The Catholic Church in China is being “murdered” while the Vatican stands idly by. So alleged Cardinal Joseph Zen in an appeal he sent to the world’s 223 cardinals in September but only recently made public.

This columnist caught up with the cardinal on Thursday in New York. He was just back from Washington, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi presented him with the Chinese Democracy Champion Prize on behalf of the Wei Jingsheng Foundation. Asked about his talk of “murder,” he doubles down.

“You can never compromise with a totalitarian regime because they want everything,” Cardinal Zen says. “Would you have encouraged St. Joseph to negotiate with Herod?”

Cardinal Zen has always spoken with a bluntness unusual for a prince of the church—and his hard words about the still-secret 2018 agreement between Beijing and Rome are plainly getting under the Vatican’s skin. Many are desperate to see him discredited. Thus La Civiltà Cattolica, the Jesuit journal close to (fellow Jesuit) Pope Francis, just ran a piece that resurrected the late Bishop of Shanghai, Aloysius Jin Luxian, as a countermodel to Cardinal Zen. It even quotes Jin to imply there is no way forward until Cardinal Zen goes off, ahem, to his eternal reward.

Jin was also a Jesuit. In 1988 the Chinese Communists installed him as bishop of Shanghai in defiance of the Vatican, though not quite 20 years later he would reconcile with and be recognized by Rome. He died in 2013.