Forced Chinese Organ Harvesting

The Vatican's pet repressive regime, Red China, indulges in many immoral and unjust procedures, including harvesting organs from living people.

From Crisis

By John Cassara

The Vatican should be at the forefront in criticizing Chinese organ harvesting and other forms of CCP immoral criminality. Yet it has never issued a formal, explicit condemnation.

This article is not for the squeamish.  

A haunting video of a former Chinese doctor describes how he was ordered to extract the eyes of a prisoner. Filled with terror, the eyes were moving. The prisoner was alive. 

The event happened years ago. But the doctor in the video, recounting the story, was sobbing and trembling. His voice was shaking. He recounted how the prisoner had his limbs tied down. He told how another surgeon removed the intestines from the living man so they could extract the kidneys.   

The witness is traumatized. He is resigned to re-living this nightmare the rest of his life.  

Annie, who escaped to the United States, talks about her husband, a brain surgeon, who also participated in forced transplants. He, too, suffers from horrible flashbacks due to the things he was asked to do to living, breathing children of God. Her husband, Annie says, forcibly removed over 2,000 corneas. 

“Every time he did this, he got lots of money and cash awards—several dozen times his normal salary—several hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars.” Annie said the personal toll on her husband was steep. He would wake up screaming and terrified. “He would stare blankly at the TV,” Annie remembers. 

When our child or I touched him, he would shriek. I found him becoming abnormal. He told me, “You have no idea of my agony. It would be ok if we removed organs from dead bodies, but these people were truly alive.”

Organs have become a commodity to be bought and sold. There are networks of organ brokers, transplant teams including physicians, nurses, lab technicians, and even hospitals and other medical facilities engaged in the illegal trade. It is estimated that illicitly acquired organs are involved in up to 10 percent of all transplants. Worldwide, black market organ trafficking generates $840 million to $1.7 billion annually. Organ harvesting in China is estimated to be at least a $1 billion per year business. 

The costs for illicit transplants vary substantially from “donor” country to “recipient” country. For example, the price for a kidney ranges from between $50,000 and $120,000. A lung can cost from between $150,000 to approximately $300,000. There are also wide price ranges for livers, pancreases, and hearts. In the illicit trade, the donor gets very little; generally speaking, it is the intermediaries that benefit the most. The “markup” the recipient pays varies between 500 to nearly 2,000 percent. In other words, it is a very lucrative business. 

Vendor or donor countries vary widely. They include Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Egypt, India, Turkey, Iraq, and Vietnam. International studies have concluded that China is the primary center for state-sanctioned illicit forced organ harvesting. It is done on an industrial scale, a practice widely considered to be a crime against humanity.

In 2018, China had more than 20,000 official organ transplants. Able to transplant livers, kidneys, hearts, lungs, small intestines, and perform simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplants and multiple-organ transplants, China is now believed to be the country with the largest number of organ transplants of any country in the world.  

In 2015, investigators say that their compiled data from individual hospitals in China shows there were at least 60,000 organ transplants. They believe the difference between the 2015 and 2018 numbers above is made up by forced organ extractions. The independent international China Tribunal in 2019 concluded there was “numerical evidence” of the “impossibility of there being anything like sufficient ‘eligible donors’ under the recently formed PRC [People’s Republic of China] voluntary donor scheme for that number of transplant operations.”   

Examining the data, a 2016 report by human rights lawyer David Matas, journalist Ethan Gutmann, and David Kilgour, the former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, concludes that China has an “industrial-scale, state-directed organ transplantation system, controlled through national policies and funding, implicating both the military and civilian healthcare systems.”  

Human rights lawyers conclude that China has an “industrial-scale, state-directed organ transplantation system, controlled through national policies and funding, implicating both the military and civilian healthcare systems.”The allegations are hotly contested by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). China dismisses criticism as politically motivated or Sinophobia. It consistently denies that prisoners have ever been killed extrajudicially for their organs. China and its apologists cite the lack of any direct incriminatory evidence. 

Yet the international consensus is that CCP Inc. has, for years, been engaging in forced organ harvesting. Researchers have chronicled a boom in transplant activity in China, with unusually short wait times—impossible for the rest of the world. Chinese websites advertise hearts, lungs, and kidneys for sale; and those in need are able to book an organ in advance. According to some commentators, this suggests that victims are killed on demand. 

The 2019 China Tribunal reports that “Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale.” The practice is “of unmatched wickedness even compared—on a death for death basis—with the killings by mass crimes committed in the last century.” 

It is believed many of the victims are members of Falun Gong, a spiritual and lifestyle discipline that the CCP banned in the 1990s. Falun Gong was initially tolerated by China’s communist authorities; but after a few years, they began to see the movement as a potential threat because of its growing popularity. The CCP now calls the Falun Gong an “evil cult.” There are other reports that Uighur Muslims, Tibetans, and Christians have also been victims of forced organ transplants.

