The EWTN News portal reports that “Archbishop” Paul Gallagher, the “Vatican” secretary for relations with states, publicly admitted the “imperfections” of the secret 2018 agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China during a press briefing in Rome on October 28, 2026. Gallagher conceded that “the imperfections of the agreement are evident” while insisting on a “commitment to persevere in dialogue” with the atheist regime that persecutes the true Church. He further trivialized the antipope Leo XIV’s recent surgery as a “bit of a game changer” revealing his mortality, and confirmed the “pope” may visit the United States “in the not too distant future.” This candid admission by the conciliar sect’s own foreign minister lays bare the theological bankruptcy of a pseudo-diplomacy that sacrifices the regnum Christi on the altar of rapprochement with the enemies of God.
The “Agreement” as Manifest Betrayal of Christ’s Kingship Over Nations
The very existence of a secret concordat with a Marxist-Leninist regime constitutes a formal denial of the Social Kingship of Christ solemnly defined by Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925). That encyclical declares with unshakeable authority: “His reign encompasses not only Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ” (Denzinger 3677). The Chinese Communist Party explicitly denies God, persecutes the faithful, and enforces state atheism as official ideology. By entering into a clandestine pact with this regime — whose text remains hidden from the faithful — the usurpers in the Vatican have de facto recognized the legitimacy of a power that declares war on Christ the King.
Pius XI warned that “when God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed” (Quas Primas, citing Ubi Arcano). The China deal is the epitome of this dereliction: the conciliar sect derives its “authority” in China not from Christ but from the permission of the Chinese Communist Party. The Holy See agreed “not to appoint bishops without the Chinese government’s prior approval” — a staggering concession of the jus spirituale to a temporal, atheist power. This is the precise error condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), Proposition 20: “The ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government” — condemned as heretical. Proposition 55: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” — condemned. The “agreement” institutionalizes this separation and subordination.
Violation of Divine Law and Canonical Sanction: The Heresy of Collaboration
The 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 188 §4, declares that an office becomes vacant ipso facto and without any declaration if a cleric “publicly defects from the Catholic faith”. The “Defense of Sedevacantism” file demonstrates from Bellarmine, Wernz-Vidal, and Pope Paul IV’s Cum ex Apostolatus Officio that a manifest heretic loses all jurisdiction automatically. The architects of the China deal — from the antipope Francis to the antipope Leo XIV and their “secretary for relations with states” — have publicly defected from the Catholic faith by collaborating with a regime that enforces atheism and schism. They have recognized the “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association,” a schismatic structure created by the Communist Party to replace the true Church. This is not “dialogue”; it is communicatio in sacris with heretics and schismatics, forbidden by divine and canonical law.
St. Robert Bellarmine teaches: “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope… he cannot be the head of something of which he is not a member; now, he who is not a Christian is not a member of the Church, and a manifest heretic is not a Christian… therefore, a manifest heretic cannot be Pope” (De Romano Pontifice 2.30). The “pope” who authorizes this deal is a manifest heretic by his adherence to Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae (religious liberty), Nostra Aetate (false ecumenism), and Gaudium et Spes (secular humanism) — and by this very act of capitulation to Communism. He has ipso facto ceased to be Pope. Gallagher’s admission of “imperfections” is a tacit confession that the deal violates the divine constitution of the Church — exactly as Pius IX protested against the Prussian May Laws: “these laws are null and void because they are absolutely contrary to the divine constitution of the Church”.
The “Dialogue” Delusion: Modernist Evolutionism Applied to Diplomacy
Gallagher’s refrain — “there is a commitment to persevere in dialogue” — exposes the Modernist heresy of vital immanence condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907) and Pascendi Dominici Gregis. Proposition 59 of Lamentabili: “Christ did not proclaim any specific, all-encompassing doctrine suitable for all times and peoples, but rather initiated a certain religious movement, applied or applicable to different times and places” — condemned. The conciliar sect treats the Church’s mission not as the immutable proclamation of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus and the Kingship of Christ, but as a mutable “dialogue” that adapts to “changing circumstances.” This is the hermeneutic of rupture disguised as “pastoral accompaniment.”
