Vatican will improve bishop agreement with Beijing to help reunite mainland China’s underground Catholic churches, envoy of Pope Francis says
- Vatican envoy urges the world to be patient after 70 years of division between mainland China’s more than 9 million Catholics
A special envoy of Pope Francis said on Tuesday the Vatican would improve its agreement with Beijing on the appointment of bishops, to help reunite the official and underground Catholic churches in mainland China.
Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the prefect of the church’s Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, said on a visit to Hong Kong the world must be patient and positive about the reintegration of the churches.
“The agreement is provisional only and we will improve it in the future,” Filoni said, after celebrating mass at a new chapel at the Caritas Institute of Higher Education in Tiu Keng Leng.
The cardinal’s remark came two days after Bishop Paul Meng Qinglu, the deputy chairman of Beijing-loyalist group the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, said the agreement reached by China and the Vatican in September would be reviewed in two years.
Under that agreement, Beijing would for the first time recognise the Pope as the supreme leader of the Catholic Church, and the Vatican would have one month to decide if it would approve a bishop candidate recommended by the association.