National Catholic Register portal reports that former U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback declared at the Hudson Institute that the United States is “in a battle today with the Chinese Communist Party” over religious persecution, promoting his book *China’s War on Faith* which highlights persecutions against Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, Falun Gong practitioners, and Christians in China. Brownback praised President Trump as having “done more than any president of modern times to push for religious freedom” and emphasized the urgency of filling the vacant ambassador-at-large position. “The president has done more than any president of modern times to push for religious freedom. He believes the world needs more religion. That’s the direct opposite of what the Chinese Communist Party believes. It believes there should be no religion whatsoever in the world. And those two systems are clashing with each other.” While the suffering of persecuted faithful in China deserves authentic Catholic solidarity, Brownback’s entire framework reveals the bankruptcy of the liberal “religious freedom” ideology that has infected even nominally Catholic discourse—a framework that, while correctly identifying the evils of communism, proposes a solution rooted in the very same Enlightenment naturalism that birthed both liberalism and Marxism.
The Idol of “Religious Freedom” as a Protestant-Heretical Principle
Brownback’s rhetoric, echoed by the National Catholic Register’s uncritical reporting, rests upon the foundational error condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors: “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to exclusion of all other forms of worship” (Proposition 77), and “Catholics may approve of the system of educating youth unconnected with Catholic faith and the power of the Church, and which regards the knowledge of merely natural things, and only, or at least primarily, the ends of earthly social life” (Proposition 48). The entire concept of “international religious freedom” as a diplomatic principle is a product of the very liberalism that the Church has consistently condemned as a rebellion against the Social Kingship of Christ.
Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical Immortale Dei (1885), taught with absolute clarity: “The Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, each supreme in its own kind, and each fixed within limits which are defined by its own nature and special object.” The State has no competence to grant “freedom” to false religions, for “it is a sin in the State not to have care for religion, as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit” (Leo XIII, Immortale Dei). Pius XI, in Quas Primas, explicitly stated that the reign of Christ the King “encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.”
Brownback’s framework—pitting “American principles” of religious freedom against Chinese communist atheism—is a false dichotomy that excludes the only Catholic answer: the recognition of the Catholic Church as the one true religion established by God, to which all nations owe obedience. As St. Pius X declared in Vehementer Nos (1906): “That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error.” The article’s uncritical promotion of “religious freedom” as a diplomatic weapon against communism reveals how thoroughly the conciliar sect’s false principles have penetrated even those who claim to defend the faith.
The Naturalistic Reduction of Religion to “Faith” in the Abstract
Brownback’s language is revealing in its theological emptiness. He speaks of “people of faith,” “persecution of people in faith, of all faiths in China,” and the need to “stand up on American principles against that persecution.” This is the language of indifferentism—the heresy condemned by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1832): “This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone.”
The Catholic position is not that all “faiths” deserve equal protection, but that “the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion” (Pius IX, Syllabus, Proposition 21, condemned). The suffering of Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, and Falun Gong practitioners, while deserving of natural compassion as human beings, does not place their false religions on equal footing with the Catholic Faith. To speak of defending “all faiths” is to deny the exclusive salvific mission of the Church: “And there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12), as Pius XI quoted in Quas Primas.
The article’s framing reduces religion to a natural right of conscience, stripped of its supernatural ordering toward the true God. This is the very error that St. Pius X identified as the essence of Modernism in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907): the reduction of religion to a subjective, evolving “religious sense” rather than the objective deposit of divine revelation. Brownback’s call for “more religion” in the world—any religion—is not a Catholic principle but a liberal-Protestant one, indistinguishable in its practical effects from the indifferentism condemned by every pre-conciliar pope.
The Illusion of “American Principles” as a Catholic Standard
Brownback’s appeal to “American principles” as the foundation for opposing religious persecution is particularly scandalous from a Catholic perspective. The American constitutional order was founded upon the very liberal principles that the Church has consistently condemned. The First Amendment’s establishment clause and free exercise clause embody the heretical proposition that the State has no duty to recognize the true religion—a proposition condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (Proposition 15: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true”; Proposition 18: “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church”).
Pope Leo XIII, while acknowledging that the American constitutional order had produced certain practical benefits for the Church’s temporal existence, never endorsed its principles as Catholic. In his letter Testem Benevolentiae (1899), he condemned the “Americanist” heresy—the notion that the Church should adapt itself to liberal democratic principles. The idea that “American principles” of religious freedom constitute a Catholic standard is precisely the error that Leo XIII warned against: the confusion of pragmatic accommodation with doctrinal truth.