The Syllabus of Errors, Proposition 80, condemns: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” — condemned. The China deal is precisely this: a reconciliation with the “modern civilization” of Communist China. Gallagher’s language — “it’s not easy, the dialogue is not easy” — reveals a purely pragmatic, naturalistic calculus. There is no mention of the salvation of souls, the conversion of China to the true Faith, the rights of the underground Church, or the Kingship of Christ. Only bureaucratic “perseverance.” This is the laicism Pius XI identified as “the plague that poisons human society” (Quas Primas).
Sacrilege of the Episcopate: Invalid Bishops for a Schismatic Structure
The deal’s core mechanism — “the pope retains final authority over episcopal appointments… but the Holy See agreed not to appoint bishops without the Chinese government’s prior approval” — produces a hybrid episcopate that is neither fully Catholic nor fully schismatic, but wholly illegitimate. A bishop appointed with Communist veto power is a minister of the state, not a successor of the Apostles. Pius XII in Ad Sinarum Gentem (1954) condemned the “Patriotic Association” as a “schismatic church” and declared that bishops consecrated without papal mandate “incur the penalties of canon law”. The current “agreement” regularizes this schism. The 18 bishops “consecrated under the deal” (as EWTN’s related articles boast) are doubtfully valid and certainly illicit, ordained in communion with a false “pope” and under the shadow of Communist control. They are intrusi in the Lord’s vineyard.
Gallagher’s Trivialization of the Papacy: “A Poor Mortal Like the Rest of Us”
Gallagher’s description of the antipope Leo XIV’s surgery as a “bit of a game changer” and a “revelation of the pope’s mortality… [he] is a poor mortal like the rest of us” is a blasphemous reduction of the Vicar of Christ to a mere functionary. Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches that Christ the King “received power and honor and a kingdom from the Father… all power in heaven and on earth has been given to Him” (Matt 28:18). The true Pope, as Christ’s Vicar, participates in this potestas vicaria — he is not a “poor mortal” but the Sweet Christ on Earth (St. Catherine of Siena). Gallagher’s language reflects the conciliar sect’s democratization of the papacy, stripping it of its sacramental and juridical dignity. This is the fruit of Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium ecclesiology of “people of God” — a Protestantized, horizontalized caricature.
The Russia-Ukraine “Mediation”: Pacifism as Substitute for Catholic Truth
Gallagher’s August 2026 trip to Moscow to “discuss the country’s ongoing war with Ukraine” and his admission that the Vatican was “not involved in discussions of the ceasefire” exposes the futility of a “diplomacy” divorced from the Kingship of Christ. Pius XI declared: “The state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men… Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ” (Quas Primas). The conciliar sect’s “ceasefire” advocacy is pure naturalism — pacifism without Christ. It ignores the Syllabus condemnation of Proposition 63: “It is lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate princes, and even to rebel against them” — and the duty of rulers to govern sub Deo. The “Vatican” has no supernatural leverage because it has no supernatural authority — it is a paramasonic NGO masquerading as the Church.
EWTN as Propagandist for the Conciliar Sect
The source itself — EWTN News, the “Vatican Bureau” of the conciliar media apparatus — frames this capitulation as routine diplomacy. The article’s related links — “A century after Pius XI ordained 6 Chinese…”, “Another bishop in China consecrated under deal…”, “China ordains 18th bishop under Vatican agreement” — celebrate the integration of the true Church into the Communist Patriotic Association. This is the False Fatima strategy documented in the provided file: “Stage 3 (1958-2000): Takeover of the narrative by modernists, concealment of the Third Secret, ecumenical reinterpretation”. The “China deal” is the geopolitical equivalent of the “ecumenical reinterpretation” — a Masonic-inspired psychological operation to neutralize the Church’s opposition to Communism.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation in the Holy Place
The China-Vatican deal is not an “imperfect agreement” — it is a covenant with death and a pact with hell (Isa 28:15). It violates the Syllabus, Quas Primas, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, Canon 188, and the constant teaching of the Church on the Social Kingship of Christ and the necessity of the Catholic Faith for salvation. Gallagher’s admission confirms what every faithful Catholic knows: the structures occupying the Vatican are the abomination of desolation (Matt 24:15), led by manifest heretics who have ipso facto lost all jurisdiction. The true Church endures in the catacombs — in China, in the West, everywhere — professing the integral Faith, rejecting the false “pope,” the false bishops, the false “dialogue,” and awaiting the Restoration of All Things in Christ (Eph 1:10). Viva Cristo Rey!
Source:
China-Vatican deal has imperfections, Vatican’s foreign minister says (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 28.10.2026