Pope says he expects deal with China on bishops to be renewed soon

Pope Francis said that while the Vatican’s secret and contested agreement with China on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops is not ideal, he hopes it can be renewed in October because the Church takes a long-term view.

Relations with China were one of many international and church topics that the 85-year-old pontiff addressed in an exclusive interview with Reuters at his Vatican residence on July 2.

The deal, which was first struck in 2018 and is renewed every two years, was an attempt to ease a long-standing division in mainland China between an underground group loyal to the pope and an official state-backed church.

Both sides now recognize the pope as the supreme leader of the Catholic Church.

The agreement, which is still tentative, focuses on cooperation in the appointment of bishops, giving the pope the final word. His details were not released.

“The agreement is going well and I hope that in October it can be renewed,” Francis said.

Comparison to the Soviet Bloc

Francis defended the agreement as the policy of working with what little is available and trying to improve it.

He compared his opponents to those who criticized Popes John XXII and Paul VI in the 1960s and 1970s over the so-called policy of small steps in which the Vatican made sometimes uncomfortable deals with communist nations in Eastern Europe to keep the Church alive. during the Cold War and limit their pursuit there.

“Diplomacy is like that. When you face a lockdown situation, you need to find the possible path, not the ideal one,” Francis said.

“Diplomacy is the art of the possible and of doing things so that the possible becomes reality,” he said.

The main architect of the Vatican’s policy towards the communist eastern bloc was Agostino Casaroli, a diplomat who served under three popes from 1961-1990 and ended his career as secretary of state.

“Many people have said so many things against John XXIII, against Paul VI, against Casaroli,” Francis said.

Casaroli’s critics have accused him of dealing with a godless enemy, but most historians agree that his work kept the Church alive in Eastern Europe until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Comparing the current situation to the pre-1989 era, Francis said his appointment of bishops in China since 2018 “is going slowly, but they are being appointed.”

Only six new bishops have been appointed since the deal, which opponents say proves it is not producing the desired effects. In addition, the agreement regularized the position of seven bishops who had been ordained before 2018 without Vatican approval.

The pope called the slow process “‘the Chinese way,’ because the Chinese have that sense of time that no one can rush them.”

Opposition

One of the most vocal opponents of the deal is Cardinal Joseph Zen, 90, a former archbishop of Hong Kong, who was briefly arrested in a national security case in May.

“The Vatican may have acted in good faith, but it made a reckless decision,” Zen told a gathering of 300 people at a small neighborhood church on Hong Kong Island last month.

At the time, Zen prayed for “brothers and sisters who cannot attend Mass in any way tonight – as they have no freedom now.”

Zen and others accused the Vatican of turning a blind eye to human rights violations in China. The Vatican says it needs to have the means to dialogue with Beijing.

The Vatican-China deal triggered a diplomatic incident with the United States in 2020, when former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in an article in a conservative Catholic newspaper and in a series of posts on Twitter, accused the Vatican of have put their “moral authority” on the line.

The Vatican rebuked Pompeo, saying he was trying to drag the Holy See into the US presidential campaign, in which the Republican Party’s anti-China policy was prominent.

The level of freedom for Catholics in China since the agreement varies by region.

“They (the Chinese) also have their own problems, because it’s not the same situation in all regions of the country. Also (the treatment of Catholics) depends on local leaders,” Francis said.

Source: CNN Brasil

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