In the Sistine chapel, the questionable results of the cease with XI will play a role. Parolin and Filipino Tagle are “warned”.
The Sino-Vatican agreement on the appointment of the bishops is probably one of the heaviest legacy that Pope Francis Leave to his successor. It is a dossier that could prove to be even decisive in the Conclave.
Yes, because, at the test of the facts, this agreement has eventually shown numerous limits. Strongly warm by the company of Jesus and the community of Sant’Egidio, the agreement was above all promoted by the cardinal secretary of state, Pietro Parolin. His proponents have always underlined its pastoral nature. But the controversies were not lacking.
Well, to fully understand the controversial nature of this agreement, it is useful to examine it from a historical perspective, also highlighting the substantial difference with which Benedict XVI And Francesco they have related to the Chinese question.
It was May 2007, when Benedict XVI He wrote an open letter to Chinese Catholics: which represented, yes, a cautious openness against Beijing, but at the same time they were fixed some stakes. The Pope excluded the appointment of the bishops “without apostolic mandate” and underlined how “forces that negatively affect the family in various ways” were not lacking in China. The Sino-Vatican relationships turned significantly in July 2012, when the Holy See denounced that the ordination, in China, of the Bishop Giuseppe Yue Fusheng It had occurred “without papal mandate and therefore illegitimately”. The prelate therefore incurred in the excommunication Latae sententiae and the same director of the Vatican press room of that time, father Federico Lombardihe had to admit that the relationships between the Holy See and the Popular Republic were not going through “a completely constructive and serene moment of dialogue”.
Pope Francis He was elected in March 2013 and in October of the same year Parolin he became secretary of state. Already starting from August 2014, a climate of disgela against China was promoted, which would then culminate in September 2018, when the provisional agreement was signed on the appointment of the bishops: agreement of which, still today, the text is not known. We are talking about an agreement that has been renewed three times since then: the last last October for another 4 years. Not only that. The same Pope Francis He had more likely expressed his desire to visit China: this, this, of how the last pontificate focused a lot on the relaxation with Beijing. A relaxation that, as already mentioned, its advocates have always justified with pasteur reasons.
The problem is that they are gradually emerged various knots. First of all, the Chinese regime has repeatedly violated the terms of the agreement. In November 2022- i.e. just a month after the second renewal of the ate- The Holy See expressed “surprise and regret” for the installation of Monsignor Giovanni Peng Weizhao as a auxiliary bishop of Jiangxi: a diocese not recognized by Rome. It was instead April 2023, when the Bishop Joseph Shen bin It was installed in the diocese of Shanghai without consulting the Holy See. In the following July, Francesco ratified the appointment as a fact made. Not only that. In May 2024, Shen Bin He participated in a conference in the Vatican in which, in the presence of Parolindefended the state of religious freedom in the People’s Republic, also hoping that the Chinese Church can “follow a path of syicization”.
The point is that, in fact, the “synicization” is nothing but the ideological indoctrination process to which XI Jinping He has been subjected to Chinese Catholics for years: a line to which, already in August 2022, both the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church in China (two De facto organizations subjected to the control of the Chinese Communist Party) had explicitly kneel. Not only that. Last March, Asia News He reported that the Chinese authorities had arrested the underground bishop of Wenzhou, Pietro Shao Zhumin. His fault? Having refused to pay a fine for celebrating Mass on December 27 in front of 200 people. The prelate, who had already undergone an arrest in 2024, ended up in the sights of the authorities for not having agreed to join the ecclesiastical bodies controlled by the communist regime. But it’s not over here. According to a report by Open Door this year on the religious freedom in China, “once again, the unregistered churches were closed by force and the faithful were forced to live in clandestinity. The recorded churches had to face restrictions regarding the topics of their sermons. They are obliged to affix pro-communist signs and are monitored ».
In short, not only the Chinese communist regime has repeatedly violated the agreement on the appointment of the bishops, but the situation of local Catholics continues to prove dramatic. In addition, the agreement will also have a pastoral purpose, but the interlocutor still remains the Beijing government, which is shrewdly taking advantage of it to strengthen its political-diplomatic position in the eyes of large parts of global South (from Africa to Latin America). Without neglecting the question mark that hovers on the future of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Taiwan. It is therefore all to be demonstrated that the majority of participants in the next conclave will hope for continuity with respect to the policy of relaxation towards China, carried out by Francesco’s pontificate. Which represents an unknown unwittingning for those purple that have bet a lot on the beam with Beijing: from Parolin to Luis Antonio Taglepassing through Stephen Chow And Matteo Zuppi.
