Pope Francis denies Dalai Lama an audience because of China concerns

[Siegehammer]

The Vatican announced today that Pope Francis has not granted the Dali Lama a private audience out of concerns for the Church’s relationship with China.

The request was declined “for obvious reasons concerning the delicate situation” with China, a Vatican spokesman said. The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, understood the situation, he added.

The Dalai Lama, in Rome for a meeting of Nobel peace prize winners, told Italian media he had approached the Vatican about a meeting but was told it could create inconveniences.

 

[Country_Gal]

So the Vatican has to kowtow to China so they don’t suppress Catholics, is that what this is about?

I have mixed feeling about this… I hate to see the Holy Father have to play politics like this and reject a spiritual leader who is respected the world over just to placate tyrants.

 

[Elizium23]

So the Holy Father should care more about Buddhists than about his own flock of Catholics? I think he did the right thing.

 

[Country_Gal]

So the Holy Father should care more about Buddhists than about his own flock of Catholics? I think he did the right thing.

Did I say that?

 

[Tom_Baum]

So the Holy Father should care more about Buddhists than about his own flock of Catholics? I think he did the right thing.

Either God created ALL of us or God created NONE of us.

Did Jesus take the sins of ALL or just the “Catholics” upon HIs Jewish Self on the cross?

As far as your question, “So the Holy Father should care more about Buddhists than about his own flock of Catholics?”

The answer is NO, he should care about ALL equally.

 

[Elizium23]

Either God created ALL of us or God created NONE of us.

Did Jesus take the sins of ALL or just the “Catholics” upon HIs Jewish Self on the cross?

As far as your question, “So the Holy Father should care more about Buddhists than about his own flock of Catholics?”

The answer is NO, he should care about ALL equally.

But if the question comes down to a mutually exclusive choice of: lending validation to a false religion or clearing a path for unity inside the Church in the presence of violent persecutions, then what?

 

[saintjohnxxiii]

Before we all freak out at the Pope for this, I want a Catholic news source because as so often the case, its the MSM perverting journalism and turning it into media.

I don’t know how many times I have asked this and I will continue to do so but CAF would be VERY WISE to req that any OP link in the CATHOLIC news thread be from a Catholic news source.

If they ban lifesitenews as an OP link in Catholic news then surely they can for secular news source.

 

[total_Catholic]

So the Holy Father should care more about Buddhists than about his own flock of Catholics? I think he did the right thing.

Yes, this was my exact train of thought.

 

[Siegehammer]

From Crux: Pope won’t meet Dalai Lama during Rome visi

Pope Francis won’t meet with the Dalai Lama during his visit to Rome, with some speculating it’s a decision to avoid antagonizing China. But he’s sending a greeting to past Nobel Peace Prize laureates gathering in the city for their annual summit.

The Tibetan monk was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying Thursday that Vatican authorities had nixed a meeting with him “because it might create inconveniences.”

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said he couldn’t confirm that an audience had been refused. But he said a papal greeting would be sent.

Francis has followed the line of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI in trying to improve relations with Beijing, which were severed in 1951 after the officially atheistic Communist Party took power and set up its own church outside the pope’s authority.

 

[Neofight]

So the Holy Father should care more about Buddhists than about his own flock of Catholics? I think he did the right thing.

That’s a dreadful spin…as it becomes just as bad, in that it suggests that the Holy Father should care more for Catholics than non-Catholics.

 

[Catholic_farmer]

I do not share Hollywood’s view of the Dalai Lama. The system of government that was in place before the Chinese took over the region and the system in place now are vastly different. I am not entirely sure that the DL had the people’s best interests in mind.

Here is a quote from a blogger on the topic. I have heard this opinion expressed before by unbiased, non-Hollywood types. I think they have a valid point.

“Most of the Dalai Lama’s American friends received what little knowledge they have about this charlatan from watching movies like “Seven Years in Tibet,” “Kundun,” and " Shangri-La.” Or, they may have heard some Hollywood-types like Marlon Brando and Richard Gere propagandizing on the talk shows about the tragic removal of the Dalai Lama from power, by the evil communist Chinese.

