What will it take for Pope Francis to get the point about China? He fetched up at the Kazakh capital the other day while Xi Jinping was in town for a state visit. Might the two have something to discuss, given that a prince of the church, Joseph Cardinal Zen, awaits trial at Hong Kong on charges that could land him in jail? The Vatican, the AP reports, sent an “expression of availability” and got a snub. Mr. Xi, Francis lamented, “had a state visit but I didn’t see him.”

The pope, asked by reporters on his flight back to Rome about “the state of religious freedom in China” and the fate of Cardinal Zen, replied, “It’s not easy to understand the Chinese mentality, but it must be respected. I respect it.” It’s the communist mentality that obtains. Of the impending trial, pushed back after the judge on the case came down with Covid, the Pope observed that Cardinal Zen “says what he feels, and you can see that there are limitations there.” 

If Francis wasn’t entirely washing his hands of the courageous cardinal, it was hardly the ringing defense that would hearten the prelate or the advocates of religious liberty who await with alarm his trial. The  cardinal, along with five other Hong Kongers, is charged with failing to register a now-defunct nonprofit. The organization supported protesters who demanded the communist government respect the political autonomy of the former British colony.

The original charge against Cardinal Zen was collusion with foreign powers to subvert the state; prosecutors may revive it. The legal debacle comes as the Vatican prepares to negotiate renewal of its 2018 pact governing relations with Red China. That is the likeliest explanation for why the Vatican has confined itself to expressing “concern” over Cardinal’s Zen’s arrest and saying it would follow the matter with “extreme attention.”

So eager is the Pope to cut a deal with the communists that he has agreed to let Beijing have a say in choosing the church’s bishops. He compares it to the pacts the Church struck with the Soviet bloc countries, Reuters says. Cardinal Zen decries the betrayal of Chinese Catholics who were persecuted for refusing to recognize communist-appointed bishops. “The Vatican may have acted out of good faith, but they have made an unwise decision,” he has said.

The Pope appears to be unwilling to change course despite ample evidence of China’s bad faith, as William McGurn has observed in the Wall Street Journal. What of President Biden, who likes to tout his own Catholic faith? Other than a statement in May after the Cardinal’s arrest, he has been mum. What a missed opportunity for two liberal Catholics, the president and the pope, to pipe up for religious freedom.

The persecution of Cardinal Zen calls to mind the courage of two 20th century Catholics, Ignatius Cardinal Kung of Shanghai, jailed for 30 years for refusing to bow to Red China, and József Cardinal Mindszenty, imprisoned in 1948 after he opposed Stalin’s takeover of Hungary. America, then seeking terms with the Soviets, asked which of  Hungary’s demands could be dropped. Replied Mindszenty: “Only a cheap politician could answer that question.”