National overview
China betrays its agreement with the Vatican
Beijing has quietly indicated that it will soon lift its ‘breakthrough’ 2018 agreement with the Vatican, which was intended to settle a decades-long dispute over the appointment of bishops in China. In November, shortly after exchanging diplomatic notes with Rome to renew the agreement for another two years, China thoroughly denied it in a dry public position by the state bureaucracy. Order no. 15, on new administrative rules for religious affairs, contains an article on the establishment of a process for the election of Catholic bishops in China after May 1st. The document makes no provision for any papal role in the process, not even for a papal right. to approve or veto episcopal appointments in China, which were supposed to be the only material concession to the Vatican in the agreement. It is as if the agreement never happened. Revoking an agreement with Pope Francis may not be as consequent as overthrowing the agreement ‘one country, two systems’ that was supposed to guarantee Hong Kong’s autonomy after the city’s return from the United Kingdom to China does not, but it does show the danger of partnerships with Beijing. In October, when the renewal of the two-year agreement was announced, the Vatican reported that the “results achieved so far” under the agreement were the appointment of two new bishops who had the papal approval. The press release praised the appointments as a ‘good start’. “Thanks to the implementation of the agreement, there will be no illegal arrangements,” the statement said, before expressing joy that the Chinese Church would once again experience ‘unity’. Order no. 15 now casts serious doubt on these allegations. So far, the Vatican has not commented on China’s miraculous betrayal. On February 11, Bitter Winter magazine translated the document into English, which enabled the Catholic News Agency to summarize the process they set up: “China’s State-run Catholic Church and Bishops’ Conference will select, approve and order bisexual candidates – without mentioning the Vatican’s involvement in the process. It is important that the new rules require the clergy to adhere to ‘the principle of independent and self-governing religion in China’. This language follows with a long-standing stipulation in the membership promise of the so-called Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church (CPCC), which bishops and priests must sign to be licensed for the ministry. In practical terms, this means that Chinese clergy should actually be independent of the Vatican and therefore be apostate. In 2019, the Vatican proposed guidelines, outside the framework of the agreement, to reject the clause. Father Huang Jintong, a priest in Fujian, was detained by police and tortured for four days for following Vatican leadership. The new rules stipulate that spiritual ministers actively support the ruling Communist Party. According to Article 3, they must support ‘the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party’ and ‘the socialist system’, as well as ‘practice the core values of socialism’. The rules also require clergy to promote ‘social harmony’, which means that Beijing is in line with thinking. In other words, the rules aim to make churches another arm of the authoritarian Chinese regime. Enforcement is ensured by a rule that states that those entering churches “must be regulated by strict gatekeeping, identity verification and registration.” Registration must be followed in a new government database that contains the names of legitimate clergy and regulates their behavior through a system of ‘rewards’ and ‘penalties’. Catholicism has deep historical roots in China. It was introduced to the country by 16th-century Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci and is one of five state-recognized religions, and according to China’s twelve million Catholics, there are no charges of separatism or terrorism, like several other Chinese. religious minorities as well. Instead, the CCP views Catholicism as a belief system imported from the West, and aims to start the religion through the party-controlled Patriotic Church or to eradicate it completely. The appointment of bishops, according to the Vatican in its statement on the renewal of the agreement in 2018, is “essential to guarantee the ordinary life of the church in China.” Although both parties agreed to keep the text confidential, the Vatican was clear about the importance of a papal role in this process. As reported by the Catholic News Service, ‘Pope Francis told reporters in September 2018 that the agreement proposes a dialogue on potential candidates. The case is carried out through dialogue. But the appointment is made by Rome; the appointment is by the pope. It’s clear. ” The Vatican revealed that fundamental church teaching on ‘the particular role of the Supreme Pontiff within the Episcopal College and in the appointment of bishops themselves, inspired the negotiations’ and’ was a point of reference in the drafting of the text of the agreement . It helps ensure that all Catholic congregations in China are united behind the pope. With the approval of Pope Francis, the Vatican diplomats pursued a bilateral agreement and took advantage of the Holy See’s status as a sovereign state. The Vatican accepted that the agreement “applies exclusively to episcopal appointments. This would not push Beijing back on the status of the “underground”, non-CPCC Catholic Church, the ban on religion for the youth, the state’s destruction of numerous churches and Marian shrines, its efforts to reinterpret the Bible, and a multitude of other human rights crises. It could live with communist administrative control over its churches, as in the Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War. And as a condition of the agreement, Pope Francis was willing to repeal the previous excommunication of seven government-appointed bishops. The agreement was signed in September 2018 on a preliminary basis for two years. As early as October 2020, the Vatican expressed satisfaction with its progress and optimistically characterized it as ‘a starting point for broader and far-sighted agreements’. China was willing to enter into the agreement for one simple reason: it wanted to help the Vatican eliminate the underground Catholic Church and had the leverage to ensure that concession. The CCP-controlled Patriotic Church would be the institution in which Chinese Catholic unification would take place, with the pope’s blessing. Following the agreement, Chinese authorities assembled underground Catholic clergy and warned them to defy the pope if they continued to baptize, ordain new clergy, and pray in unregistered churches. The Chinese Catholic underground can resist being officially declared illegal or counter-revolutionary; it survived fierce persecution as an enemy of the state during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. But it can not resist running the pope. The conscientious objectors among the underground clergy feel compelled to cease their activities and return to their families, as Bishop Vincent Guo of Mindong has done over the past year. Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong has warned that the 2018 agreement will “kill” the Catholic underground on mainland China, and his warning appears to have been carried out. The underground is sufficiently weakened that Beijing, which calculates that the agreement served its purpose, is trying to deny its only case. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church, stripped of a papal role in episcopal appointments in China, deprived of a weakened and demoralized underground, is much worse positioned to survive the Xi era intact. Partnering with Xi’s China is a difficult game because the CCP does not play by fair rules. It respects bilateral agreements in so far as they serve their purpose; there is no doubt about breaking the end of an agreement after the other party has complied with them. Unfortunately, there is little appetite among other countries to hold Xi’s rule to justify such lawlessness. But as a Catholic and a world leader, President Biden must be very interested in what is happening to the Church in China, and he must use his power to punish the CCP for its perfection and to keep it in focus before committing to the United States. future partnerships with Beijing.