Religious liberty expert ‘disappointed’ in Vatican-China deal | CPT PPP Coverage

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The US chief advocate for religious freedom has expressed “disappointment” with the Vatican over its provisional agreement with China on the appointment of bishops in the country.

Nury A Turkel, a Uyghur American human rights lawyer who chairs the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, expressed his view when he met with Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Vatican foreign minister, at the Vatican on 12 January.

The Vatican and China signed the agreement in 2018 and in October 2022 it was renewed for a third two-year term.

Speaking afterward their meeting to journalists, Mr Turkel said that China “has been using the agreement to justify its crackdown on underground churches” and to “punish Chinese priests”.

He cited the case of Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu of Xinxiang in Henan Province, who has been detained by Chinese authorities since May 2021 for refusing to join the government-recognised church.

Mr Turkel said China’s Catholics “need a voice, and they are looking up to the Vatican to use its influence to help them”.

Turkel said he raised the issue of the Chinese Communist Party’s increasing hostility toward the “vibrant” Catholic community in Hong Kong advocating for democracy.

In particular, he told reporters that the arrests of Jimmy Lai, a Catholic entrepreneur who founded a pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong, and Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, are examples of “how intolerant the regime is”.

Meanwhile, in China, an exhibition on the sinicisation of Catholicism is on display at the archbishop’s residence in Beijing, marking  the 15th anniversary of the appointment of Bishop Joseph Li Shan as archbishop of the capital in 2007.

He is now chairman of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the official government entity that controls the life of the Church in China.

The introductory panel explains that the purpose of the exhibition is to further promote the sinicisation of Catholicism, to better understand secretary general Xi Jinping’s views on religion and to explore Beijing’s rich Catholic cultural resources.

In his speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China in October 2022, marking his third term in office, President Xi Jinping renewed his commitment “to the sinicisation of Christianity, guiding the adaptation of religion and socialist society to the Chinese context”.