Abbey-Roads2

Is China our friend or enemy? 

Good headline huh?  No, I don’t have any official data on whether or not China is conducting a war on the U.S. - although reading weekly news articles about America’s trade partner - week after week for years now, suggests the Chinese are certainly not our allies.

Even if you ignore the fact that they are building up their nuclear arsenal to attack Taiwan and other points West, or turn a blind eye to their persecution of Catholics faithful to Rome, imprisoning bishops and priests, blowing up shrines to Our Lady…or ignore the fact they skin dogs and cats alive to supply fur to Western clothiers…or permit slave labor,  and don’t forget human organ harvesting, it seems to me China is a government the free world ought not to support.

Employing a sort of bizarre, eminent domain theory, the Chinese government is in the process of displacing hundreds of thousands to build Olympic facilities for the upcoming games to be held in 2008.  It is a government that has absolutely no regard for human rights, let alone human life.  And yet U.S. businesses and government supports this communist regime which is little more than a continual atrocity in action.

What’s up with that? 

Is it simply greed on our part, or do we approve of Chinese foreign and domestic policies.  But where is the evidence for a covert war on the West?  A report todayfocuses upon the tainted, if not deadly imports coming into our country  from China.  Most people know about the tainted pet food, which sickened and killed many of our pets, then came the tainted tooth paste.  But it’s more than that, it’s bogus pharmaceuticals, poisonous cosmetics, toxic fish and other food products, and the toxins don’t stop there - paints and finishes on toys and gift products, and so on.

What’s the message here?

Don’t buy Chinese!  Don’t support a government that exploits it’s own people for profit and gain, while denying basic human rights to their citizens.  They cannot even meet minimum business standards to make sure the goods they manufacture are safe for the consumers they export to - and they don’t care.  Greed calls out to greed in the roar of the Stock Exchange floor.

As Catholics, we should have understood this a long time ago, since the persecution of the Underground Church in Chinahas been no secret to us for years now - but we ignore our suffering brothers and sisters because we are so attached to inexpensive product.  Catholics are big-butt consumers too, you know - and Catholic merchants are not above unjust exploitation either.   Manufacturers and merchants are perhaps more culpable than the consumer, since marketing these goods could possibly be considered an act approaching collusion with an evil regime.  (IMHO)  (Of course all of us pay taxes,  from which a percentage goes to support Planned Parenthood, which in turn supports abortion, and so on - so what are you going to do?)

Next time you go into a Catholic religious goods store, take a quick inventory of all the products manufactured in China.  Currently, Roman Inc., the supplier for lines such as Fontanini (the well known Nativity manufacturer, whose figures are molded in China, along with all of their packaging), happens to be a major player in the Catholic gift market.  The Roman line includes other kitschy in-house product lines, developed and marketed to retailers across the country.  The Company has recently developed a new Renaissance Collection of lovely devotional statues - all made in China.  As I mentioned, this Company supplies other religious goods, as well as gift product, both to religious andsecular retail stores, and much of the product is made in China.

Care-full shopping. 

Check the product, or ask the retailer if something is made in China - if it is, don’t buy it and ask the retailer not to sell it.  If they won’t take it off the shelves - take your business to Aquinas and More - the company listed in  my sidebar - they refuse to sell products made in China.  You would be surprised to realize how much of the religious kitsch available for sale - novelty saint’s watches, book marks, cheap rosaries, etc., are made in China. 

Change can happen.  As Catholics, I believe we must be concerned about justice, we need to move away and detach ourselves from our consumer addiction and maybe learn to do without some of the superfluous junk we buy.  And of course, as Jesus warns in the Gospel, we must avoid greed in all of it’s forms.

Boycott Chinese products (read one family’s testimony), and boycott the 2008 Olympics while you’re at it.

(Art: Courtesy of Vultus Christi.)