis saying that he promised
Pope Francis.
Speaker 7 (29:26):
This is Theodore Mcarick speaking.
Speaker 6 (29:28):
I promised to fulfill the ancient dream of Matteo Ricci,
the great Jesuit missionary to China back in the seventeenth century.
I promised to fulfill the mission of Mateo Ricci and
bring you China.
Speaker 7 (29:43):
Holy Father.
Speaker 6 (29:44):
Well, that was quite an extravagant promise. He went to China.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
I had been told that one other consideration for Francis Steve,
which may or may not be the most important one, but.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
That he had this.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Well, Shakespeare would call it vaulting ambition to be the
first pope to go to China, not so much to
bring China to the Pope, but to bring the Pope
to China. Did that feature in all this to you?
Speaker 6 (30:12):
Absolutely, There's no question that he imagined himself making a
kind of triumphal entry into Beijing, normalizing relations between the
Chinese Communist Party and the Vatican, and again, you know,
achieving a kind of concordat with the Chinese Communist Party.
(30:34):
Terribly naive, overly ambitious, but encouraged by a corrupt former
cardinal who one can imagine when he went to China.
I'm sure that the Chinese Communist Party took full advantages
of his weaknesses, McCarry's weaknesses. In any event, that was
(30:55):
the agreement by which you mean his sexual traditional elections.
We know the Chinese Communist Party uses honeypots, uses drugs,
uses money to accomplish its ends.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
And.
Speaker 6 (31:10):
I think that McCarrick may have been vulnerable on at
least two of those counts from what we.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Know, and probably repeatedly for the purposes of these negotiations.
Speaker 6 (31:22):
Absolutely so, then we come to the year twenty eighteen.
In the meantime, we have seen restrictions, increasing restrictions on
all religious activity in China, increasingly onerous restrictions on their activity,
the activity not just of Catholics, but of Christians in general,
of Buddhists, of Daoas of Higer Muslim, of the Tibetan Buddhists,
(31:47):
and so forth, all of whom are operating under increasingly
tight restrictions imposed by a dictator who wants to replace
the Church of the Catholic Church in China with what
I call the of China.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'm over time, hold the thought. We'll be right back
with more. Stay tuned for more with Stephen Mosher. Welcome back.
(32:27):
We are visiting with the great Steve Moser. He is
one of the first Westerners, certainly the first social scientists
to get into China when it opened its doors a
crack back in the nineteen seventies. There's a tale there
as well, what he learned about the one child policy
(32:49):
that has informed the work he's done ever since, notably
with his Population Research Institute. But his mastery of what
is the story of the Chinese Communist Party is unsurpassed,
and we always appreciate the chance to pick his brains.
As we've been doing about this secret deal that was
(33:09):
negotiated in twenty eighteen, and I unfortunately lost track of
the time, Steve, so I had to cut you off.
Pick up with what happened in twenty eighteen. After McCarrick
began this process of negotiating a new arrangement with the
Chinese Communist.
Speaker 6 (33:29):
Party, by the spring of twenty eighteen, it was clear
that the Vatican was moving very quickly towards signing an
agreement with China with the Chinese Communist Party. If I
say China, I always mean the Chinese Communist Party. And
so I requested and got a meeting with Card Perlin,
the Secretary of State responsible for the negotiations with the
(33:52):
Chinese Communist Party. And I sat down with him for
a full hour and explained to him.
Speaker 7 (33:59):
When the whole gamut of.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
The Chinese Communist Party's human rights violations with regard especially
to violations of religious freedom. I told him that the
walls were closing in on religious believers in China and
that now was the worst possible time to in effect
endorse that behavior by signing some kind of agreement with China.
Speaker 7 (34:24):
I told him in great detail how China.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
Had violated every international agreement it had ever signed, from
the Nuclear non Proliferation Agreement to the agreement joining the
World Trade Organization. You can list literally dozens of agreements
that the Chinese Communist Party signed only to gain a
political strategic advantage, generally over the West and the United States.
(34:50):
And I said, they will violate this agreement before the
ink is dry on the paper. I said, finally, that
the Chinese Communist Party will insist that every join that
priests and bishops formally register with the government, which would
be tantamount to joining the Patriotic Catholic Association. And he said,
(35:12):
to my great surprise, he said two things. He said
a number of things, but two things stand out in
my mind. The first was he said, we have no
objection to the requirement that priests and bishops register with
the government. Well, you're not talking about the government, you're eminent.
You're talking about the Chinese Communist Party, which will use
(35:33):
that registration to produce them. Secondly, he said, the agreement
is already negotiated. We are just waiting for the Chinese
side to sign the agreement. At that point I realized
that the agreement was a done deal. It was signed
that September and has been regularly renewed in the years since,
(35:58):
even in the face of flagrant and open violations of
what we supposed to be the terms of the secret
agreement over the appointment of bishops. But let me tell
you how bad the naivete of the Vatican and Cardinal
Perlin has been. And I call it naivete. I mean,
that's the best gloss I can put on it. There
(36:19):
are worse interpretations, obviously, But just as a side note,
I did once ask Cardinal George Pell, the great Australian
cardinal who was brought in to clean up the Vatican finances,
if there was evidence of payments from the Chinese Communist
(36:41):
Party into the Vatican's coffers. And Cardinal Pell told me
I've knew the cardinal for a long time. He said,
there's no evidence in the official records of payments from
the Chinese Communist Party of any kind, he said, but
I cannot speak to any private payments that may have
been made to individuals.
Speaker 7 (37:00):
Said about that.