The article’s praise for President Trump as having “done more than any president of modern times to push for religious freedom” is a telling indicator of the theological confusion of the authors. No American president, however well-intentioned in opposing communist persecution, can be a defender of the Catholic Faith when the very constitutional order he swore to uphold is founded upon the heretical principle of religious indifferentism. As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas: “The State is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the State is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” The happiness of the state—and its justice—depends upon its recognition of Christ the King, not upon the protection of “all faiths.”
The Omission of the Church’s Supernatural Mission
Perhaps the most damning silence in both Brownback’s remarks and the article’s reporting is the complete absence of any reference to the Catholic Church’s supernatural mission of evangelization and conversion. The suffering of Chinese Christians is presented solely in terms of “religious freedom”—a natural right—rather than in terms of the eternal salvation of souls and the Church’s divine mandate to teach all nations (Matthew 28:19-20).
The article mentions “Chinese Christian ‘Born Again Movement’ founder Peter Xu” without any critical examination of what “Born Again Movement” signifies. The “Born Again” movement in China is a Protestant evangelical phenomenon, not a Catholic one. To present this figure as a representative of persecuted “Christians” without distinguishing between the true Church and heretical sects is to perpetuate the very indifferentism that the article claims to oppose. As the Syllabus of Errors condemns: “Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ” (Proposition 17).
The Catholic response to persecution in China is not merely diplomatic pressure for “religious freedom” but the supernatural work of evangelization, martyrdom, and the intercession of the saints. The article’s complete silence on the sacraments, the Mass, the hierarchy, and the supernatural life of the Church in China reveals its fundamentally naturalistic and political framework. As St. Pius X taught in Lamentabili Sane Exitu, the reduction of the Church’s mission to naturalistic categories is the hallmark of Modernism—the synthesis of all errors.
The False Dichotomy: Liberalism Versus Communism
The entire framing of Brownback’s remarks—and the article’s reporting—presents a false choice between American liberal “religious freedom” and Chinese communist atheism. This is the same false dichotomy that has plagued the modern world since the French Revolution: the choice between the “liberalism” of the Enlightenment and the “collectivism” of its Marxist offspring. Both are children of the same revolutionary spirit that rejected the Social Kingship of Christ.
Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned both the liberal proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80) and the communist proposition that “the Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free—nor is she endowed with proper and perpetual rights of her own, conferred upon her by her Divine Founder” (Proposition 19). The Church’s answer to both errors is the same: the recognition of Christ the King and the Church’s full authority over all nations and all aspects of human life.
Brownback’s call for “more religion” in the world—any religion—is not a Catholic solution but a liberal one. The Catholic answer to communist persecution is not “religious freedom” but the establishment of the Social Reign of Christ the King, as Pius XI instituted in the feast of Christ the King: “If men were ever to recognize Christ’s royal authority over themselves, both privately and publicly, then unheard-of blessings would flow upon the whole society, such as due freedom, order, and tranquility, and concord and peace.”
Conclusion: The Bankruptcy of Liberal “Religious Freedom”
The article’s uncritical promotion of Sam Brownback’s “religious freedom” framework reveals the depth to which liberal naturalism has penetrated nominally Catholic discourse. While the persecution of the faithful in China is real and deserving of authentic Catholic solidarity, the proposed solution—”American principles” of religious freedom—is itself a product of the same revolutionary spirit that produced both liberalism and communism.
The Catholic answer to persecution is not diplomatic pressure for “religious freedom” but the supernatural witness of martyrdom, the uncompromising preaching of the Gospel, and the recognition of Christ the King over all nations. As Pius XI declared in Quas Primas: “The annual celebration of this solemnity will also remind States that not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” Until this Catholic principle is upheld—rather than the liberal heresy of “religious freedom”—the Church’s response to persecution will remain trapped in the naturalistic framework of the very modernity that produced the persecution in the first place.
The suffering of the faithful in China calls not for “American principles” but for the prayers of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the unwavering confession that Jesus Christ is Lord—and that His Kingdom shall have no end.
Source:
Brownback Says China’s Actions Amount to Systematic Assault on Freedom of Belief (ncregister.com)
Date: 13.05.2026