ROME– Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released a strong attack on spiritual persecution in China and called on the Vatican to stand up for religious freedom there, in an implicit criticism of Pope Francis’s rapprochement with Beijing.
” No place is spiritual liberty under attack more than in China,” Mr. Pompeo stated in a speech in Rome.
Mr. Pompeo, who was resolving a conference on religious liberty arranged by the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican, invoked the courage of Pope John Paul II in opposing Soviet Communism.
” Might the church, and all those who understand that we are ultimately accountable to God, be so vibrant in our time,” Mr. Pompeo said. In an obvious reference to the Vatican’s diplomatic efforts toward Beijing, he included: “Earthly factors to consider should not prevent principled stances based on everlasting facts.”
China has actually ended up being the greatest source of tension between Washington and the Holy See considering that the U.S.-led intrusion of Iraq in 2003, which Pope John Paul II opposed. The U.S. administration has actually been crucial of the Vatican’s cooperation deal with China, signed in 2018, which Pope Francis is seeking to renew.
The contract, the information of which aren’t public, gives both Beijing and the Vatican a say in designating Catholic bishops in China.
Pope Francis fulfilled a group of faithful from China at the end of an audience at the Vatican in2018
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Photo:.
Gregorio Borgia/Associated Press.
A senior Vatican authorities expressed inflammation with Mr. Pompeo’s recommendation that the Holy See hadn’t been defending religious liberty in China.
” We speak about religious freedom to China all the time, however we do so in our own method,” the authorities said. He suggested that Mr. Pompeo’s speech was encouraged by U.S. domestic politics: “He is clearly exploiting the concern of religious freedom in view of the election in November“
Mr. Pompeo told reporters later Wednesday that his position was unassociated to the election and was the longstanding policy of the Trump administration
He clearly assaulted the Vatican-China arrangement in a short article published earlier in September in First Things, a conservative religious magazine, saying that the deal had not protected Catholics’ religious freedom and warning that a renewal of the pact might endanger the Holy See’s ethical authority.
Senior Vatican authorities revealed surprise about the post, with one comparing it to a nasty in soccer. Vatican officials argue that Beijing has, for the very first time, recognized the pope’s authority as head of the Catholic Church in China, however yield that development on Catholics’s spiritual freedom has actually been disappointing.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, a previous bishop of Hong Kong and a popular critic of the Vatican’s contract with China, invested 5 days in Rome last week trying unsuccessfully to fulfill Pope Francis to deter him from restoring the deal.
” I came to make one last effort to tell the Holy Father to put spiritual considerations over political factors to consider,” Cardinal Zen told The Wall Street Journal. He stated he feared the offer had actually already enabled Beijing to broaden its control over Catholics.
” The church is already in the hands of the federal government,” he stated. “They have actually already eliminated the church.”
Mr. Pompeo’s speech Wednesday addressed an audience consisting of Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s equivalent of a foreign minister. When leaving the event, Archbishop Gallagher informed reporters that the timing of Mr. Pompeo’s visit, shortly before the governmental election, was among the reasons that Pope Francis would not be fulfilling him.
The pope normally avoids meeting with political figures during project season, to prevent appearing to take sides.
Write to Francis X. Rocca at francis.rocca@wsj.com and Courtney McBride at courtney.mcbride@wsj.com
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