Speaker 6 (37:02):
So we come back to twenty nineteen, and by this time,
a year after the signing the agreement, churches are being
torn down a convents that are being built for orders
of underground nuns are being demolished, Shrines that have existed
in China for hundreds of years are being demolished, Statues
are being torn down, and worst of all, priests and
(37:26):
bishops of the underground Church are being brought into forcibly,
brought into meetings with Chinese Communist officials at which they
are required to quote register with the government, which actually
means registering as members of the Catholic Patriotic Association, which
is run by and for the Chinese Communist Party and
which is officially in schism with Rome. That is to say,
(37:50):
they are being required to join a schismatic organization dividing
the Church. What does the Vatican say about this? In
an unsigned document from the Vatican, which I suspect was
written by someone in the Secretariat of State, it says
to the bishops and the priests of China, if you
(38:11):
are brought into such a meeting and required to sign
an agreement joining the Catholic Patriotic Association, bring in witnesses
so that they can witness the fact that you're signing
under duress. Or if you're not allowed to bring in witnesses,
make a note at the bottom of the agreement that
you're joining the Catholic Patriotic Association, saying I'm joining under
(38:33):
protest Well, obviously in a communist country, neither of those
options is viable. You're not going to be allowed to
bring in witnesses, You're not going to be allowed to
write anything on the document.
Speaker 7 (38:44):
Other than your signature. Anyway, This just underlines the.
Speaker 6 (38:47):
Total naivete of the Vatican and its desire to have
this agreement at whatever cost to the underground church and
the underground bishops and the underground priests of China. And
the cost has been tremendestly heavy.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
I want to get into those costs with you as well, Steve.
But just to wrap this up, the absence of any
such notation on the page would presumably be seen by
the Church as evidence that you know, they were not
in fact objecting and that all is actually well, as
(39:23):
would be the line of the Chinese Communist Party, right.
Speaker 7 (39:28):
I suppose so.
Speaker 6 (39:29):
But no one outside of the country of China, outside
of the Office of Religious Affairs, will ever see these documents.
Just like the agreement itself. These documents are our secret.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Now I have before you go anywhere further, we have
to take a short break. We'll be right back with
more with Stephen Mosher on well, what has been the
horrific cost and the further dire implications of this deal,
especially if it were to be now effectively entrusted to
(40:06):
a new.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Pope who is very much in favor of it. Stay tuned,
we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
We're back for this concluding segment with Steve Moser, the
author of The Devil.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
And Chinese and Communist China. Let me do that again.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
The Devil and Communist China a very apt platform from
which to take stock of what I consider to be
truly a demonic deal struck by the Church back in
twenty eighteen and then subsequently react most recently a few
(41:06):
months ago, for four years. And Steve, you have a
couple of other insights about this cardinal perilin that I
want to make sure we address the extent to which,
not least he would be expected to be a very
(41:28):
strong supporter of this arrangement were he to become the pope.
Speaker 6 (41:36):
The Cardinal Perlin's prestige as the Secretary of State is heavily,
heavily dependent upon the continuation of the Sino Vatican agreement.
Which he shepherded through the process, and of course continues
(41:57):
to renew it. Has continued to renew it over the
last of seven years now, even in the face of
evidence that the Chinese Communist Party is violating the supposed
terms of the agreement which require the Pope to have
a veto over the appointment of bishops. This provision, which
(42:19):
is key of course to the authority of the papacy.
The Pope has the authority to appoint bishops in the
Catholic Church, has been violated repeatedly by China. Violated two
years ago when they moved a bishop into the Sea
of Shanghai, the most important diocese in China, without even
(42:40):
notifying the Vatican, leaving the Vatican embarrassed, leaving the Vatican
saying that the sin of Vatican Agreement was basically being violated,
was a dead letter, and yet within a few months
Pope Francis recognized this illicitly transferred bishop as the legitimate
bishops of Shanghai, ignoring the fact that the real bishop
(43:03):
in charge of Shanghai has been imprisoned for over ten
years now somewhere in the outskirts of Shanghai. And then,
of course, after Pope Francis died, the Chinese Communist Party,
in what can only be described as a truly shocking move,
appointed two new bishops, and of course without the approval
(43:27):
of the Pope, there is no pope right now, So
how could the pope have even vetoed. They knew that
the Pope had died, They knew that they didn't bother
going through the process of waiting for a new pope
before appointing their own bishops.
Speaker 7 (43:41):
So the agreement is, I believe, a dead letter, and yet.
Speaker 6 (43:46):
Cardinal Perlin continues to try the pretense that there is
actually an agreement with China. I don't believe, actually, Frank,
that the agreement has ever been signed by the Chinese side.
I think that it was clear to years ago in
the connection with the appointment of the new Bishop of
Shanghai that Cardinal Perlin said, you have to understand the
(44:07):
agreement is still a work in progress, and that's why
we can't release the text of the agreement. Well, any
negotiations that are still continuing mean what they mean. There
is no set agreement, There is no sign concord at
there is no signed accord. There is just the pious
Hope on the part of the Vatican that somedays, somehow,
(44:28):
if the Vatican behaves itself, that the Chinese Communist Party
will as well.
Speaker 7 (44:32):
That will never happen.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
This just adds more ignominy to the whole enterprise, doesn't it.
But Steve, I want to spend the remaining a couple
of minutes we have talking about the damage that's been
done either by the deal itself to some extent, but
as it's fairly limited in scope apparently, but who knows
because nobody's seen it, but in terms of what it
(44:58):
has done virtue of legitimizing the Chinese Communist Party and
some of these arrangements that govern the Patriotic Catholic Church
for example, which by the way, one of the most
interesting things that came out of this webinar, and I
strongly commend it to everyone. You can find it at
repealthedeal dot org.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Was the point that.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
The so called Patriotic Church Catholic Church has been actually
moved in the official wiring diagrams from the State apparatus
to the United Front Work Department, which is of course
(45:43):
the vehicle for influence operations and political warfare of the
Chinese Communist Party, is it not?
Speaker 6 (45:51):
It is, and the United Front Department exists to infiltrate
and co opt and control organizations outside the Chinese Communist Party.
