The moral cost of the Sino-Vatican pact is far too great

The credibility and moral authority of the Church is in serious danger, writes Benedict Rogers

Eight years ago, I wrote an article for the Catholic Herald in which I warned that an agreement between the Vatican and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would be “a dangerous gamble”. Two years after that article, the Vatican signed its secret agreement with Beijing; the only comfort was that it was a temporary agreement, to be reviewed every two years. Since then my prayers have gone unanswered, and my concerns more than validated.

On 22 October this year (the feast of St John Paul II), as the CCP concluded its 20^th Party Congress, the Vatican confirmed it had – for the second time – renewed the agreement. If there has been any review at all, it has been without transparency. Its details are still unknown; the full text remains confidential and the benefits totally elusive. If it is worth sticking with, should its architects not publish the agreement in full, explain the long-term strategy, defend its position and engage with critics? 

Pope Francis speaks frequently about injustice. When he leads the Angelus in St Peter’s Square he prays for one part of the world or another, one crisis of persecution, conflict or repression. He has devoted consistent attention to Myanmar and the genocide of the Rohingyas; he has spoken often about Christians and Yazidis facing persecution in the Middle East. The one country about which he has said almost nothing is China, where the situation affecting over a million Uyghurs has been recognised by successive US Secretaries of State as a genocide. 

Several parliaments have agreed, as has an independent tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, who prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic. Yet only once has Pope Francis mentioned them, two years ago in his book Let us Dream: “I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya, the poor Uyghurs, the Yazidi.” But “the poor Uyghurs” – at least one million of whom are enduring conditions in detention camps which Jewish leaders have compared to the Holocaust – have not been mentioned since. The rest of the world is finally waking up to the atrocities in Xinjiang – including slave labour, torture and severe religious persecution – while Rome sleeps.

Atrocities continue in Tibet, yet Pope Francis is the first pontiff in decades not to meet the Dalai Lama. China harvests organs from prisoners of conscience, yet in 2017 its former deputy health minister Huang Jiefu – one of the architects of this gruesome crime – was invited to speak on the topic by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Beijing has recently ripped up an international treaty (the Sino-British Joint Declaration) concerning Hong Kong and destroyed its promised freedoms, rule of law and autonomy – yet the Vatican has renewed its deal with Xi Jinping’s regime.

If life for Catholics in China had improved because of the agreement, then Rome might be able to explain the compromises it has made. While it should be a voice of conscience for human rights, human dignity, human life and human justice for all, it does first and foremost have a responsibility to its flock. If the deal had brokered greater freedom for Catholics, and a meaningful dialogue with the CCP on broader concerns, then people like me might just hold their tongues. But the inescapable truth is that the opposite has happened. The deal has been an accomplice to greater persecution of Catholics, an intensification of the crackdown on Christians more broadly, and a whitewashing of other atrocities.

Chinese Christians are facing the worst persecution since the Cultural Revolution. State-sanctioned churches are under heavy surveillance, under-18s are banned from places of worship, sharing religious materials online is prohibited, and churches are required to display pictures of Xi Jinping and CCP propaganda banners alongside – or at times instead of – religious images. Not a single Catholic bishop or priest in jail before the deal has been freed; a prerequisite for the agreement should have been the release of imprisoned Catholic clergy. Whether that entered the Vatican negotiating team’s talking points is unknown, but if they raised it they came away empty-handed. 

Worse, a number of Catholic clergy have been arrested since the deal – because of the deal – and some bishops loyal to Rome for decades have been forced to retire in favour of Beijing’s preferred candidates. Just two months after the deal was announced, Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin of Wenzhou was arrested for the fifth time in two years. In January 2020, Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin of Mindong – who had already been demoted to the position of auxiliary bishop to make way for a Beijing-appointed bishop – was forced by the authorities to leave his residence, which was shut down. He ended up sleeping in the doorway of his church office; after an international outcry was he permitted to return to his apartment, but with the utilities cut off. 

In June 2020 Bishop Augustine Cui Tai, coadjutor bishop of the underground church in Xuanhua, was taken away again – having already endured 13 years in detention. His whereabouts are still unknown. On 21 May 2021 Chinese police arrested Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu of Xinxiang Diocese in Henan Province, a day after they detained seven of his priests and an unspecified number of seminarians for allegedly violating the country’s new regulations on religious affairs. He has been in detention ever since and his whereabouts are also unknown. No one knows where these two prelates are being held, and yet the Vatican’s voice on their behalf is unheard.

This year, one of the Church’s most senior and respected bishops, Hong Kong’s 90-year-old Bishop Emeritus, Cardinal Joseph Zen, was arrested; he is now on trial. The Vatican’s response was muted, and it should not be forgotten that Pope Francis refused to meet him the last time he visited Rome. In contrast to the Vatican’s limp statement of “concern”, the President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Bo, issued a strong statement condemning the arrest and emphasising that while “for the people of Hong Kong, it is now increasingly difficult to speak out freely”, so “those of us outside Hong Kong who have a voice must use it on their behalf.”

To be kowtowing to a regime whose diplomats brutally assault peaceful protesters as they did at their consulate in Manchester in October is just wrong. To be renewing a deal with a regime that dragged an ailing former leader, Hu Jintao, out of its Party Congress and to an unknown fate in front of the cameras and under Xi Jinping’s gaze is immoral. And to do all this while Catholic clergy are in jail, a cardinal is on trial on trumped-up charges and a genocide is underway is inexplicable. If the Vatican will not listen to reason, then Catholics of influence across the world must speak out loudly and clearly to the Holy Father and urge him to rethink his position. 

The credibility and moral authority of the Church is at stake, for if the price of an agreement with Beijing is Rome’s silence on some of the gravest atrocities of our time, then it is too high; this sordid, dodgy deal soils the Vatican’s heart and bloodies its fingers. It urgently needs to stop being silent in the face of evil, to let go of the devil’s hand, and instead stand up to the dictators in Beijing in the name of truth, justice and freedom. 

The spirit of St John Paul II, who helped end the Cold War and defeat Communist tyranny in eastern Europe – and on whose feast day this year the deal was perversely re-renewed – should inspire the Vatican to keep fighting for Cardinal Zen, the jailed clergy across China, persecuted Protestants, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, Hong Kong democracy activists and Uyghurs. If the Church can’t do that, then it will surely face a reckoning – in this world or the next.

Benedict Rogers is the co-founder and Chief Executive of Hong Kong Watch. His new book, The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny, was published by Optimum earlier this year.