China and the Vatican agree to extend an agreement on appointing bishops | AP News
China and the Vatican agree to extend an agreement on appointing bishops | AP News
China and the Vatican have agreed to extend a provisional agreement on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four more years.
The 2018 agreement sought to find a middle ground, although Rome has acknowledged it was a bad deal and the only one it could get. The Holy See’s outreach to China under Francis has drawn criticism, especially from American conservatives who have accused the Vatican of selling out the faithful who have been forced underground.
What is the compromise? Seems relevant to the article about a thing to explain what the thing is.
Iirc, before 2018 the Chinese goverment would refuse to recognize some priests or bishops as officials even if the Pope had selected them. The relation between the PRC and the Vatican was ok, better than the Soviets and the Vatican, but this was a huge problem for them.
In 2018 Francis made a deal with them, I think Xi wanted to approach the Catholic Church due to the slow but big growth of the Church in Asia, and because they probably wants to get closer with LatAm and Africa. Francis (The Pope) would choose the priests, but the Chinese goverment/CPC would have to approve them, some TradCath and Anti-China Catholics are angry bc they hate Francis (mostly bc he purged some tradcatholics and kicked some out of the church, and he is in friendly terms with some socdem and communist goverments in LatAm), and bc Francis have been mostly choosing normal Catholic priests and bishops, instead of anti-China ones.
I see. Thank you.
Beijing picks who gets to be a bishop and Rome gives the okay to Catholics to worship in communist party organized parishes with a picture of Mao on the wall and a CCP-edited Bible to read. Also, the hope is China stops arresting Catholics and stops sending them to reeducation camps.
Members of the illegal underground Church have opposed this deal.
For more information, check out the Cardinal Kung Foundation.
China never keeps their word.
That's a crossover episode i did not expect