So putting the Catholic Church and religious affairs in general
under the United Front Department makes it clear that the
Chinese Communist Party's goal is precisely that to infiltrate, to
(46:12):
co opt and control the Catholic Church in China and
basically drive a wedge between it and the Universal Church,
making it into a vehicle that serves the interests and
the ideology and the purposes of the Chinese Communist Party,
not the purposes that Jesus Christ had in mind when
he set up the church in the world. Today, the
(46:34):
deal needs to be repealed. It needs to be completely repudiated.
Speaker 7 (46:38):
By the Vatican, and the.
Speaker 6 (46:40):
Underground church that still exists needs to be supported.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
And if that is not done now, Steve, if this
is not very much part of, if not the run
up to the conclave, ideally, but certainly the conclave and
the selection of a pope, what are the likely results
going to be with respect of the deal?
Speaker 6 (47:07):
The likely results are going to be a continuation of
what we've seen over the last ten years, the continuing
persecution of faithful Catholics in China, the continued destruction of
the Catholic Church in China, with the ultimate goal of
the Chinese Communist Party being to stamp out Catholicism entirely
within its borders.
Speaker 7 (47:29):
That is not something.
Speaker 6 (47:30):
That any pope should in any way be a part
of or be a part of presiding over. And so
I would hope the deal is repealed, and that the
new pope, if it is not repealed before the new
Pope is elected, that he himself will repeal it, disavow it,
and repudiate it.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
And of course our repeal the Deal campaign is aimed
at making sure that it's a condition of employment. Basically,
we don't want a pope running the Catholic Church playing
the role, the moral role worldwide, not far beyond China,
who is essentially beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. Steve Mosa,
(48:12):
we have to leave it at that for the moment,
so much more to cover. Please come back soon if
you would. In the meantime, godspeed in your great work
at the Population Research Institute, your amazing resource. I thank
you the rest of you will join us again next
time until then, go forth and multiply
Welcome to Securing America with me Frank Afney, the program
that's a kind of owner's manual for protecting the country
we love against all enemies foreign and domestic to the
glory of God and his Kingdom. A man who is
all about the glory of God as well as the Kingdom,
as well as protecting the country we love is a
(00:31):
dear friend of mine, the chairman of the board of
our new Institute for the American Future. His name is
Rod Martin. He is an entrepreneur, having cut his teeth
early on in his career with the PayPal mafia, as
it's known. He has also served as a policy director
(00:55):
for then Governor Mike Huckabee in Arkansas, and he is
these days splitting his time between entrepreneurial activity, the Institute
for the American Future, and Rodmartin dot org, which is
a wonderful resource online of analysis and commentary, some by Rod,
(01:20):
some by others that we're going to tap for the
purposes of both this program and as a part of
our regular feature at Securing America.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Welcome back to my friend. It's great to have you.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
With us, great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
As we speak, there is high drama in the National
Security Firmament in Washington, d C. Former Congressman army colonel
retired National Security Advisor to the President of the United
(01:56):
States Mike Waltz, has been relocated from the White House
to the appointment of US Ambassador to the United Nations
Marco Rubio. The Secretary of State has been assigned, at
(02:16):
least temporarily the dual hat of being the National Security
Advisor as well as the Secretary of State, as well as,
of course, the guy who's cleaning up the mess left
over from cashiering a USAID the Agency for International Development.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
What do we make of all of this, Rod Martin?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Is this further evidence of the chaos theory that people
ascribe to Donald Trump or some of his past personnel gyrations.
Is this wise reallocation of supvery talented people.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, this makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
He needed a UN ambassador obviously, and uh will Als
will be a great one.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I don't think there's any question about that.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
I don't know how much signal gait actually played into this.
I would honestly hope not very much.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
But the appointment and about.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Signal signal gate of course, refers to the Embroilio that
that that he was responsible for apparently of starting a
signal chat group which had a reporter added to it inadvertently.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Right, Well, you know, maybe he was responsible, maybe he wasn't.
That's what people are saying now. But what he's certain
is Donald Trump must not be too mad ad him,
or he wouldn't make him. You an ambassador. Everybody would
love to have an ambassador title. You mentioned my old
boss Mike Huckabees now ambassador to Israel and just loving that.
(03:52):
And uh, this is not a this is not a
cushy retirement post for Wall. This is right on the
main stage. So I don't know what the plan is
for a new NSA. I doubt it's Marco Rubio in
the long run. But what we've seen consistently is Trump
(04:13):
is enthused about these dual roles, at least as a
short term fix. And you saw that with Cash Betel
being named interim director of atf SO and actually Marco,
as you mentioned.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Yeah, the talent I have to say that Donald Trump
has put into place, particularly we focus primarily here at
securing America.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Of course, as you know, Rod, on the national security
foreign policy beat, it's pretty impressive, and so I think
that reassigning people where it makes sense, and this arrangement
does seem to make sense, at least temporarily in Marco's case.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Well, and it's the kind of most exact business leader makes.
It may shake up Washington, but this is pretty standard stuff.
If you've got a talented guy and you need him
in a different role, you just move him into the
different role. And Trump is clearly rested and ready after
his four year sojourn in the wilderness. They have a plan,
(05:26):
they have a team. Everything's clicking. It's really quite impressive.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well, let's talk a little bit about that. You know, the.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Celebration or marking, depending on who you're talking to, of
the one hundredth day of the Trump presidency is a
tale of two cities, I guess, or two perspectives on
the city. One is that you have, of course Trump supporters, enthusiasts, admirers,
what have you describing it as one of great acomplishment
(06:02):
Trump says, unprecedented accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Maybe so.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
A lot of detractors, though, Rod, particularly in a space
you're very knowledgeable about, and that is the economy. What
is your assessment of the trade thrash? But also what
seemed to be some of the knock on effects and
consumer confidence, possibility of recession, and other dire analyzes of
(06:34):
you know, sort of forecasting that we're seeing from certain quarters.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Disruption brings a certain degree of hardship, there's no question
about that. But Trump has made very clear what he's
aiming at, and he seems to be getting there in
rapid order. We've spent since World War Two in these
lopsided trade deals where the markets we sell to get
(06:59):
to treat as quite badly and we open the door
to everybody who wants to come. That has made our
allies rich. It's also made China rich, and that's fine.
