In a wide-ranging interview with Reuters published last week, Pope Francis said that while the agreement might be coming along slowly, it is “moving well,” and he hopes it will be renewed in October. The pope also acknowledged that “it is not the same situation in every region of the country,” adding that the treatment of Catholics “also depends on local leaders.”
In May, the Vatican’s secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, said the agreement was not moving as smoothly as hoped. In the four years since the deal was signed, only six bishops have been ordained in China, and almost a year has passed since a bishop was appointed. Only three of the underground bishops have been made official so far, and over a third of Chinese dioceses still don’t have a bishop, according to Asianews, the official press agency of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions.
Some have criticized the deal for limiting the Vatican’s ability to call out China on human rights violations. In 2020, the U.S. Secretary of State at the time, Mike Pompeo, criticized the Vatican’s dovish approach on China while urging it to not compromise its “moral witness.” Since then, Pope Francis’ critics have lamented his failure to speak up for Hong Kong’s citizens and for the Uyghur Muslims, who have faced human rights violations in China’s Xinjiang region.
Pope Francis is aware of the criticism but said in the interview that he’s in it for the long haul. “Diplomacy is like that. When you face a blocked situation, you have to find the possible way, not the ideal way, out of it,” he said.
Comparing the situation in China to the backlash his papal predecessors faced for negotiations with countries in the Soviet bloc in the ’60s and ’70s, Francis stressed the incremental advantages of diplomacy as “the art of the possible.”
This article originally appeared here.
