EWTN News portal reports that former U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, speaking at the Hudson Institute on May 12, 2026, declared that the United States is “in a battle today with the Chinese Communist Party” over religious persecution. Brownback, promoting his book “China’s War on Faith,” highlighted what he termed “three genocides” against Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, and Falun Gong practitioners, alongside systematic persecution of Christians and other religious minorities. He described the Chinese regime as one that has “killed more of its own people than any other regime in the history of mankind” and is “at war with us, whether we realize we are at war with them or not.” Brownback also lamented the vacancy of the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom post, calling it “critical” to fill, and praised President Trump’s stance on religious freedom as the “direct opposite” of the Chinese Communist Party’s atheistic ideology. “Weʼre in a battle today with the Chinese Communist Party and their authoritarian view, and their view that religion is an opium of the people, something that should be thrown out, discarded, persecuted, stomped on, and killed,” Brownback stated. This article, while detailing genuine persecution, operates within a framework that fundamentally misdiagnoses the true nature of the Church’s mission and the source of true peace, revealing the spiritual bankruptcy of modernist approaches to religious liberty.
The Illusion of “Religious Freedom” as a Catholic End
The discourse presented by Sam Brownback and echoed by EWTN News fundamentally operates within the paradigm of Dignitatis Humanae, the conciliar declaration on religious freedom, which posits an inherent right of the human person to immunity from external coercion in religious matters. This stands in direct and irreconcilable opposition to the perennial Catholic teaching, most forcefully articulated by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (1864) and Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei (1885). Error has no rights; truth alone possesses rights. The State, as a society ordained by God for the common good, has the grave duty to recognize the true religion established by Our Lord Jesus Christ and to protect it, while tolerating, only for the sake of a greater good or to avoid a greater evil, the public exercise of false cults (cf. Pope Pius XII, Ci Riesce, 1953). Brownback’s call for “religious freedom” as a universal principle, detached from the objective truth of the Catholic Faith, is not a defense of the Faith but a capitulation to the very indifferentism and liberalism condemned by the pre-conciliar Magisterium. It reduces the supernatural mission of the Church to a mere human right, a commodity to be negotiated on the world stage.
The Substitution of Naturalism for Supernatural Mission
Brownback’s framing of the conflict as a “battle” between “American principles” of religious freedom and the Chinese Communist Party’s “authoritarian view” is a purely naturalistic and political analysis. It omits entirely the supernatural dimension of the Church’s mission, which is the salvation of souls through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments. The true “battle” is not between political systems, but between the City of God and the City of Man, between Christ the King and Satan. As Pope Pius XI unequivocally stated in Quas Primas (1925), “The Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” The article’s silence on this fundamental truth reveals its authors’ and speakers’ adherence to the modernist heresy of the separation of Church and State, condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (Errors 19, 20, 55) and by Leo XIII. The Church does not seek “freedom” in the abstract; she seeks the recognition of Christ’s Kingship over all nations and the submission of every aspect of public and private life to His Law.
The Omission of the True Enemy: Modernist Apostasy Within
While the article rightly condemns the external persecution of religion by the Chinese Communist Party, it remains conspicuously silent on the far more insidious and devastating apostasy within the so-called “Catholic” Church itself since the Second Vatican Council. This is the “main danger” that St. Pius X warned against in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907): the “enemies within,” the Modernists who, under the guise of “updating” the Church, have emptied her of her supernatural content and reduced her to a humanitarian NGO. The conciliar sect’s embrace of religious liberty, ecumenism, and interfaith dialogue is not a strength but a symptom of its profound spiritual decay. It is this internal rot, this systematic dismantling of doctrine, liturgy, and discipline, that has rendered the Church incapable of effectively combating external enemies like communism. As the False Fatima Apparitions document rightly points out, the Fatima message, despite its approval, was used to divert attention from modernist apostasy, focusing on external threats (communism) while ignoring the “enemies within.” The article’s focus on China, while ignoring the spiritual warfare being waged against the Faith from within the Vatican structures, mirrors this diversionary tactic.
The Idolatry of “Dialogue” and “Tolerance”
The very concept of “religious freedom” as promoted by Brownback and the post-conciliar establishment is rooted in the idolatrous worship of human autonomy and the false gods of “dialogue” and “tolerance.” These are not Catholic virtues but modernist heresies that place man at the center and relegate God’s truth to the private sphere. The Church has always taught that error must be combated, not tolerated as an equal path to salvation. As St. Pius X declared in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), condemning the Modernist proposition that “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” (Error 18). The call for “religious freedom” is, in practice, a call for the State to be indifferent to the truth, thereby paving the way for the triumph of error. This is the “pest of indifferentism” that Pius IX so vehemently condemned.
The True Remedy: Christ the King and the Social Reign of Christ
The only true remedy for the persecution of religion, whether in China or anywhere else, is the recognition and implementation of the Social Reign of Christ the King. This is not a political program but a supernatural reality that must permeate every aspect of society. As Pope Pius XI taught, “If rulers and legitimate superiors will have the conviction that they exercise authority not so much by their own right as by the command and in the place of the Divine King, everyone will notice how religiously and wisely they will use their authority…” (Quas Primas). The article’s call for “American principles” is a hollow substitute for this divine mandate. True peace and justice can only be found in the submission of nations to Christ and His Church. The structures occupying the Vatican, by promoting religious liberty and ecumenism, have betrayed this divine mandate and have become, in effect, instruments of the very forces they claim to oppose.
Conclusion: A Call to Spiritual Warfare, Not Political Maneuvering
The article from EWTN News, while highlighting genuine suffering, ultimately serves the agenda of the post-conciliar neo-church by framing the conflict in purely political and naturalistic terms. It ignores the supernatural mission of the Church, the true nature of the battle between good and evil, and the devastating impact of modernist apostasy within the Church itself. The “battle” is not between the U.S. and China, but between Christ and Satan, between truth and error. The only true “religious freedom” is the freedom to embrace the fullness of truth as taught by the Catholic Church before the conciliar revolution. The faithful must reject the false “religious freedom” of the Modernists and return to the immutable tradition of the Church, recognizing Christ the King as the only source of true peace and justice in the world. The silence of the neo-church on the internal apostasy is a far greater scandal than any external persecution, for it is the betrayal of the very souls for whom Christ died.
Source:
Brownback says China’s actions amount to systematic assault on freedom of belief (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 12.05.2026