The Holy See and China have renewed their historic and questionable 2018 agreement on the appointment of Catholic bishops in the communist country.
The Vatican announced Saturday that the agreement, the main points of which have never been made public, would be extended for two years. It was first renovated in 2020.
The negotiations had been going on for months, in absolute secrecy. And they have followed chaotic paths both in the Vatican and in China.
In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano and Vatican News, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, secretary of state of the Holy See, admitted that it represented an imperfect commitment.
“We do not hide the many difficulties that the concrete life of Catholic communities has, which derive advantages from our greater attention,” he said.
Vatican official No. 2 warned that in the face of these difficulties “more progress is needed, in a collaborative dating that includes multiple protagonists: the Holy See, central authorities, bishops with their communities and local authorities. “
In fact, 4 years after its first signing, the agreement has aroused harsh criticism.
On the one hand, some China is too vital an issue to ignore, and that a bad deal is better than nothing. On the other hand, critics of the protocol denounce it as a manipulation through the communists.
In its main push toward the sinicization of religions, has Beijing presented this text for years as an endorsement through the Vatican to increase pressure on Catholic communities?
Although the stated purpose of the agreement is to appoint bishops jointly and try to end the schism that has existed since 1953 between the official Church and the underground Church, it remains complicated for the purposes of the agreement.
How many bishops have been appointed in 4 years by either party?Only six, and the 40 dioceses that remain vacant, the figure is minuscule.
As for the clandestine bishops, some do hide their preference for throwing in the towel.
“For many of them it is out of the question to sign an agreement that obliges them to register in the Patriotic Association, warning of the prohibition of evangelizing other young people under 18 years of age and the impossibility of any outdoor project. the parish territory,” said Father Bernardo Cervellera, an Italian projector founded in Hong Kong.
But others insist that the evaluation of such an agreement cannot be limited to the number of bishops appointed. For example, at a convention in early October organized through the Asian Catholic Study Initiative, a Singapore-based think tank, scholars Michel Chambon assessed the impact of the agreement on the diocese of Fujian, a province in southeastern China.
He explained that even if a diocese identified through the Vatican and a diocese established through the Chinese government do not cover exactly the same regions, “official” and “underground” Catholics can now talk to each other, and genuine collaboration has been established. Proof of this is a photo taken in December 2018 of the two Chinese bishops of the diocese together with Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, a long-time diplomat of the Holy See.
For decades, the 81-year-old Italian prelate has been dubbed by the Vatican as “Mr. China. “Pope Francis has entrusted him with leading negotiations with Beijing and in recent years the archbishop has been one of the most ardent defenders. of the agreement
Celli recently led a seven-member Vatican delegation to the northeastern city of Tianjin for negotiations that took place from Aug. 28 to Sept. 2. Representatives of the central government in Beijing.
The visit to China, a country completely closed (even to foreign delegations) since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, ended with a stopover at Melchiorre Shi Hongzhen, the underground bishop of Tianjin.
These are all signs, but they come after a very long era of tension between the two sides.
Indeed, as Archbishop Paul Gallagher, of the “foreign minister” at the Vatican, has privately put it, in recent months, China has still damaged its discussion with the Holy See in recent months. The excuse given through Beijing – COVID-19 – did not fool anyone in the Apostolic Palace.
Today, several foreign diplomats in Rome that this silence was a transparent sign of the will of the Chinese authorities.
“They sought to renew the agreement, but without converting anything,” a diplomatic source said.
But the Vatican insisted on renewing the agreement (“to prevent it would be to ruin thirty years of effort,” said a source in Rome), but also on reopening negotiations. Thus the officials of the Holy See received the right to dry land. Porcelain.
However, it is difficult to know what was negotiated.
One of the most sensitive issues is, obviously, the maintenance of Taiwan’s popularity through the Holy See. Beijing had made the severing of diplomatic relations with Taipei a prerequisite for signing any agreement with Rome. But, in the end, it hizo. la not requested.
For its part, Rome would one day like to move its cultural workplace from Hong Kong to Beijing so that it can begin to repair diplomatic relations between the two countries, officially broken in 1953 when Maoist China banned the representation of the Holy See.
The Vatican also tried to arrange an assembly between Pope Francis and President Xi Jinping last September in the Kazakh capital, where the two men had traveled to participate in events. The proposal was rejected, as was the proposal in 2015, when, in the words of a senior Vatican source, Rome proposed to Beijing a “corridor assembly” outside Francis’ scale at the UN.
Vatican officials like to say it takes “a century to perceive China,” something the pope repeated on his plane vacation back from Kazakhstan. Above all, they are careful never to “rush” the Chinese giant.
“We will have to give them the impression that they are in control of time,” said a diplomat in the Apostolic Palace.
There is also an old explanation of why for this approach.
“In 1980, under the aegis of Cardinal Etchegaray, the Vatican tried to sign a first agreement of this kind,” recalls one of the top Roman observers attentive to the Chinese question.
“But the negotiations stalled because Rome demanded that Canton have an archbishop, whereas in China there were no archbishops, only bishops. At the insistence of the Vatican, the Chinese withdrew from the negotiating table. table. We have lost thirty years,” the observer said.
In China, where he has been at the just-concluded 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CCP), the renewal of the agreement with the Vatican turns out to be received with disinterest.
“Contacts are incredibly limited between mainland China and the West. People communicate about rain and sun, but about serious topics. The little data we get about the interior of the country comes from abroad,” said a local specialist in Catholicism.
The renewal of the agreement comes in a context of hardening of the Chinese against religions.
“While the country is more or less closed to the rest of the world, Catholic communities, like others, are being crushed by the highly repressive ‘zero covid’ policy. Churches are forced to close regularly, and this fuels negative reactions towards the government. All this does not inspire optimism,” the expert added.
Indeed, it is difficult to identify a “dominant sentiment” among Catholics (1%) in this vast territory regarding renewed bipartisan engagement. At the end of August in Wuhan (Hubei province), the 10th meeting of the Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics, an organization founded in 1957 through the government to consecrate the independence of Chinese Catholicism from Rome, did not even make a single mention of it.
In recent months, new CCP directives aimed at “improving denominational ‘democracy’ have gone into effect, adding a ban on online activities without prior government approval. “
“This web law has had a huge impact on the life of the church, killing all devoted discussion platforms. Many sites that were well established no longer have the right to operate,” says one expert.
“More broadly, the government is tightening its grip on religions to such an extent that Chinese bishops no longer have much space,” he said.
“They have two options: make many concessions, under the threat of displeasing the clergy and some faithful, or, if they refuse, endanger the security of their communities and parishes. They are placed in a situation,” he added.