Upon announcing the renewal of the Sino-Vatican provisional agreement for appointing Catholic bishops for four more years until Oct. 22, 2028, spokespersons for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Holy See lauded the two parties’ “constructive and respectful” dialogue.

During a Sept. 13 audience with journalists aboard the papal plane, Pope Francis himself expressed satisfaction with the diplomatic accord originally signed in 2018, and since re-upped for two-year terms twice before this new four-year vote of confidence.

“I am happy with the dialogue with China,” said the Pope. “I have heard how things are going from the secretary of state, and I am happy.”

Advertisement

Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states, has adopted a more restrained tone. He said in March 2023 that it is “not the best deal possible” and further negotiations will strive to make it “work better.”

Despite Vatican officials contentment with the agreement, a new report released by the Hudson Institute, a non-partisan think tank in Washington, D.C., has taken a close look and has found apparent power imbalances in the deal. Ten Persecuted Catholic Bishops in China outlines multiple occasions where the terms have been outright violated by the CCP and also provides detailed accounts of the oppression inflicted upon servants of the Catholic Church by the authoritarian regime. 

Dr. Nina Shea, the director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and author of the report, has studied the situation in China on and off for over three decades. She told The Catholic Register that efforts to undermine the Church in China have actually intensified since the original 2018 Sino-Vatican agreement, and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CPCA) is coordinating this campaign of subversion.

“We’re seeing that bishops are being corralled and pressured to take this pledge and being held accountable and spied on by the authorities of the patriotic association,” said Shea. “The churches are being controlled in a way that supports the Sinicization program of religion.

“That is the CCP’s new campaign, really enforced since 2018, for all religions to preach (Chinese President) Xi Jinping’s thoughts,” continued Shea. “Homilies actually have to be built around Xi Jinping’s body of thoughts. They have to teach Chinese Communist Party values. They have to block children from any exposure to religion. The little children cannot come to Jesus under this scheme.”

The CCP is also reinterpreting the Holy Bible to make it conform to Chinese social values.

The crackdown goes further In Henan Province. Religious believers must make online reservations to attend worship services through a “Smart Religion” app. Applicants must provide their name, phone number, government ID number, permanent residence, occupation and date of birth.

It is also well documented that the CCP is employing surveillance tools, including inside and outside churches, to monitor faith communities.

Pledging allegiance to the CPCA, founded in 1957 during the reign of Mao Zedong, requires bishops to renounce adherence to the Holy See. The Vatican never has officially legitimized the CPCA, which is now under the jurisdiction of the United Front Work Department, the “atheist propaganda arm that President Xi Jinping called his ‘magic weapon, ’ ” wrote Shea in her report.

Bishops who are members of the CPCA could not receive approval from Rome unless they secretly pledged fidelity to the Pope. Both Pope Benedict and Pope Francis issued dispatches that supported dissentients of the CPCA.

Shea wrote in her report that the China-Vatican power-sharing agreement makes “no accommodation for the conscientious objectors to the CPCA, who are often called the underground Church. Nor does the agreement address religious persecution.” The scope of the deal is almost solely focused on filling vacant episcopal seats.

In the six years since the original deal, the Pope has approved 10 bishops thus far and there are over 30 positions to fill. However, there have already been several cases where Beijing has unilaterally made several of the appointments.

The most notable breach of the agreement was transferring Bishop Shen Bin of the Diocese of Haimen to the important Diocese of Shanghai in April 2023 without informing the Vatican. Rome reportedly found out about this development by watching press coverage of the installation.

Pope Francis did ultimately name Shen Bin as Bishop of Shanghai on July 15, 2023. Cardinal Pietro Paolin told media outlets that the Bishop of Rome decided to ultimately accept the CCP’s unilateral selection for “the greater good” of Shanghai Catholics and to “heal the canonical irregularity” created by this autonomous maneuver.

Advertisement

“Shanghai is important because it is the largest Catholic diocese since the 17th century for the Church in China,” said Shea, a seven-time appointee to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “This was the diocese where Cardinal (Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei) served. In the 1950s, Cardinal Kung went to prison for 30 years for refusing to distance himself from the Pope and swear loyalty to the party. This is the issue we’re seeing now again.”

