Worshippers at Mass in China

The Vatican recently announced that it has renewed the Provisional Agreement with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in a continued effort to improve relations between the Vatican and Beijing. The agreement, first signed in 2018, will be extended for another four years. It allows the CCP to choose who will be a bishop in China, with the approval of the Vatican.

Vatican news wrote that the agreement “ended decades of episcopal ordinations without papal consent, leading to a radically changed scenario in the past six years. Since then, about 10 bishops have been appointed and consecrated, and Beijing officially recognized the public role of several previously unrecognized bishops.”

Critics of the agreement, however, contend that it gives the CCP control over who will be bishops in China and, as such, too much control over the Church in China. As well, according to ChinaSource, an independent group that acts as watchdog over Vatican-China relations, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA), which is the Chinese Catholic Church the CCP created in order to counter the underground Catholic Church that remains loyal to the pope, and the Chinese Bishops Catholic Conference (CBCC) have hatched a five-year plan (2023-2027) to implement the CCP’s policy of the “Sinicization of Christianity.” ChinaSource said, “Insofar as ‘Sinicization’ entails subordinating the Catholic Church to the communist concept of what religion in China should be, the CCPA and the CBCC have sold out and undermind the Agreement.” Basically, the CCP’s plan is to suppress religion in China by forcing it to take whatever shape the CCP demands. Cardinal Joseph Zen, former cardinal archbishop of Hong Kong, has been a fierce opponant of the Vatican’s attempts to negotiate with the CCP, insisting that the CCP does not negotiate in good faith and that their goal remains the suppression of the Church. He has also criticized what he sees as the Vatican’s abandonment of the underground Catholic Church in China, which has remained so loyal to the popes over the decades.

The long history of the Catholic Church includes the on-going tension between Church and State, with the State, as usually represented by the king or emperor, insisting on having control over the Church in his or her country. Often this came in the form of choosing, or at least approving, bishops, the right of investiture (investing a bishop in his diocese), control of Church lands, insisting that priests in his or her country be employees of and primarily loyal to the State, the right to impose taxes on the Church, and control of education. The Church has struggled to maintain her independence, somtimes with more success, sometimes with less.

In the CCP, the Church is dealing with an especially hostile State, and one with a human rights record that is nothing less than abominable. Still, popes have felt the need to do what they can to maintain the freedom of Catholics to worship, to have access to the sacraments, and to educate their children in the faith in China. I am not one to say whether the Provisional Agreement is a wise move on the part of the Vatican or not. But I am highly suspicious of the motives of the CCP toward the Church, and of the sincerity of their intentions. I have no doubt that the CCP would (and has) violated the Agreement when they felt it necessary to maintain their agenda, which is ultimate control over nearly every activity of every citizen.

While doubtful of its efficacy in improving the situation for Catholics in China, I will continue to pray that Catholics in China will be free to live their faith sincerely and devoutly, without or with as little government interference as possible. This may be naive, but it is what I can do.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.