Pope Francis is leading a determined push to fundamentally alter the relationship between the Vatican and China, which for decades has been infused with mutual suspicion and acrimony.
Interviews with some two dozen Catholic officials and clergy in Hong Kong, Italy and mainland China, as well as sources with ties to the leadership in Beijing, reveal details of an agreement that would fall short of full diplomatic ties but would address key issues at the heart of the bitter divide between the Vatican and Beijing.
A working group with members from both sides was set up in April and is discussing how to resolve a core disagreement over who has the authority to select and ordain bishops in China, several of the sources told Reuters. The group is also trying to settle a dispute over eight bishops who were appointed by Beijing but did not get papal approval - an act of defiance in the eyes of the Vatican.
In what would be a dramatic breakthrough, the pope is preparing to pardon the eight, possibly as early as this summer, paving the way to further detente, say Catholic sources with knowledge of the deliberations.
A signal of Francis’ deep desire for rapprochement with China came last year in the form of a behind-the-scenes effort by the Vatican to engineer the first-ever meeting between the head of the Roman Catholic Church and the leader of the Chinese Communist Party. Aides to the pope tried to arrange a meeting when both Francis and Chinese President Xi Jinping were in New York in late September to address the United Nations General Assembly.
The meeting didn’t happen. But the overture didn’t go unnoticed in Beijing.
While the two sides have said they are discussing the issue of the bishops, Catholic sources gave Reuters the most detailed account yet of the negotiations and the secret steps the Vatican has taken to pave the way to a deal.
The current talks come more than six decades after victorious Communist Party leaders, having vanquished the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek, expelled Vatican envoy Antonio Riberi from Beijing in 1951 as they banished missionaries and began a crackdown on organized religion. The Vatican remains the only Western state that does not have diplomatic ties with Beijing, maintaining instead formal relations with the Republic of China, based in Taiwan, which Beijing views as a renegade province.
For the Vatican, a thaw in relations with China offers the prospect of easing the plight of Christians on the mainland who for decades have been persecuted by the authorities. It may also ultimately pave the way to diplomatic relations, giving the Church full access to the world’s most populous nation.
An official relationship with China “would crown a dream that the Catholic Church has cultivated for many centuries: to establish a regular presence in China through stable diplomatic ties,” said Elisa Giunipero, a researcher at the Catholic University of Milan who has studied the history of the Catholic Church in China for 20 years.
For China, improved relations could burnish its international image and soften criticism of its human rights record. It would also be an important step in prizing the Vatican away from Taiwan, handing China an important diplomatic victory in its efforts to isolate the self-governing island.
Spokespeople for the two sides acknowledged the talks are continuing but declined to answer detailed questions about them.
“The aim of the contacts between the Holy See and Chinese representatives is not primarily that of establishing diplomatic relations, but that of facilitating the life of the Church and contributing to making relations in ecclesial life normal and serene,” Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told Reuters.
“We are willing, on the basis of the relevant principles, to continue having constructive dialogue with the Vatican side, to meet each other halfway and jointly promote the continued forward development of the process of improving bilateral ties,” China’s Foreign Ministry said. “(We) hope the Vatican can likewise take a flexible and pragmatic attitude and create beneficial conditions for improving bilateral relations.”
A Papal invite
Forging an agreement won’t be easy. There is resistance on both sides.
Among Chinese leaders, there is concern that a deal would give the Vatican a powerful foothold on the mainland, challenging the Communist Party’s absolute authority.
In the “underground” church in China, whose members have been systematically persecuted for decades by the authorities, many devotees may feel betrayed by a Vatican deal with Beijing. Catholic clergy belonging to the underground church have been detained and jailed through the years, and several bishops have died in prison, according to Catholic sources who monitor the situation on the mainland.
The Catholic Church in China, where there are an estimated eight to 10 million devotees, is divided into two communities: the “official” church, which is represented by the state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, and the “underground” church, which swears allegiance solely to the pope in Rome. Scholars estimate the number of Christians in China belonging to all denominations may be as many as 70 million.
Despite resistance in some quarters of the Catholic Church, including in Hong Kong, Pope Francis has made improved ties with China a priority, and a tight-knit circle of envoys and advisers around the pontiff are working on a deal, multiple sources told Reuters.
After he was elected pope in March 2013, Francis sent a message to Xi congratulating him on having become president of China. Then, while flying over China in August 2014 on the way to Seoul – the first time Beijing had allowed a pope to enter its airspace – the pope sent his best wishes to Xi and the Chinese people. The next month, Francis sent a letter to Xi via Argentinean politician Ricardo Romano, who had met the future pope when Francis was the archbishop of Buenos Aires, inviting the Chinese leader to a meeting, Romano told Reuters.
In early February this year, the pope sent wishes to Xi for the Chinese New Year, the country’s most important holiday. And on his way back to Rome from Mexico two weeks later, the pope told a news conference on the plane that he would “really love” to visit China.
New York rendezvous
An early indication that Pope Francis was serious about improving relations with China was his appointment in August 2013 of then Archbishop Pietro Parolin as his Secretary of State, the highest ranking diplomat in the Vatican. Under Pope Benedict XVI, Francis’ predecessor, Parolin had been the Vatican’s chief negotiator with Beijing and was near to hammering out a deal with China on the appointment of bishops in 2009, people with direct knowledge of those negotiations say.
“In 2009, Parolin came very close to an agreement (with China),” said Agostino Giovagnoli, a professor of contemporary history at the Catholic University of Milan who closely follows the Vatican’s relationship with China.
Ultimately, an agreement on the bishops wasn’t reached as the Vatican considered it too narrow, say Catholic Church sources.
Parolin then moved to Venezuela in 2009 as the Vatican’s representative there. His departure marked the start of a period of chilly relations with China.
In June 2014, the sides restarted contacts with a meeting in Rome, according to a Catholic official. A year later, the Vatican made its attempt to get Francis and Xi Jinping together in New York.
The pope was scheduled to fly from New York to Philadelphia on the morning of Sept. 26 last year, departing from John F. Kennedy Airport, his itinerary shows. Xi was heading to New York from Washington. The airport, three Catholic officials told Reuters, could have provided a discreet venue for a meeting between the two leaders, away from the media glare.
Catholic officials and clergy, and sources in China with knowledge of the contacts, offer differing accounts of why the leaders ultimately didn’t meet, but all agree that the pope wanted to meet Xi and that this message was communicated clearly to China.
According to a Chinese source with direct knowledge of the matter, Beijing “could not make up its mind whether it should take place before or after the signing of an agreement.”
In October, though, a six-person Vatican delegation made a visit to Beijing, followed by another meeting in January. A breakthrough came in April this year when the sides agreed to set up a working group, according to two Catholic Church officials. The group is modeled on the Joint Liaison Group that Britain and China adopted to iron out issues before the handover of Hong Kong to the mainland in 1997, according to one of the officials.
