Pope Francis to approve China’s puppet prelates in power deal

The Vatican has moved to end a standoff with Beijing and gain authority by recognising seven excommunicated prelates.

Pope Francis gestures in St Peter's Square at the Vatican this week.

The Pope has decided to accept the legitimacy of seven bishops appointed by the Chinese regime, a concession the Holy See hopes will lead Beijing to recognise his authority as head of the Catholic Church in China.

For years, the Vatican did not recognise the bishops’ ordin­ations, which were carried out in defiance of the pope and considered illicit, in a standoff between the church and China’s officially atheist Communist Party.

Francis will lift the excommunications of the seven prelates and recognise them as the leaders of their dioceses, according to a person familiar with the situation. A Vatican spokesman declined to comment.

The decision reflects the Holy See’s desire for better relations with China — where Christianity is growing fast, though mostly in the form of Protestantism — and for an end to the division between the regime-controlled church and a larger underground church loyal to Rome. In China in 2015, there were 7.3 million Catholics in the regime-backed Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and 10.5 million outside it.

The Pope’s conciliatory approach stands out at a moment when China is tightening its grip on religious practice under the ­assertive leadership of Xi Jinping.

Many parishioners and priests in China have shunned state control and state-appointed bishops to keep faith with the Vatican. Believers have been imprisoned.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, a former bishop of Hong Kong, warned against any deal with China. “Winston Churchill said, ‘How can we deal with a totalitarian regime? How can we trust a totalitarian regime?’ They are simply not trustworthy,” he said.

Some in the church see a rapprochement with an increasingly powerful Beijing as necessary for maintaining influence in China. Cardinal John Tong, who until August was bishop of Hong Kong, called a rapprochement the “lesser of two evils” last year in an influential essay.

The Vatican has told Beijing informally of the Pope’s decision, which he has yet to sign into law, but which could be announced in the next few months. It would then be up to Beijing to accept a proposed agreement giving the Pope veto power on future bishop candidates, whom he would approve or veto after their selection by the regime.

Beijing’s major condition for that agreement has been that the Pope recognise the seven bishops.

The Communist Party keeps a tight hand on all religious practice, mandating that religious institutions be free of foreign control. New regulations that went into effect on Thursday require that religious institutions gain government approval for teaching plans, overseas pilgrimages and other activities.

The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association referred requests for comment to the State Administration for Religious Affairs, which in turn didn’t respond to requests.

In an earlier diplomatic breakthrough, Francis held the first papal meeting in history with a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, meeting Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in Havana’s inter­national airport in 2016.

Beijing broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 1951. Since the 1980s, the Vatican and Beijing have co-operated informally to agree on most bishop appointments, but the government has periodically appointed bishops without Vatican approval.

A deal with Beijing would represent a breakthrough: the first official recognition by the communist regime of the Pope’s jurisdiction as the head of the Catholic Church in China.

An agreement on bishop appointments would leave unresolved the position of more than 30 bishops recognised by Rome but not by Beijing. The re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Beijing and the Vatican would remain a distant goal.

In December, Vatican officials travelled to China to ask bishops in the dioceses of Shantou and Mindong who shun the regime-controlled church to step down in favour of its bishops. They are the first two “underground” bishops to be asked to take such a step.

The Vatican’s actions drew criticism from Cardinal Zen, who travelled to Rome last month to make a personal appeal to the Pope over the two bishops being asked to step aside.

The Wall Street Journal