Catholic News Agency reports the conviction of Jimmy Lai, a 78-year-old Catholic media mogul, under China’s national security laws. The article details Lai’s five-year imprisonment, his family’s appeals to international bodies, and support from figures including Donald Trump and various Catholic institutions. Lai’s daughter Claire recounts his alleged Marian devotion, stating: “Our Lady is protecting him” after he reportedly regained strength through prayer when falling in prison. The piece frames Lai’s prosecution as persecution for “courageous journalism and unwavering commitment to democracy,” with his legal team calling the verdict “a stain on a once enviable Hong Kong legal system.”
The Naturalistic Reduction of Martyrdom
The article’s central error lies in equating Lai’s imprisonment with Christian witness while utterly neglecting the sine qua non of true martyrdom: “Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death” (Catechism of St. Pius X). Nowhere does the text establish that Lai suffers specifically for Catholic doctrine rather than Western democratic ideals. The calculated emphasis on his age (“brave, brilliant 78-year-old man”) and health manipulates emotions while obscuring theological substance – a hallmark of sentimental modernism condemned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907).
This narrative strategically omits China’s systematic eradication of Catholicism through the underground Church’s persecution while tacitly endorsing the Vatican’s treacherous 2018 accord with Beijing. By celebrating Lai’s “commitment to democracy” rather than his fidelity to the Social Reign of Christ the King, the article participates in the conciliar sect’s heresy of religious liberty explicitly condemned by Pius IX: “The absurd and erroneous doctrine or raving… that liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right” (Quanta Cura #3). The silence about China’s formal rejection of Christ’s authority over nations constitutes grave complicity with apostasy.
The False Ecumenism of Human Rights Advocacy
Lai’s ecumenical support network – including Anglican-dominated Doughty Street Chambers and politically motivated figures like Trump – exposes the bankruptcy of the “human rights” paradigm divorced from Catholic integralism. Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas demolishes this naturalistic fallacy: “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.”
The article’s repeated appeals to UN mechanisms and Western governments constitute implicit endorsement of the Masonic international order – a betrayal of the Church’s exclusive claim to mediate man’s relationship with temporal authority. Notably absent is any demand for China’s conversion to Catholicism or mention of missionaries martyred for preaching Christ’s Kingship rather than democratic pluralism. This omission confirms the conciliar sect’s surrender to religious indifferentism, violating the Syllabus of Errors’ condemnation of those who “equate the Church with false religions” (Proposition 18).
Marian Sentimentalism Replacing Dogmatic Fidelity
Claire Lai’s anecdote about her father’s alleged Marian intervention (“Our Lady is protecting him”) constitutes dangerous emotionalism when detached from doctrinal precision. True Marian devotion requires submission to Church authority, yet Lai’s family demands his release through political pressure rather than spiritual surrender – a contradiction of Our Lady of Fatima’s actual message (contrary to modernist distortions) emphasizing repentance and obedience. The article’s focus on physical comfort (“recover in peace”) over supernatural grace reveals the therapeutic deism infesting neo-Catholicism.
Judicial Romanticism Versus Divine Justice
By romanticizing Hong Kong’s colonial legal system as “once enviable,” the article implicitly endorses British Freemasonry’s historical destruction of Catholic monarchies. This aligns with the conciliar sect’s false dichotomy between “authoritarian” and “democratic” regimes rather than judging nations by their submission to Christ’s Kingship. St. Augustine’s admonition in The City of God applies here: “Without justice, what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers?” China’s persecution merits condemnation not primarily for violating Lai’s rights, but for rejecting the divine constitution of civil authority described in Immortale Dei.
The conviction’s coverage exemplifies the conciliar sect’s global betrayal, reducing Catholicism to a NGO advocating Western liberal values rather than the one ark of salvation. Until all nations – including China and Western democracies – publicly recognize Christ’s Social Reign, such political trials will proliferate as divine chastisements for collective apostasy. Lai’s true supporters would demand not his release into a godless world, but China’s conversion to the One True Faith.
Source:
Jimmy Lai found guilty of national security violations, faces life in prison (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 15.12.2025