Catholic priests lead a procession in Meixian County, Shaanxi Province, China, in 2007
Credit: Getty
Pope Francis has reportedly refused to meet with Mike Pompeo to discuss a controversial accord between the Vatican and China, as the US Secretary of State visits Rome on Tuesday to drive home his warning that it endangers the “moral authority” of the Church.
The Pope’s office told US diplomats that he would not personally receive Mr Pompeo out of a concern for being seen to influence the forthcoming US election, according to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
However, the snub was linked behind-the-scenes to Mr Pompeo’s forceful denouncement of the Vatican’s deal with Beijing in a magazine article this month, the newspaper said.
Vatican officials did not respond to the Telegraph’s request for comment.
Pope Francis last had a meeting with Mike Pompeo in October 2019
Credit: Alamy
A State Department spokesperson also did not comment on the alleged snub but said that Mr Pompeo had “a number of high-level meetings” scheduled on his trip, including with Paul Gallagher, the British archbishop who is the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States.
There are in effect two separate Catholic Churches in the People’s Republic – one which is backed by the State, the other an unofficial, underground network of churches loyal to the Vatican.
Only the unofficial church recognises the authority of the Pope and its members have suffered persecution for decades, with arbitrary arrests increasing in recent months.
Critics have accused the Vatican of betraying this group by drawing up a deal with Beijing two years ago that allowed the Vatican a say in the bishops appointed by the state church, in return for offering the Pope’s approval.
Liu Xinhong kneels as he is consecrated bishop of Wuhu by China's state-backed Catholic Church in the eastern province of Anhui, 2006
Credit: Reuters
The accord is about to expire but is widely expected to be renewed by the two sides in the next couple of weeks, possibly for another two years.
Mr Pompeo weighed into the debate with unusually forthright remarks, criticising the deal in an article he wrote for a conservative American religious publication, First Things, and then in comments on Twitter.
“No regime suppresses faith on a larger scale than the Chinese Communist Party,” he said, mentioning the Uighur minority of western China. The party had waged a “decades-long war on faith.”
The Vatican had hoped to help Catholics in China with the deal.
The Pope's meeting with Mike Pompeo promises to be a fractious one
Credit: Getty
“Yet the Communist Party’s abuse of the faithful has only gotten worse. The Vatican endangers its moral authority, should it renew the deal,” Mr Pompeo said.
The harsh criticism took many in Rome by surprise.
“It’s unprecedented. It’s the first time ever that an American Secretary of State has attacked the Pope and the Vatican in such a way,” said Francesco Sisci, an Italian expert on Chinese affairs who lives in Beijing.
For the Trump administration, there are also domestic factors at play – the need to court Catholic voters just weeks away from the US election.
Joseph Li Shan, the Bishop of Beijing, approaches the altar during a Midnight Mass service at the South Beijing Catholic Cathedral, 2010
Credit: Adam Dean
Criticising China’s appalling human rights record, and in particular its persecution of Catholics, plays well with some conservative Catholics.
Washington’s “meddling” in the Vatican-China accord is designed to “attract the crucial support of the Catholic Church in America,” said Giulia Sciorati, a China analyst with ISPI, Italy’s Institute for the Study of International Politics.
“I think Pompeo’s remarks are aimed partly at a domestic audience. There is both a local and a global dimension to his strategy,” said Gerard O’Connell, a Vatican expert in Rome.
But the comments “raised eyebrows in the Vatican to say the least,” Mr O’Connell told The Telegraph.
Mike Pompeo will visit the Vatican this week
Credit: AFP
“If you are coming to dialogue with someone, you don’t open fire before you’ve even arrived. If they think that by putting pressure on Pope Francis this will make him change his position, I think they are really deluded.”
The agreement between the Vatican and Beijing, originally drawn up in September 2018, is so sensitive that its contents have never been disclosed.
Some observers say it is weighted too much in China’s favour and think the Vatican may try to amend it to get a better deal.
That could include greater protection for priests and bishops who sometimes disappear from their parishes and dioceses for weeks at a time.
“No one says it is a great agreement – even the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said recently that the results have not been very striking — but it opened the door to dialogue,” said Mr O’Connell, Vatican correspondent for the Jesuit magazine America and author of ‘The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Account of the Conclave That Changed History’.
Supporters say the agreement has helped forge better relations between the Holy See and China, which broke off diplomatic relations in 1951 after the Communists came to power two years earlier.
But an even bigger sticking point than the plight of China’s Catholics remains – the Vatican’s recognition of Taiwan, which makes it the island’s only diplomatic ally in Europe. Beijing’s ultimate goal is to persuade the Holy See to sever its ties with Taiwan. The path to rapprochement between the two sides has a long way to go.
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