VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Advocacy group Human Rights Watch has called on Pope Leo XIV to conduct an urgent review into the Vatican’s secretive deal with Communist China.
In a public statement issued following the May 8 election of Pope Leo XIV, Human Rights Watch urged the American pontiff to address one of the more controversial issues left by his predecessor – namely the Sino-Vatican deal on the appointment of bishops in China.
“Chinese Catholics worshiping in underground churches are among the ‘ordinary people’ on whom Pope Leo has said the church should focus its attention,” stated Maya Wang, the associate China director at Human Rights Watch.
“It’s critical for religious freedom in China that the Catholic church stands on their side, and not on the side of their oppressors.”
The Sino-Vatican deal was first signed in 2018 and has been renewed every two years since, most recently in 2024 for a length of four years.
The officially secret deal is believed to recognize the state-approved church in China and allows the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to appoint bishops. The pope apparently maintains veto power, although in practice it is the CCP that has control, as has been evidenced on numerous occasions including in recent weeks. It also allegedly allows for the removal of legitimate bishops to be replaced by CCP-approved bishops.
Leo, wrote Human Rights Watch (HRW), “should direct an urgent review of the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with the Chinese government that allows Beijing to appoint bishops for government-approved houses of worship.”
The international organization further called on the pope to exert pressure upon the Chinese government “to end the persecution of underground churches, clergy, and worshipers.”
“Pope Leo XIV has an opportunity to make a fresh start with China to protect the religious freedom of China’s Catholic,” said Wang.
The Sino-Vatican deal has without doubt emerged as one of the most controversial aspects of the last pontificate, and is believed to have tainted its architect Cardinal Pietro Parolin so much that it weighed against him in the recent conclave.
Speaking to this correspondent after the latest renewal of the deal, Lord David Alton stated that “the Vatican’s silence on human rights and religious freedom in China is profoundly disappointing and dangerously counterproductive.”
He lamented how from the Vatican “there is deafening silence when it comes to freedom of religion or belief.”
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Parolin announced in January that the deal is “moving in the right direction” and bearing “fruit.” The deal – he said – is “progressing slowly – sometimes even taking a step backwards – but moving in the right direction.”
Numerous China experts and analysts have criticized also why the deal has remained secret, and it is believed that even prelates in the region have not seen the text. Parolin has also defended this aspect, attesting in 2023 that such secrecy was “because it has not yet been finally approved.”
China has long practiced a process of “Sinicization” with regard to religions present in the nation. But Hong Kong’s emeritus Cardinal Joseph Zen and China experts warn that Sinicization involves having “all religious communities be led by the Party, controlled by the Party, and support the Party.”
Alongside surrendering the Church to the ideals of a Communist state, the deal has also led to an increase in religious persecution since it was signed in 2018.
In its 2020 report, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China wrote that the persecution witnessed is “of an intensity not seen since the Cultural Revolution.”
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The commission re-iterated this in its latest 2023 report, most recently noting that the Chinese Communist Party “have continued their efforts to assert control over Catholic leadership, community life, and religious practice, installing two bishops in contravention of the 2018 Sino-Vatican agreement and accelerating the integration of the Church in Hong Kong with the PRC-based, state-sponsored Catholic Patriotic Association and its Party-directed ideology.”
It remains to be seen what direction Leo will take on the issue, especially in the early days of his pontificate. With the deal not due for renewal until 2028 he may be tempted to do nothing publicly until closer to that time.
Leo temporarily re-instated all the heads of the Roman Curia, meaning that for now Parolin will continue in his role as Secretary of State. Depending on whether Leo replaces him soon, or allows him to remain, will also have a key impact on the Leonine pontificate’s response to Beijing.