In point of fact, Tibet has been a semi-autonomous province of China for over a thousand years. Until 1959, it was ruled as a theocratic dictatorship, with over ninety percent of the population living as serfs in a feudalistic system of involuntary servitude. Workers were routinely bought and sold as slaves, and punishments for speaking irreverently about the Dalai Lama included eye-gouging and tongue removal. Amputation of hands and feet were commonplace punishments for even minor criminal infractions.

After 1949, the Chinese government started bring reforms to Tibet. It instituted a land reform program to end feudalism and transfer small arable plots of land to the peasants. Generational debt for taxes was abolished, along with slavery and extreme forms of punishment and mutilation. Free schools were constructed across Tibet, along with paved roads, hospitals, rail lines, airports, and rural electrification. The first municipal water and sewer systems were installed, and a telephone service was created. China has invested 310 billion yuan (about 45.6 billion U.S. dollars) in Tibet since 2001. Tibet’s GDP was expected to reach 43.7 billion yuan in 2009, up 170 percent from that in 2000 and posting an annual growth of 12.3 percent over the following nine years.

Naturally, the Tibetan landlords and the Buddhist hierarchy–including the Dalai Lama and his minions–violently resisted these reforms, and, by 1955, were in open rebellion against the Chinese government. Aided by Allen Dulles and his Central Intelligence Agency, the ruling Buddhist elite waged a series of bloody battles against the Chinese government. When it was over, the Chinese estimated that as many as 100,000 Tibetans had been killed in the insurrection. The Dalai Lama continues to claim that more than one million Tibetans were massacred by Chinese troops; although that figure is in doubt, due to the fact that Tibet’s population at the end of the Second World War was only 1.5 million, and today is approaching 3 million."

 

[Catholic_farmer]

This is probably a more balanced view. Again, I am not impressed with the Dalai Lama. His reign and that of previous Dalai Lamas failed to care for the poor and better the society that they controlled through an absolute theocracy. I’m not sure why the Pope should spend any more time with him than any other mediocre, possibly corrupt, exiled leader.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/tibet-china-feudalism

 

[oldcatholicguy]

What is the difference between a private and a public audience?

 

[Exiled_Child]

This is probably a more balanced view. Again, I am not impressed with the Dalai Lama. His reign and that of previous Dalai Lamas failed to care for the poor and better the society that they controlled through an absolute theocracy. I’m not sure why the Pope should spend any more time with him than any other mediocre, possibly corrupt, exiled leader.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/tibet-china-feudalism

Thanks for posting that! I think it actually takes some guts to criticize the Dalai Lama, but it’s true, he’s a political figure as much as a spiritual one. I love the man intensely because he’s such a contemplative sort of person, and I relate strongly to that, but he also has a very, very longstanding relationship with the CIA, and so he’s basically chosen to align himself with the devil, in a certain sense. I think the Dalai Lama is a man who would do anything to help his people regain their homeland, and of course America’s Satanic intelligence services are an extremely powerful ally, so I don’t entirely fault him for his choices or anything. But Francis is right to see him as someone with many sides to his character, and he has no choice but to accept and to work with political reality. Just because the Dalai Lama is a lovable, charming dude doesn’t negate the fact that a billion Chinese innocents shouldn’t be lumped in with China’s political situation.

 

[ServusHumilis]

The Dalai Lama isn’t going Rome for an audience with the Pope, he’s going for a Nobel Prize event. The Pope won’t be having an audience with any of the Nobel Prize conference attendees.

 

[RosslynV]

Finally something catholic and positive outta the Vatican!

 

[Arlotus]

The Dalai Lama is a great world figure and a unifier of souls. The Pope must have a good reason to deny him an audience.

 

[saintjohnxxiii]

Am I to understand that the Dalai Lama is worse than Pres. Obama?

 

[agnes_therese]

The Dalai Lama is a great world figure and a unifier of souls. The Pope must have a good reason to deny him an audience.

If he did indeed do so. I still haven’t seen a Vatican source say so, and knowing the mainstream media . . .

 

[Arlotus]

Am I to understand that the Dalai Lama is worse than Pres. Obama?

They are both two of the brightest lights today.