China leads the world in mass executions. During U.S. Congressional testimony, there were accounts of ambulances lined up by the firing squads. They were waiting to harvest fresh organs. One doctor testified how he had performed surgery on a victim of a botched execution and discovered, as he began cutting, that the victim was in a state of shock. He was not dead. The surgeon found himself harvesting organs from a living human.  

One doctor testified how he had performed surgery on a victim of a botched execution and discovered, as he began cutting, that the victim was in a state of shock. He was not dead…he found himself harvesting organs from a living human.  For the reader that finds it incredulous that the CCP sanctions such barbaric practices, I encourage you to do your own research. Although the details vary, there are plenty of online videos, articles, and reports that cumulatively paint a horrific picture.   

Fortunately, the United States has officially condemned the practice of forced organ harvesting in China. Congress has passed bipartisan legislation to combat it and demands the end of these “grotesque atrocities” and crimes against humanity.  

The Holy See represents the spiritual and diplomatic authority of the Catholic Church. The pope is considered the Vicar of Christ on earth. As such, the Vatican should be at the forefront in criticizing Chinese organ harvesting and other forms of CCP immoral criminality. Yet it has never issued a formal, explicit condemnation. 

Rather, since the beginning of the pontificate of Pope Francis, the Holy See has pursued a strategy of engagement rather than condemnation, arguing that working with Chinese officials will encourage internal reform. That approach has proved to be a colossal failure.   

The Vatican does regularly denounce human trafficking. It also encourages almost limitless migration and has not been hesitant to criticize the United States about cracking down on illegal immigration, calling President Trump’s enforcement policies “inhuman” and a “disgrace.” Yet organ harvesting—particularly when it involves coercion, deception, or the abuse of vulnerable individuals—is considered a distinct and grave form of human trafficking. It is recognized as a form of modern slavery and is included under the internationally accepted definition of trafficking in persons. Thus, the Vatican’s silence on coercive or forcible organ harvesting in China—categorized as one of the worst forms of human trafficking—is both hypocritical and deafening.  

In 2023, I wrote an article for Crisis Magazine questioning why Pope Francis continued to deal with the CCP given the communist state’s lack of morality. For example, the CCP has murdered more people and aborted more babies than any country in history. China, under the CCP, leads the world in the top ten categories of transnational crime. Measured by the amount of illicit money garnered by its crimes, it is the world’s largest money launderer, with distinct Chinese-centric money laundering methodologies. In essence, the CCP’s People’s Republic of China is an ongoing Marxist criminal enterprise masquerading as a state.  

I could not understand why Francis was dealing with such a regime. Why would he allow the Catholic Church to be a party to the secret 2018 Provisional Agreement negotiated by Cardinal Pietro Parolin (Vatican Secretary of State) and Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli regarding the appointment of bishops? The agreement gives Beijing the right to nominate Chinese bishops and the Vatican the right to refuse. It is believed the Vatican has never exercised a veto. 

The only thing that makes sense are unconfirmed reports that the Vatican has received $1.6 billion every year since 2014 in bribes from the CCP. Francis became pope in 2013.

I emphasize the above are simply allegations. Apologists for the Vatican say, “there is no proof.” But the Vatican should know better than any that sometimes the appearance of impropriety is damning. 

Secrecy and strategic corruption are part of the CCP’s game plan. They are instruments of China’s intelligence services and incorporated into its foreign policy. For example, in contrast to international developmental lending norms, China’s exploitative international Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) agreements lack transparency. Most projects are negotiated behind closed doors. There is non-disclosure of lending terms. The opacity shields the participants and project details from receiving public scrutiny, leading to concerns about corruption and financial risks for participating countries. 

With the above as background, a recent LifeSite video lends additional credence to the allegations of CCP payoffs to the Vatican. One prominent Catholic cleric denounced the Vatican’s silence regarding the February 9, 2026, CCP 20-year sentence of 78-year-old Hong Kong pro-democracy Catholic activist and media tycoon Jimmy Lai. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for collusion with foreign forces and sedition under the National Security Law. Regarding the silence, the cleric states, “Certainly money has changed hands.”

Can we then conclude that CCP bribes are also buying Vatican silence about Chinese organ harvesting and other horrific human rights abuses? It certainly appears so. 

Instead of adhering to divine doctrine, are we witnessing Vatican alignment with Marxist influencers in return for 30 pieces of silver?

Pope Leo should break with his predecessor’s policies. He should announce that the Vatican will not agree to the 2028 renewal of the 2018 concordat with Beijing. He should take legal steps to abrogate any non-disclosure or secrecy agreements and order full public disclosure and transparency of all official and unofficial Vatican agreements, including financial, with the CCP. And, if he finds money did change hands, I pray there will be deep reflection and perhaps contrition.

Pictured: Xi Jinping, head of the criminal organisation