Vatican City: Pope Francis has defended the Vatican agreement with the Chinese communist government about the appointment of Catholic bishops, by saying uncomfortable dialogue than no dialogue at all.
In an interview with the Spanish Cope radio network broadcast on Wednesday, Francis compared Vatican dialogue with China to them with Eastern European countries during the Cold War which ultimately produced a lot of freedom for the church there.
“China is not easy, but I am sure that we should not give up dialogue,” he said in some of his most comprehensive comments to date.
Last September, the Vatican renewed the 2018 agreement with Beijing who gave the final Pope told the appointment of the Chinese bishop.
The agreement set a formal dialogue with Beijing after decades where Chinese Catholics loyal to the Pope were pushed underground.
Critics, including the administration of former US President Donald Trump, tried to convince the Vatican to leave the pact, saying it endangered the Pope’s moral authority.
Comments by the former Secretary of the US State Mike Pompeo last September, the Vatican see in interference in sovereign affairs, triggered a small diplomatic crisis.
“You can be fooled in dialogue, you can make mistakes, all that …
But that’s the way.
Closed thoughts have never been a way,” said the Pope about Chinese transactions, which have been specifically opposed by conservative Catholic groups.
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“What has been achieved so far in China at least dialogue …
some concrete things like the removal of the new bishop, slowly …
but this is also the steps that can be questioned,” he said.
Francis equalized relations with Beijing on the policy of “small steps” carried out by Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, a famous Vatican diplomat, with Soviet block countries in Eastern Europe, staring at the 1960s.
Casaroli, who is in charge of three whales, reached an agreement with communist countries that gave the church some breathing spaces, sowing seeds for full relationships after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The agreement was also criticized.
“Slowly, slowly, slowly, he (Casaroli) reached a reserve of diplomatic relations which ultimately means appointing the new bishops and caring for faithful God,” Francis said.