U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to visit the Vatican on Tuesday (Sept. 29). During his visit, he is expected to criticize China’s persecution of religious freedom and express his displeasure over the Vatican’s upcoming renewal of its agreement with China on the appointment of bishops. Pompeo previously said that the Vatican would “endanger its own moral authority” if it renewed the agreement. According to reports, Pope Francis will not meet with Pompeo.
The Guardian reported on Tuesday that Pope Francis had decided not to meet with Pompeo during his visit to the Vatican, citing the timing of the visit as being too close to the U.S. election. The Guardian said, however, that the “snub” may be related to Pompeo’s recent criticism of the Vatican for downplaying China’s human rights record.
During his Sept. 27-Oct. 2 visit to southern Europe, Pompeo will meet with the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pieto Parolin, and Archbishop Lagaguerre, the Holy See’s minister for relations with countries, and is scheduled to speak at a Vatican seminar on diplomatic efforts to promote and protect religious freedom, a U.S. State Department spokesman said in a statement on Sept. 24.
The Vatican and China signed a provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops on Sept. 22, 2018. Pope Francis has reportedly approved a two-year extension of the agreement, and a renewal ceremony is expected to take place in October.
Pompeo publicly called on the Holy See on September 19 not to renew the bishop appointment agreement with Beijing, saying that the agreement was intended to benefit Catholics in China, but that the Communist authorities were increasingly trampling on religious beliefs. He warned that if the Communist Party succeeded, the Catholic Church and other religious groups would be “subjugated” and the Chinese regime, which despises human rights, would be “emboldened.
The agreement, signed by the Vatican and China two years ago, without announcing details, gives the Vatican the right to appoint bishops in China and means that China recognizes the Pope as the Catholic leader. In addition, China appointed two new bishops after consulting with the Vatican, and officials from both sides met publicly for the first time in 70 years.
Critics say the bishops’ agreement betrays the countless Chinese Catholics who worship in unregistered churches at great risk and does irreparable damage to the Church’s credibility. Hong Kong’s Bishop Emeritus Chen Rijun said the agreement was “sending a lamb into the lion’s den”.
Following the bishops’ agreement with China, Pope Francis has been fairly silent on the issue of human rights violations in China. Despite his history of solidarity with oppressed and marginalized people around the world, the Guardian says Francis has not spoken out against China’s imprisonment of at least a million Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang.
China’s leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed the need to “Chineseize” all religions, and has insisted that the government guide cadres of all ethnic groups to establish a correct view of the country, history, ethnicity, and religion, so that a sense of Chinese national community can be “rooted deep in the psyche.
Catholics in China have long been divided into the underground Catholic Church and the officially sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. These underground Catholics maintain full communion with Rome, but the bishops appointed by the Pope are often not officially recognized by the Communist Party. For decades, underground Catholics were subjected to repression, including long prison terms.
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