The Vatican said Tuesday that it had agreed to extend a deal giving China’s Communist Party leaders a major say in the appointment of local Catholic bishops.

The Rome-based church’s latest four-year extension of a provisional deal signed in 2018 cedes significant power to China’s leaders, who see it as a way to unify the Catholic Church inside the officially atheist country.

China is intensifying its grip on religious expression, mainly Christianity and Islam, which the ruling Communist Party views as foreign influences threatening its dominance.

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The fragile compromise seeks to mend the rift between China’s Catholics, who are divided between the clandestine “underground church” loyal to Rome and the state-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association, which operates under the tight watch of the government. An estimated 6 million Catholics are in the CPA, and perhaps the same number worship in the clandestine churches.

A Vatican statement insists the decision followed “appropriate consultation and assessment” and that both parties agreed to the renewal “for the benefit of the Catholic Church in China and the Chinese people as a whole.” The agreement, which was renewed for two-year terms in 2020 and 2022, will be in force through 2028, a Chinese government spokesman said during a media briefing in Beijing.

The full text of the agreement has never been made public and remains a source of significant controversy.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, the 92-year-old retired bishop of Hong Kong, said the deal gives the Chinese government too much control over religious affairs. The Catholic News Service reported that the cardinal has expressed concern that the agreement would “kill” the underground church in China, which has long operated in defiance of the regime.

The 2018 agreement attempted to balance Vatican authority over its operations in China with Beijing’s demand for control over religious affairs — more of a pragmatic necessity than a triumph.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, responding this year to reports that the Vatican sought to establish a permanent office in China, said, “China is ready to work with the Vatican for the steady improvement of relations.” 

Under the 2018 agreement, the Vatican lifted the excommunication of seven bishops selected by Beijing without its blessing and recognized them as legitimate. Reuters reported that the accord granted the Vatican a voice in appointments and the pope the power to veto candidates.

The Vatican reportedly hopes this deal will continue to ease religious tensions within the country, but a report by the Hudson Institute authored by Nina Shea reveals that the Vatican-approved bishops in China are persecuted.

Ms. Shea, a former member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and now a senior fellow and director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, said the report documents detentions, forced surveillance, and police investigations of bishops who refuse to submit to the state-run Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

“This report shows that religious repression of the Catholic Church in China has intensified since the 2018 China-Vatican agreement on the appointment of bishops,” Ms. Shea wrote. “Beijing targeted these 10 bishops after they opposed the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which requires its members to pledge independence from the Holy See.”

Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu has faced relentless harassment from Chinese authorities. Banned from his Xinxiang Diocese for years, his ordeal escalated in May 2021 when he was arrested while recovering from cancer. The 66-year-old bishop’s seminary was raided, shut down and branded “illegal” by the state. As of March 2023, he reportedly remained in custody, according to the Catholic News Agency.

Control issues

The Chinese government appears increasingly intent on exercising control over its bishop installations. Catholic news source Crux reported that the government installed Bishop John Peng Weizhao in November 2022 in Jiangxi, a diocese not recognized by the Vatican. In April, Chinese authorities reportedly transferred Bishop Shen Bin to the Diocese of Shanghai without the Vatican’s prior knowledge or approval.

Proponents of the power-sharing deal, including Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said it was necessary to bridge the decadeslong divide between China’s “official” state-controlled church and the underground church loyal to Rome. The 2018 agreement aimed to unite these communities by giving Pope Francis the final say on bishop appointments, though candidates are initially selected by the Chinese Communist Party, according to The Diplomat.

At a conference this year, Cardinal Parolin, who led the negotiations with Beijing for several years, said the Vatican was open to “developing” aspects of the agreement, Vatican News reported. The four-year renewal suggests some changes may have been made. Cardinal Parolin also expressed hope that the renewal would strengthen relations between the two sides.

Despite the tensions, both parties have made gestures of goodwill. Pope Francis’ historic visit to Mongolia in September 2023 included a public commendation of the “noble Chinese people,” and Chinese bishops have participated in the pope’s Synod of Bishops on Synodality in Rome.

Reports say diplomatic exchanges between Beijing- and Hong Kong-based bishops in the past year suggest gradually warming ties.

The pontiff has historically avoided mentioning the Chinese government’s dealings with the Vatican. In 2022, the pope said Rome’s conversations with Beijing were “going well,” though not as fast as others might prefer because the Chinese are a people of “infinite patience.”

The pope said he didn’t wish to describe China as “antidemocratic because it is such a complex country, with its own rhythms,” the National Catholic Register reported.

Michel Chambon, a research fellow at the Asia Research Institute in Singapore, told the Reuters news agency that the four-year extension is a sign that the two sides are becoming more comfortable with the arrangement.

According to Mr. Chambon’s research, Pope Francis has appointed about 10 new bishops in China under the deal, and 15 bishops whose positions were previously contested are now firmly in place, affecting about a quarter of the Catholic Church’s leadership in China.

Human rights groups continue to voice concerns about religious persecution in China, especially under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. They argue that Chinese worship is tightly controlled and the persecution of the underground Catholic Church persists.

Indeed, China’s government has intensified its crackdown on religious practices by ordering churches to swap out images of Jesus for portraits of President Xi Jinping, according to a U.S. government report on religious repression.

This aggressive campaign, known as “sinicization,” aims to mold religious belief into something more aligned with Communist Party ideology. The report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom says authorities are targeting Catholic and Protestant communities.

“The government has ordered the removal of crosses, replaced images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary with pictures of President Xi, and required clergy to preach CCP-approved ideology,” the report states, underscoring China’s broader effort to control spiritual life and ensure loyalty to the state.

The Vatican is one of just a handful of states that recognize Taiwan. Beijing claims the self-ruled island as its territory — an obstacle in creating official diplomatic relations between the Vatican and China’s communist leadership.

The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops did not respond to a request for comment.