I mean, we wanted Germany to be rich so it
could stand up to the Soviets. We wanted France to
get back on its feet, We wanted Britain to recover.
(07:20):
These are good things, and of course we had a
certain desire to keep Japan from being overrun by the
Soviets as well. So these are good things. But okay,
it's thirty five years past the Cold War. Why are
we letting Canada completely free load on our defenses while
charging our dairy farmers a two hundred and eighty percent tariff.
(07:42):
That's insane, and that doesn't mean Ottawa collects taxes. That
means that American dairy farmers don't get to sell to Canada.
Same thing in India with one hundred percent tariff on motorcycles.
That's just keeping Harley Davidson out of their market. And
you can just go down the lip, I mean, go
to Europe. Those guys have been charging us four times
(08:04):
the tariff on automobiles that we charge them.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
That's just absurd.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
So Trump is expecting them to step up on NATO expenditures,
on their own defense spending and be able to carry
their own weight. It is ridiculous that they need us
to help in Ukraine, not that we would help, but
that they would need us to help. Europe has an
economy almost as big as the United States. Why the
(08:30):
heck are they so so just weak?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
It's absurd.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
And likewise, we're subsidizing that, not only by spending seventy
percent of what he is spent on defense in the
entire NATO alliance, we're further subsidizing it through these lopsided
trade deals. Trump's going to bring a halt to it,
and you know, we've got one hundred and thirty countries
now negotiating free trade agreements with the Trump administration. We'll
(08:58):
see how free they are, but it would be nearly
impossible for those agreements not to be better than the
ones we had.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, very interesting point.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
We have to take a short break here in a moment.
Let me just say, I think of the countries that
you mentioned that we've enriched, China is probably not such
a good thing to have done, and we're going to
talk a little bit about it, the possible changes in
the investment policies that we've been pursuing towards China. On
(09:30):
the other side of this very short break, stay tuned
for more of the wit and wisdom of my friend
Rod Martin.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Right after this.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Welcome back, Rod Martin is in the house virtually. We're
very pleased to say he is, of course, one of
the free range intellects that we have the privilege of
both being associated with and showcasing on this program, and I.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Couldn't be more pleased that he's a regular feature of it.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Rod, I wanted to ask you about Canada. You mentioned
that the trade imbalanced Arrangement is now being reworked. Unfortunately,
a collateral damage along the way was the election of
(10:37):
a man who professes to be particularly suited to standing
up to Donald Trump. Mark Carney the new Prime Minister. Well,
I guess he is the Prime Minister, but he's got
a new mandate for some years. Now. What do you
make of that? Is that a bad thing for America?
(10:59):
Collateral damage in the course of positive disruption.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I think it's very much like.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Gusts ending of Charlie Wilson's war We'll see.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
You know. Could Trump have played that better?
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Possibly, but I don't know that he didn't get exactly
what he wanted. The truth is the Conservatives being defeated
has created tremendous instability in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Premiere
of Alberta introduced a new threshold on an initial on
(11:37):
a voter initiative, radically cut the number of signatures necessary
to get one done, and they immediately have more than
enough signatures on a petition to separate from.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Canada the fIF after all.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Yeah, so they may be fifty first state, they may
be an independent country, doesn't really matter. I mean, honestly,
that would be good for Alberta and Saskatchewan far more
than it would be good for the United States, although
it'd be good for US too, But a free trade
zone with Alberta and Saskatchewan or in the alternative statehood
(12:17):
America would be completely energy independent. We would dominate export
markets and honestly, Alberta would quit having to pay for
all the welfare takers in the rest of Canada. They're
subsidizing the whole country. It's absurd, it's wrong. They don't
have representation to match that. They should have left Canada
(12:39):
long ago.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, to say nothing of the dominance that we're seeing
the Chinese Communist Party exercising and.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Most of the rest of Canada.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Unfortunately, I hope it's not true in Saskatchewan and Alberta,
but that maybe another consideration.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
One of us Ottawa clearly doesn't.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
One of the other questions is in your previous comments
about Ukraine, I wanted to get your take on the
deal that finally has now been signed between the United
States and Ukraine that commits US to some part in
the well hopefully restoration of Ukraine, but also access to
(13:27):
rare earth minerals that are of considerable importance, especially if
we are finally decoupling from the Chinese Communist parties supply.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Chains well as your viewers know that's essential. We are
grossly dependent on China for these things that are necessary
to make iPhones and F thirty five.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
It's just absurd.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
And by the way, not because we don't have rare earths.
We actually have enough rare earths to be able to
supply eighty five percent of the globe Google market, not
just our own. We just don't refine them here and
it's environmentally unpleasant. There needs to be a technological breakthrough
(14:10):
there to do it more cleanly so that it's more
appropriate for the US.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
But you know, it's not like we're not using the things.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
We know perfectly well that China's screwing up their environment
and we just don't seem to care. So if you
actually care about the environment, restoring this to the United States,
and we used to actually be okay on this until
about nineteen eighty Jimmy Carter messed that up as he
did thorium reactors and lots of things. Oh yeah, this
(14:42):
is this is a way for us to be able
to secure our allies and pump money into.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
The United States.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And as far as Ukraine is concerned, Ukraine does not
have the money, and it certainly doesn't have the technology
to be able to develop its resources adequately. We need
those resources, but we also need that to be there
so that our allies aren't dependent on China either, And
so America going in and developing that stuff is great
(15:11):
for Ukraine, it's great for us, and I think everybody
would be thrilled with that in keV if it weren't that.
