The Vatican and China have announced they have signed a “provisional agreement” over the appointment of Catholic bishops more than 65 years after the Holy See and Beijing severed official relations.
The appointment of bishops has long been a major point of division between the China and the Holy See with China insisting it must approve all bishop appointments, a view at odds with the Catholic Church’s position which gives the Pope absolute authority to appoint bishops.
China is said to be home to some 12 million Catholics who for decades have been forced to choose between a state-approved church and an underground church which professes loyalty to the Vatican.
Few details of the deal, which was reportedly signed in Beijing by Wang Chao, China’s Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Monsignor Antoine Camilleri, the Vatican Undersecretary for State Relations, have so far been made public but among those provisions which have is that the Vatican has agreed to accept seven bishops who were previously named by the Chinese Government without the Pope’s consent while an eighth bishop, who died last year, has also been recognised posthumously.
The BBC reported that the deal also means future bishops will be proposed by the Chinese authorities and then approved by the Pope.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, said the agreement meant that “today, for the first time all the Bishops in China are in communion with the Bishop of Rome [the Pope]”.
He said Pope Francis now trusted that the Catholic community in China would make “concrete fraternal gestures of reconciliation among themselves, and so to overcome past misunderstandings, past tensions, even the recent ones”.
“In this way they can really contribute, and they will be able to perform the duty of the Church which is the announcement of the Gospel and, at the same time, to contribute to the growth, the spiritual and material growth, of their country and to peace and reconciliation in the world.”
Greg Burke, director of the Holy See Press Office, told reporters in Vilnius, Lithuania – where Pope Francis is undertaking an official visit, that the provisional agreement was “not the end of a process” but “the beginning”.
“This has been about dialogue, patient listening on both sides even when people come from very different standpoints,” he said. “The objective of the accord is not political but pastoral, allowing the faithful to have bishops who are in communion with Rome but at the same time recognised by Chinese authorities.”
The deal has been criticised by some – including Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former Catholic Archbishop of Hong Kong, who, speaking before it was officially announced, described it as an “incredible betrayal”.
“The consequences will be tragic and long lasting, not only for the church in China but for the whole church because it damages the credibility,” he told Reuters. “Maybe that’s why they might keep the agreement secret.”
