Vatican says China should not fear ‘distrust or hostility’ from Catholic Church
- Senior sources have said Pope Francis is willing to meet Xi Jinping this week, but Chinese side has yet to formally ask for a meeting
- It’s the president’s first trip to Italy after a historic deal was signed in September over the appointment of bishops in China
A top Vatican official says China’s government should not fear “distrust or hostility” from the Roman Catholic Church, writing amid speculation over whether President Xi Jinping will meet Pope Francis this week.
Senior Vatican sources have said Francis is willing to meet Xi and that intermediaries had made overtures to the Vatican, but the Chinese side had not yet formally asked for a meeting. Any encounter would be the first between a Chinese leader and a pope.
Beijing cut diplomatic ties with the Vatican in 1951 and has remained concerned that an independent Church in China could threaten its authority.
“The Holy See [nurtures] no distrust or hostility toward any country,” Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin writes in the introduction of a new book on China to be published on Tuesday. An advance copy of Parolin’s comments in the book, The Church in China – A future yet to be written, were made available to Reuters.
Parolin, second only to the pope in the Vatican hierarchy, said the Catholic Church’s work in China “cannot be separated from a stance of respect, esteem and trust toward the Chinese people and their legitimate state authorities”.