They wanted more, and they also want commitments. We're just
not going to give them. There's no way we're putting
the US army on the Russian border.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
That's just not going to happen.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
But that you know, and he wants primea and he
can't have everything he wants.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Well, that's I guess the question. Do you think this arrangement,
as Donald Trump has suggested, is sufficient under the day
to keep putin at bay without having to put boots
on the ground, have you know, I guess wingtips on
the ground or construction boots if you will.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I think it helps a lot. It's not a panacea.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
They're going to have to be some other arrangements probably
to make that peace lasting. It's it's very much like
what we keep talking about in China. The Russian demographic
problem is catastrophic. And you know, if you can just
out last a certain period of time, Russia is not
going to have the ability to project power back into Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
So that, dude, really the crucial time.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
But yes, just to clarify on as a result of
demographic trends.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Yes, absolutely, I mean Russia is dying off and this
war has made it vastly worse. And actually we've got
some really fascinating information on this at Rodmartin dot org
that I hope everybody will check out the demographic implosion
that people like Elon Musk has been warning about now
for some time, and praise God for him. People are
(16:56):
finally beginning to wake up to this. This has been
in progress now for several decades. The population bomb Paul
Erlick's screed from nineteen sixty eight was always wrong and
all of his predictions failed, And here we are now
we're seeing now, we're seeing the real possibility, for example,
(17:17):
that China could lose seventy five percent of its population
by the end of the century. And that's just catastrophic,
but more so because guess who you don't have. First,
you don't have working age people because the leading edge
of this is the young. So you have this huge
bulge of retirees that have to be paid for by
(17:38):
this ever shrinking working age group, and they're just really,
really in trouble. China got old before it got rich.
It may look rich from the outside, but go into
the interior and you see just how poor it truly is,
just like you do in Russia, and they have real
problems that they really can't get out out of, which
(18:00):
puts them at maximum danger to us right now exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Rod, let me just commend to the listeners your work
on demographics, quite apart from this China piece and Russia
for that matter, is extraordinarily helpful and real real resource. Lastly,
for the day, you've also written up recently at Rodmartin
dot org a very powerful piece about the fiftieth anniversary
(18:29):
of the Fall of Psychon.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Give us a minute on that if you.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Would brought well.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
It's just tragic, of course, and it's tragic not because
it's sad. It's tragic because it was an American betrayal.
You can argue all you want about whether we should
or shouldn't have been in the war, but the truth
is we were and Once you're there, you have obligations,
and we made specific obligations in the Treaty of Paris
in January seventy three. We were obligated to resupply the
(19:01):
South Vietnamese in perpetuity. We were obligated to bomb the
North if they took Soviet resupply, if they transgressed the treaty,
if they continued infiltrating through the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
all the things. And the Democrats in Congress cut all
of that off within months of the treaty, and by
(19:25):
the time South Vietnam fell, they didn't have gas for
their jeeps.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Set in motion, though the massacres that followed in millions
of day. Thank you Rod so much for your insights,
for joining us this week, and we look forward to
doing so next week.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
God bless you man.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Excellent welcome back, and a very special welcome to our
(20:07):
next guest. His name is Steve Moser, and we're going
to talk with him about communist China and specifically the
threat that it poses to the Roman Catholic Church as
well as Judeo Christian civilization and certainly our country. Before
we do, I want to give you just a little
texture for the conversation we're going to have about the church.
(20:31):
It's a time of choosing for the Roman Catholic Church. Obviously,
its cardinals will be making a choice of a new
pope one week from today as we speak, but an
extremely powerful webinar yesterday revealed that they face an even
more immediate and arguably more fraught choice in the meantime.
The cardinals must decide whether the Church will stand with freedom,
(20:51):
Judaeo Christian civilization, and Yes, Jesus Christ, or submit to
a Chinese communist dictator, Jijipang, who the Vatican has secretly
to supplant all three in China. Underscoring the choice, Beijing
yesterday announced that it had unilaterally appointed two new Catholic
bishops and direct violation of a secret deal negotiated by
(21:13):
the reported front runner to be the next pope, Vatican
Secretary of State Pietro Perolyn. The cardinals must repudiate this
odious deal. Learn more, and urge them to do so
at Repealthdeal dot Org. We're going to turn to Steve
Moser for some further insights into this particular secret deal,
(21:40):
which back in twenty eighteen when it was first negotiated
by Cardinal Parolyn. He had the insight to say was
going to be disastrous and warned Parolyn and warned the
church more generally that that was the case. Cardinal Zen,
(22:02):
the historic and iconic Catholic bishop, initially church leader, Cardinal
of Hong Kong, actually put it in a very powerful way.
He called it a suicide pact. And we're going to
take stock both of why that is so and how
(22:26):
it has become more and more obviously the case with
Steve Moser, and then talk about some other aspects of
what's going on with China. Let me just say Steve
is an author of a number of books, including Bully
of Asia, important one about pandemics, but also most recently
(22:48):
The Devil and Communist China, perfect introduction to this very
important topic. He is a member of our Committee on
the Present Danger China, for which I am very grateful,
as well as the president and driving force behind the
Population Research Institute. Steve Motion, it's great to have you
(23:09):
back in the house.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Welcome sir.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
It's good to be with you again, Frank, and congratulations
to you and all of the committee for the great
work that you're doing on this issue of the Sino
Vatican Agreement, as well as so many other issues concerning China,
which of course is the paramount threat to the United States,
indeed to the existence of human freedom across the world.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Well, back at you, thank you for your very important
leadership in our committee. So, Steve, your understanding of this
secret agreement and what it would almost certainly result in
is a matter of not just historical note, but relevance
(24:00):
to today. If you can give us a bit of
the backstory, among other things, of your conversations with the negotiator,
Cardinal Perilin on the subject.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
I'm not sure that Cardinal Peroline actually negotiated anything. We'll
get to that point in a minute. But let me
back up here and say that the founder of the
People's Republic of China, like all committed Marxist was absolutely
hostile to organized religion and was determined when Mao Zittong
(24:37):
took power in nineteen forty nine in China, overall of China,
he was determined to stamp out all religious faith in China,
which he described as one of the four thick ropes
ropes binding the Chinese people. Well, he was going to
bind the Chinese people in a different way with a
thick rope of communism, but he set out to destroy,
(25:01):
especially Christianity, which he regarded as a foreign religion even
though it had been in China for over a thousand years,
and specifically Catholicism, because Catholicism is not only in his view,
a foreign religion, but one that was led by a foreigner,
specifically the Pope in the Vatican in Italy in Europe.