Kung, who passed away in 2000, is not among the persecuted prelates Shea wrote about in her report. Shea spotlights 10 Vatican-approved bishops whose persecution continued, or even worsened, since the 2018 deal: Vincent Guo Xijin, Augustine Cui Tai, Julius Jia Zhiguo, Thaddeus Ma Daqin, Peter Shao Zhumin, Melchior Shi Hongzhen, James Su Zhimin, Joseph Xing Wenzhi, Joseph Zen Ze-kiun and Joseph Zhang Weizhu. The oldest of the clerics is Zei-Kun, who was born on Jan. 13, 1932, and the youngest is Thaddeus Ma Daqin, born on an unspecified date in 1968.

“The CCP has subjected the 10 bishops in the report to indefinite detention without due process, disappearances, open-ended security police investigations, banishments from their dioceses or other impediments to their episcopal ministries including threats, surveillance, interrogation and so-called re-education,” wrote Shea. “Seven of these bishops have been detained without due process, with some of them having been under continuous detention for years or decades, while others have been detained repeatedly, up to six times since the agreement’s signing.”

Strikingly, in the case of Ma Daquin, he was placed under perpetual surveillance, restrictions and detention since the day he was ordained auxiliary bishop of Shanghai, on July 7, 2012. During his closing remarks at his installation ceremony, he announced from the pulpit that he was leaving the patriotic association.

“In this present moment, in this place, we have to choose a way that will serve God with greater glory,” said Ma that day. “In the light of the teaching of our Mother Church, as I now serve as a bishop, I should focus on the pastoral work and evangelization. It is inconvenient for me to take on certain responsibilities. Therefore, from this day of consecration, it will no longer be convenient for me to be a member of the Patriotic Association.”

The state retaliated against Ma by forcibly confining him to house arrest the same day.

In the case of Jia Zhiguo, who turned 90 years old this past June, Shea wrote that over the past 30 years, he has been taken “into custody under the guise of ‘study sessions,’ ‘education,’ doctor visits and ‘tours.’ The real reason is to punish and pressure him for his conscientious objection to the CPCA.” Jia Zhiguo has been detained since Aug. 10, 2020.

The Vatican’s silence amid all these atrocities documented by Shea and others, which don’t even include persecuted bishops who have died in recent years or bishops for whom there is very little information available, is guided by following a policy resembling the Ostpolitik approach established by Pope Paul VI during the Cold War.

Ostpolitik was a policy that called for no condemnation of Eastern European Communism, to improve relations with Soviet-bloc countries. Pope John Paul II made modifications so he could publicly persuade communist regimes to comply with international human rights agreements.

Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI both delivered criticisms of the CCP and the CPCA during their respective papacies, but Francis has been demonstrably more “willing to embrace” an Ostpolitik no-criticism approach, said Shea.

“I think they know the Church is slipping through their hands,” said Shea. “The theory of Ostpolitik is that if you just manage to survive and if some of the institutions survive, someday communism will be gone and you can pick up the pieces and rebuild the Church. I’m not sure that this is true with China.”

Though the Holy See is not making moves to condemn the repression of religious expression in China, Shea has listed seven recommendations on actions the next U.S. president could take to confront the CCP’s tactics against the Catholic Church.

Chiefly, Shea would like the U.S. to use its “bully pulpit” to highlight the suffering of these 10 persecuted bishops. Additionally, she said religious freedom concerns should be raised in every bilateral meeting, sanctions should be administered against CCP officials for these detentions with no due process and Chinese agents interfering with religious freedom on U.S. soil should continue being prosecuted.

Despite the imbalances and the persecution that has continued unabated since the deal, Shea said the Vatican continues its dialogue because the Holy See views it as a “necessity of having a permanent, a stable, presence in China.”

Meanwhile, she surmised in her report that the CCP utilizes hidden methods of coercion while presenting a respectable façade as it “is aware of the Catholic Church’s global influence, and fears losing the favour of Western investors and trading partners.”

Advertisement

Three days after the deal was renewed for four years, a Vatican-approved episcopal appointment was consecrated as Matthew Zhen Xuebin became coadjutor bishop of Beijing on Oct. 25.

Read Shea’s full report at https://www.hudson.org/human-rights/ten-persecuted-catholic-bishops-china-nina-shea.