Pope Francis has openly acknowledged the failure of his effort to reconcile Roman Catholic Church authority with China’s strict oversight of worship.
He complained that the Chinese Communist Party appointed a bishop in October without consulting him – despite an agreement reached in 2018 to share decisions over episcopal appointments, a move that had been designed to ease longstanding tensions between the Vatican and Beijing over control of the church in China.
Francis’s complaint about the appointment was unusually straightforward. “The Holy See took note with surprise and regret of the news of the “installation ceremony,” a Vatican statement said in late November. “This event did not take place in accordance with the spirit of dialogue existing between the Vatican side and the Chinese side.”
When the 2018 agreement was first announced, Francis declared it a breakthrough that favored his traditional authority. “There is a dialogue on potential candidates, but Rome nominates, the Pope nominates, that’s clear,” the Pope told reporters.
Flummoxed by the latest move, the Vatican demanded an explanation and expressed hope that no further breach would occur. Perhaps the change in tone was due to embarrassment. This past September, the Vatican announced that the 2018 agreement had been renewed for another two years.
Should the Church authorities have been surprised? This was not the first time they had expressed, however mildly, concern that the accord was not working out.
Soon after the 2018 agreement was signed, then-Pope Benedict XVI inquired about the unilateral naming of two bishops by Beijing. The Chinese responded that the appointments had been in the pipeline before the Vatican and China had signed onto the new agreement.
Since then, only four bishops have received both Communist Party okays and the Vatican approval. There are more than sixty dioceses without bishops.
Even sympathizers with the effort to reconcile with Beijing are having second thoughts. “The China of 2018 is far different from the China of 2022,” observed Stephen Schecter, a member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
“Originally, it looked like a savvy move to restore the possibility of appointing bishops in China. Now things have changed,” Schecter added. “It’s no longer the China that the Holy See dealt with initially.”
Other observers offered acid critiques, contending that he outreach has been bad for Catholics in China: Any advances might come with joint episcopal appointments are more than offset by repeated crackdowns on Catholics in China.
“Children are now banned from churches and exposure to religion,” said Nina Shea, a human rights lawyer and religious freedom advocate. “Bibles are tightly restricted and censored on the internet and in app stores. Churches are blanketed with high-tech state surveillance.”
She added that “priests and Christian leaders are forced into life-long indoctrination on Christianity according to communist thought and required to actively support Chinese Communist Party practices, leadership, and core values – even in their sermons.”
Such criticism apparently cut deep.
In response, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, an ally of Francis and possibly the successor to the ailing pope, said the Vatican’s “dialogue” with China “never ignores, and indeed always makes present, the situations of suffering of Catholic communities, which sometimes arise from inappropriate pressures and interference.”
In any event, rather than the definitive breakthrough in relations with China touted in 2018, the Vatican now views it all as a work in progress.
Last July, while contemplating renewal of the 2018 accord, Francis shrugged off complaints that the outreach had produced few results. “It is going slowly, as I say, Chinese style, because the Chinese have that sense of time that no one rushes them,” he said.
“They also have problems, because it is not the same situation in every region of the country,” the Pope said. “Because it also depends on the rulers, there are different ones. But the agreement is good.”
Current tensions come on the heels of clampdowns on free speech and on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, in which a longtime Catholic critic of Communist rule was a protagonist. Retired Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, a former bishop of Hong Kong, was put on trial.
Zen and five associates were fined $500 for having provided legal fees and medical treatments for demonstrators during anti-Communist protests. The judged ruled that a charity run by Zen was a political organization, effectively putting his activities within the contest of ever-tightening tighter government control.
Zen, 90, has appealed the ruling. He had long warned of accepting Beijing rule and called the 2018 deal on bishop appointments the “killing of the Church in China by those who should protect it and defend it from enemies.”
The European Union Parliament said the treatment of Zen constituted “an attack on freedom of religion.”
Margaret Ng, an activist lawyer who was convicted alongside Zen, placed the issue beyond the bounds of religious freedom, calling the case “extremely important for freedom of association in Hong Kong.”
In contrast, Pope Francis stopped short of criticizing the prosecution of Zen. Asked by a reporter about it in September, within the context of religious freedom, Francis responded somewhat quizzically: “Cardinal Zen is an old man who is going on trial these days, I think. And he says what he feels, and you can see that there are limitations there. More than qualifying, because it is difficult, and I do wish to qualify, they are impressions, and I try to support the path of dialogue.”