(25:24):
That project lasted seven years, during the course of which
many Catholics were tortured, some were martyred, and the project
to eliminate the Catholic Church in China over those few
years failed miserably, and so Chairman now at that point,
(25:45):
backed up and decided to instead of destroying the Catholic Church,
to set up a faux church, the Patriotic Catholic Church,
in order to infiltrate Catholicism, control Catholicism, and co op
the Catholic Church from the inside. That project, of course,
continues to the present day with the Catholic Patriotic Church,
(26:06):
but it failed in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties.
I know it failed because in nineteen ninety five I
was in Hong Kong and I met with the then
papal nuncio to China, Monsignor Feloni, later Cardinal of Filoni,
and we had a long meeting about the state of
the Catholic Church in China, and he told me that
(26:30):
the Catholic Church in China was united. It was not
divided between the patriotic Church and the underground church. He
astonished me by saying it was united. And I said,
what do you mean, Monsignor. He said, Well, all of
the Catholics.
Speaker 7 (26:42):
In China are loyal to the Vatican.
Speaker 6 (26:44):
Nearly all the priests are as well, he said, And
with the exception of two bishops, all of the bishops
in China have been recognized by the Vatican as legitimate
illit bishops.
Speaker 7 (26:55):
He said.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
The only two exceptions are the Bishop of Shanghai and
the Bishop of Beijing. They've made too many compromises to
the Chinese Communist Party. But as for the rest, the
Church is unified, he said, with a smile. Well, that
was the happy state in the late nineteen nineties. In
the early two thousands, and then in twenty twelve, two
things happened that dramatically changed this happy situation. The first
(27:20):
was that Pope Benedict the sixteenth passed away and elected
in his place was Pope Francis. The second thing that
happened was that a new leader of the Chinese Communist
Party emerged, Si Gene Ping, who is virtually an ideological
clone of Mau Zetto, who, like Mao, hates religion and
(27:41):
wants to stamp it out, replacing it with the cult,
the ideological cult of communism, and so he began to
tighten the screws on the Catholic Church at the same
time that Pope Francis began to seek some sort of
concord at some sort of agreement with the Chinese Communist Party.
In his naivete, in his embrace of socialism, in his
(28:07):
desire to have some sort of formal agreement with the
Chinese Communist Party, he sent to China the worst possible
emissary to negotiate such an agreement. People will be astonished
to learn that he sent the disgraced, defraudt ex Cardinal
(28:28):
Theodore mccarriy to China to represent the Vatican in its
negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party over the future of
the Catholic Church in China. Now I can't imagine a
worse emissary as we all know.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Mccarriy, could I just ask a question clarification.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Had mccarrot been disgraced to defraudt prior to that yes?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Mission, Yes he had.
Speaker 6 (28:55):
Frank he had been told by Pope Benedict to withdraw
from active ministry. He ignored that order even at the time,
and once Pope Francis emerged as the new Pope, he
came out publicly and openly and was sent by the
Pope as his emissary to China. We actually have copies
(29:19):
of his correspondence to Pope Francis saying that he promised
Pope Francis.
Speaker 7 (29:26):
This is Theodore Mcarick speaking.
Speaker 6 (29:28):
I promised to fulfill the ancient dream of Matteo Ricci,
the great Jesuit missionary to China back in the seventeenth century.
I promised to fulfill the mission of Mateo Ricci and
bring you China.
Speaker 7 (29:43):
Holy Father.
Speaker 6 (29:44):
Well, that was quite an extravagant promise. He went to China.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
I had been told that one other consideration for Francis Steve,
which may or may not be the most important one, but.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
That he had this.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Well, Shakespeare would call it vaulting ambition to be the
first pope to go to China, not so much to
bring China to the Pope, but to bring the Pope
to China. Did that feature in all this to you?
Speaker 6 (30:12):
Absolutely, There's no question that he imagined himself making a
kind of triumphal entry into Beijing, normalizing relations between the
Chinese Communist Party and the Vatican, and again, you know,
achieving a kind of concordat with the Chinese Communist Party.
(30:34):
Terribly naive, overly ambitious, but encouraged by a corrupt former
cardinal who one can imagine when he went to China.
I'm sure that the Chinese Communist Party took full advantages
of his weaknesses, McCarry's weaknesses. In any event, that was
(30:55):
the agreement by which you mean his sexual traditional elections.
We know the Chinese Communist Party uses honeypots, uses drugs,
uses money to accomplish its ends.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
And.
Speaker 6 (31:10):
I think that McCarrick may have been vulnerable on at
least two of those counts from what we.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Know, and probably repeatedly for the purposes of these negotiations.
Speaker 6 (31:22):
Absolutely so, then we come to the year twenty eighteen.
