The heads of high -ranking state as well as the Catholic bishops of China have remained significantly silent after the death of Pope Francis, while the reactions of political and religious leaders around the world reached social networks a few hours after the death of the Pope on Monday morning.
Asianews reported on Tuesday that Chinese officials are not allowed to express themselves publicly about the death of Pope Francis due to the control of the Chinese Communist Party (PCCH) about the Church there.
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The Chinese government offered a brief statement almost 24 hours after the death of the Holy Father, only after journalists asked the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guo Jiakun, Tuesday.
“China expresses its condolences for the death of Pope Francis,” he said, adding that “in recent years, China and the Vatican have maintained constructive contacts and have maintained fruitful exchanges. China is willing to collaborate with the Vatican to promote the continuous improvement of relations between the two countries.”
It should be noted that the PCCH published a tribute to Pope Benedict XVI after his death two years ago, declaring: “We entrust Benedict XVI to the mercy of God and we ask him to grant him eternal rest in heaven.” Several days have passed since the death of Pope Francis without a similar declaration of the PCCH.
“It’s really amazing because they have an agreement with the Vatican,” Nina Shea, a researcher at the Hudson Institute, CNA, Ewtn News, said Wednesday. “It is a reflection of its refusal to recognize the supremacy of papal authority over the Catholic Church and that they see the Pope only in secular terms, as head of state, the Holy See.”
The agreement between the Vatican and China to allow bishops appointed by China in the Catholic Church was renewed last year and will remain intact until October 2028, despite numerous reports from violations of the China Agreement and the continuous persecution against Catholic bishops.
“The absence of condolences,” said Shea, “it is a sign that they do not see the Pope as the religious head of the Catholic Church and do not want their people to associate the Pope, the Papacy, with the Catholic Church in China.”
“This demonstrates the uselessness of the Vatican approach,” he added.
Catholic priests and bishops in China must join the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, he explained, which implies a promise of independence of foreign influence, which includes the Pope.
Shea also described the decision of the Patriotic Association to remain silent about the death of Pope Francis as “a hardening of the message”, which, he said, “is a continuous process in communist China.”
In fact, this change occurs at a time when new regulations on religious activities in China will be implemented throughout the country on May 1.
According to the new standardscollective religious activities organized by foreigners in China are restricted to foreign participants only, with few exceptions. In addition, the foreign clergy is prohibited to preside over religious activities for the Chinese people without an invitation from the Chinese government, which severely limits the foreign missionary activity in the country.
In the light of these stricter regulations, SHEA said, the risk is higher for bishops or dioceses that may show loyalty to the Vatican.
Relations between the Vatican and China after the conclave
Since China seems to reverse in its tense diplomatic relationship with the Vatican after the death of Pope Francis, the future of the agreement between the Vatican and China is uncertain. “There is a lot of deception from China about its intentions with the Vatican,” said Shea.
China maintains the advantage, he explained, because “the only influence that the Vatican has is his moral authority.” Unlike the Maoist regime, Xi Jinping’s China will not carry out a bloody persecution against Christians who causes international outrage and entails economic sanctions and other consequences.
“The Chinese fear taking drastic measures against the Church, so they want to hide it with diplomatic gestures,” he said. “They have abandoned the bloodiest practices of the Mao period because they want Western trade and investment. And that is what makes the difference between their treatment of the uigures and the treatment of Catholic bishops.”
“The persecution of the Church (in China) is surgical,” said Shea, noting that, although blood spill is not a strategy of the PCCH, he has imprisoned 10 bishops – some for more than a decade – and systematically prevented the appointment of new bishops in cooperation with Rome, while the remaining bishops of the country continue to die of the country year after year. He has also abolished dioceses throughout the country.
“They chase bishops and priests,” Shea continued. “They know that it is a hierarchical church, so they do not carry out incarceration or mass arrests as they did with the uigures, because it is a hierarchical church. They do not have to do it. They can be decapitated (to the church) arresting the bishops who do not cooperate, if they know they do.”
“That’s why I think they should be clandestine,” he said.
At present, Catholic bishops run the risk of being “cruelly punished” by the regime without due process, “imprisoned in isolation for decades or years, or with their lives interrupted every two months by an arrest, which is never known and is indefinite,” said Shea. They are repressed, but in such a way that “they do not scare international investment and trade attracting the attention of the West.”
As a conclave approaches, Shea expressed her hope that the next pontiff alters Vatican’s relations with China and finally leaves her tense agreement.
“The agreement worsened a lot because the Vatican now conceals the Communist Party in China and the persecution of the Church,” he said. “It has been political in the Vatican since the 1990s never criticize China in any way, with respect to the Church or other atrocities such as forced abortions or the policy of the only child.”
Shea added: “I would encourage the American ambassador (in the Vatican), Brian Burch, to try to open his eyes on what is being hidden.”
Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.
Low Elhabbal
Madalaine Elhabbal is a CNA journalist based in the Washington DC office in EWTN. He has published articles in Catholicvote and has also worked as a foreign language assistant in France. She is a graduate of Benedictine College.