Vatican says ‘door is open’ to meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pope Francis
- Vatican secretary of state says both sides must be willing to talk
- Xi’s Italy visit comes six months after Chinese accord with the Vatican
A senior Vatican official has said the Catholic Church’s door is “is always open” to dialogue with China as Italy prepared for the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping this week.
Italian media has speculated for days about the possibility of a meeting between Xi and Pope Francis during Xi’s March 21-24 visit, but there has been no word from either side. China and the Vatican have not had diplomatic relations for more than half a century.
When asked on Tuesday about Xi’s visit to Italy, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state and an adviser to the Pope, said: “Our door is always open”, but he said both sides would have to express a willingness to meet.
The Vatican has been working to build on relations that stemmed from September’s provisional agreement between Beijing and the Holy See over the nomination of bishops.
China’s estimated 12 million Catholics are split between those who belong to the government-backed Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which is outside the Pope’s authority, and an underground church loyal to the Pope. Underground priests and parishioners are frequently detained and harassed by state authorities.
The September deal was aimed at uniting the faithful, regularising the status of seven bishops who were not recognised by Rome and beginning a thaw in decades of estrangement between China and the Vatican.