In the meantime, we have seen restrictions, increasing restrictions on
all religious activity in China, increasingly onerous restrictions on their activity,
the activity not just of Catholics, but of Christians in general,
of Buddhists, of Daoas of Higer Muslim, of the Tibetan Buddhists,
(31:47):
and so forth, all of whom are operating under increasingly
tight restrictions imposed by a dictator who wants to replace
the Church of the Catholic Church in China with what
I call the of China.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'm over time, hold the thought. We'll be right back
with more. Stay tuned for more with Stephen Mosher. Welcome back.
(32:27):
We are visiting with the great Steve Moser. He is
one of the first Westerners, certainly the first social scientists
to get into China when it opened its doors a
crack back in the nineteen seventies. There's a tale there
as well, what he learned about the one child policy
(32:49):
that has informed the work he's done ever since, notably
with his Population Research Institute. But his mastery of what
is the story of the Chinese Communist Party is unsurpassed,
and we always appreciate the chance to pick his brains.
As we've been doing about this secret deal that was
(33:09):
negotiated in twenty eighteen, and I unfortunately lost track of
the time, Steve, so I had to cut you off.
Pick up with what happened in twenty eighteen. After McCarrick
began this process of negotiating a new arrangement with the
Chinese Communist.
Speaker 6 (33:29):
Party, by the spring of twenty eighteen, it was clear
that the Vatican was moving very quickly towards signing an
agreement with China with the Chinese Communist Party. If I
say China, I always mean the Chinese Communist Party. And
so I requested and got a meeting with Card Perlin,
the Secretary of State responsible for the negotiations with the
(33:52):
Chinese Communist Party. And I sat down with him for
a full hour and explained to him.
Speaker 7 (33:59):
When the whole gamut of.
Speaker 6 (34:01):
The Chinese Communist Party's human rights violations with regard especially
to violations of religious freedom. I told him that the
walls were closing in on religious believers in China and
that now was the worst possible time to in effect
endorse that behavior by signing some kind of agreement with China.
Speaker 7 (34:24):
I told him in great detail how China.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
Had violated every international agreement it had ever signed, from
the Nuclear non Proliferation Agreement to the agreement joining the
World Trade Organization. You can list literally dozens of agreements
that the Chinese Communist Party signed only to gain a
political strategic advantage, generally over the West and the United States.
(34:50):
And I said, they will violate this agreement before the
ink is dry on the paper. I said, finally, that
the Chinese Communist Party will insist that every join that
priests and bishops formally register with the government, which would
be tantamount to joining the Patriotic Catholic Association. And he said,
(35:12):
to my great surprise, he said two things. He said
a number of things, but two things stand out in
my mind. The first was he said, we have no
objection to the requirement that priests and bishops register with
the government. Well, you're not talking about the government, you're eminent.
You're talking about the Chinese Communist Party, which will use
(35:33):
that registration to produce them. Secondly, he said, the agreement
is already negotiated. We are just waiting for the Chinese
side to sign the agreement. At that point I realized
that the agreement was a done deal. It was signed
that September and has been regularly renewed in the years since,
(35:58):
even in the face of flagrant and open violations of
what we supposed to be the terms of the secret
agreement over the appointment of bishops. But let me tell
you how bad the naivete of the Vatican and Cardinal
Perlin has been. And I call it naivete. I mean,
that's the best gloss I can put on it. There
(36:19):
are worse interpretations, obviously, But just as a side note,
I did once ask Cardinal George Pell, the great Australian
cardinal who was brought in to clean up the Vatican finances,
if there was evidence of payments from the Chinese Communist
(36:41):
Party into the Vatican's coffers. And Cardinal Pell told me
I've knew the cardinal for a long time. He said,
there's no evidence in the official records of payments from
the Chinese Communist Party of any kind, he said, but
I cannot speak to any private payments that may have
been made to individuals.
Speaker 7 (37:00):
Said about that.
Speaker 6 (37:02):
So we come back to twenty nineteen, and by this time,
a year after the signing the agreement, churches are being
torn down a convents that are being built for orders
of underground nuns are being demolished, Shrines that have existed
in China for hundreds of years are being demolished, Statues
are being torn down, and worst of all, priests and
(37:26):
bishops of the underground Church are being brought into forcibly,
brought into meetings with Chinese Communist officials at which they
are required to quote register with the government, which actually
means registering as members of the Catholic Patriotic Association, which
is run by and for the Chinese Communist Party and
which is officially in schism with Rome. That is to say,
(37:50):
they are being required to join a schismatic organization dividing
the Church. What does the Vatican say about this? In
an unsigned document from the Vatican, which I suspect was
written by someone in the Secretariat of State, it says
to the bishops and the priests of China, if you
(38:11):
are brought into such a meeting and required to sign
an agreement joining the Catholic Patriotic Association, bring in witnesses
so that they can witness the fact that you're signing
under duress. Or if you're not allowed to bring in witnesses,
make a note at the bottom of the agreement that
you're joining the Catholic Patriotic Association, saying I'm joining under
(38:33):
protest Well, obviously in a communist country, neither of those
options is viable. You're not going to be allowed to
bring in witnesses, You're not going to be allowed to
write anything on the document.
Speaker 7 (38:44):
Other than your signature. Anyway, This just underlines the.
Speaker 6 (38:47):
Total naivete of the Vatican and its desire to have
this agreement at whatever cost to the underground church and
the underground bishops and the underground priests of China. And
the cost has been tremendestly heavy.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
I want to get into those costs with you as well, Steve.
But just to wrap this up, the absence of any
such notation on the page would presumably be seen by
the Church as evidence that you know, they were not
in fact objecting and that all is actually well, as
(39:23):
would be the line of the Chinese Communist Party, right.
Speaker 7 (39:28):
I suppose so.
Speaker 6 (39:29):
But no one outside of the country of China, outside
of the Office of Religious Affairs, will ever see these documents.
