First, it was Bishop Giovanni Peng Weizhao of Yujiang (Jiangxi), who was installed as Auxiliary Bishop of Jiangxi on November 24, 2022, without the authorization of the Holy See.
Now, it is a much bigger diocese, Shanghai.
On April 4 Bishop Shen Bin, until now Bishop of Haimen, was installed as the new Bishop of Shanghai.
In the case of Jiangxi, the Holy See knew of the installation ceremony, told China it had not authorized it, and was ignored.
The case of Shanghai is worse.
The Vatican stated officially that “the Holy See learned from the media of the installation” the morning it happened.
The text of the Vatican-China deal of 2018, renewed in 2020 and 2022, is secret, but it is known that it regulates the administration of the Catholic dioceses and the appointment of bishops. The latter are still selected by the CCP but are officially appointed by the Vatican.
In the case of Shanghai, Monsignor Shen Bin was not appointed by the Vatican as Bishop of that city. Yet, he was installed. He promised during the ceremony that he will “adhere to the principle of independence and self-government” that is at the core of the Patriotic Catholic Church, and has traditionally meant independence from the Vatican. This is the very principle the 2018 agreement should have modified.
As they say in Italy, two clues make a proof. It is now obvious that the Vatican-China deal of 2018 is regarded by the CCP as binding for the Vatican only, which is expected not to criticize religious persecution in China, but not binding for Beijing, which appoints Catholic Bishops as it deems fit, with or without Papal mandate.
Since the matter of the Bishops is the core of the agreement, it is clear that there is no longer an agreement in the real world. It exists only in the fictional world of the CCP propaganda about a non-existing religious liberty in China.
Why did the CCP decide to violate the agreement in such a blatant way? There are two possibilities. One is that it has already been informed, again secretly, that the Holy See will not renew it in 2024.
Although the Vatican is traditionally interested in long-term projects and very much prepared to ignore their short-term failures, the effects of the 2018 agreement have been so catastrophic that this would be the best and most reasonable hypothesis.
The second possibility is much worse. It implies that the CCP believes it can bully the Vatican publicly and repeatedly breach the agreement, and get away with it, because the Pope has personally endorsed the deal and going back to the pre-2018 situation would mean that these underground Catholics who trusted the Holy See, “emerged” in 2018, and are now known to the authorities would end up in jail or worse if they would now try to walk out of the Patriotic Church.
Time will tell.
For now, the Vatican’s official statement is that it has “nothing to say about the Holy See’s assessment of the matter.”