Just like the agreement itself. These documents are our secret.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Now I have before you go anywhere further, we have
to take a short break. We'll be right back with
more with Stephen Mosher on well, what has been the
horrific cost and the further dire implications of this deal,
especially if it were to be now effectively entrusted to
(40:06):
a new.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Pope who is very much in favor of it. Stay tuned,
we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
We're back for this concluding segment with Steve Moser, the
author of The Devil.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
And Chinese and Communist China. Let me do that again.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
The Devil and Communist China a very apt platform from
which to take stock of what I consider to be
truly a demonic deal struck by the Church back in
twenty eighteen and then subsequently react most recently a few
(41:06):
months ago, for four years. And Steve, you have a
couple of other insights about this cardinal perilin that I
want to make sure we address the extent to which,
not least he would be expected to be a very
(41:28):
strong supporter of this arrangement were he to become the pope.
Speaker 6 (41:36):
The Cardinal Perlin's prestige as the Secretary of State is heavily,
heavily dependent upon the continuation of the Sino Vatican agreement.
Which he shepherded through the process, and of course continues
(41:57):
to renew it. Has continued to renew it over the
last of seven years now, even in the face of
evidence that the Chinese Communist Party is violating the supposed
terms of the agreement which require the Pope to have
a veto over the appointment of bishops. This provision, which
(42:19):
is key of course to the authority of the papacy.
The Pope has the authority to appoint bishops in the
Catholic Church, has been violated repeatedly by China. Violated two
years ago when they moved a bishop into the Sea
of Shanghai, the most important diocese in China, without even
(42:40):
notifying the Vatican, leaving the Vatican embarrassed, leaving the Vatican
saying that the sin of Vatican Agreement was basically being violated,
was a dead letter, and yet within a few months
Pope Francis recognized this illicitly transferred bishop as the legitimate
bishops of Shanghai, ignoring the fact that the real bishop
(43:03):
in charge of Shanghai has been imprisoned for over ten
years now somewhere in the outskirts of Shanghai. And then,
of course, after Pope Francis died, the Chinese Communist Party,
in what can only be described as a truly shocking move,
appointed two new bishops, and of course without the approval
(43:27):
of the Pope, there is no pope right now, So
how could the pope have even vetoed. They knew that
the Pope had died, They knew that they didn't bother
going through the process of waiting for a new pope
before appointing their own bishops.
Speaker 7 (43:41):
So the agreement is, I believe, a dead letter, and yet.
Speaker 6 (43:46):
Cardinal Perlin continues to try the pretense that there is
actually an agreement with China. I don't believe, actually, Frank,
that the agreement has ever been signed by the Chinese side.
I think that it was clear to years ago in
the connection with the appointment of the new Bishop of
Shanghai that Cardinal Perlin said, you have to understand the
(44:07):
agreement is still a work in progress, and that's why
we can't release the text of the agreement. Well, any
negotiations that are still continuing mean what they mean. There
is no set agreement, There is no sign concord at
there is no signed accord. There is just the pious
Hope on the part of the Vatican that somedays, somehow,
(44:28):
if the Vatican behaves itself, that the Chinese Communist Party
will as well.
Speaker 7 (44:32):
That will never happen.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
This just adds more ignominy to the whole enterprise, doesn't it.
But Steve, I want to spend the remaining a couple
of minutes we have talking about the damage that's been
done either by the deal itself to some extent, but
as it's fairly limited in scope apparently, but who knows
because nobody's seen it, but in terms of what it
(44:58):
has done virtue of legitimizing the Chinese Communist Party and
some of these arrangements that govern the Patriotic Catholic Church
for example, which by the way, one of the most
interesting things that came out of this webinar, and I
strongly commend it to everyone. You can find it at
repealthedeal dot org.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Was the point that.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
The so called Patriotic Church Catholic Church has been actually
moved in the official wiring diagrams from the State apparatus
to the United Front Work Department, which is of course
(45:43):
the vehicle for influence operations and political warfare of the
Chinese Communist Party, is it not?
Speaker 6 (45:51):
It is, and the United Front Department exists to infiltrate
and co opt and control organizations outside the Chinese Communist Party.
So putting the Catholic Church and religious affairs in general
under the United Front Department makes it clear that the
Chinese Communist Party's goal is precisely that to infiltrate, to
(46:12):
co opt and control the Catholic Church in China and
basically drive a wedge between it and the Universal Church,
making it into a vehicle that serves the interests and
the ideology and the purposes of the Chinese Communist Party,
not the purposes that Jesus Christ had in mind when
he set up the church in the world. Today, the
(46:34):
deal needs to be repealed. It needs to be completely repudiated.
Speaker 7 (46:38):
By the Vatican, and the.
Speaker 6 (46:40):
Underground church that still exists needs to be supported.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
And if that is not done now, Steve, if this
is not very much part of, if not the run
up to the conclave, ideally, but certainly the conclave and
the selection of a pope, what are the likely results
going to be with respect of the deal?
Speaker 6 (47:07):
The likely results are going to be a continuation of
what we've seen over the last ten years, the continuing
persecution of faithful Catholics in China, the continued destruction of
the Catholic Church in China, with the ultimate goal of
the Chinese Communist Party being to stamp out Catholicism entirely
within its borders.
Speaker 7 (47:29):
That is not something.
Speaker 6 (47:30):
That any pope should in any way be a part
of or be a part of presiding over. And so
I would hope the deal is repealed, and that the
new pope, if it is not repealed before the new
Pope is elected, that he himself will repeal it, disavow it,
and repudiate it.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
And of course our repeal the Deal campaign is aimed
at making sure that it's a condition of employment. Basically,
we don't want a pope running the Catholic Church playing
the role, the moral role worldwide, not far beyond China,
who is essentially beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. Steve Mosa,
(48:12):
we have to leave it at that for the moment,
so much more to cover. Please come back soon if
you would. In the meantime, godspeed in your great work
at the Population Research Institute, your amazing resource. I thank
you the rest of you will join us again next
time until then, go forth and multiply
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