Vatican trumpets minor victory as Communist authorities recognize “episcopal dignity” of persecuted prelate
In an unprecedented turn of events, Pope Leo XIV has capitulated to China’s decision to abolish two historic dioceses established by Pope Pius XII and to recognize, in their stead, a new diocese instituted unilaterally by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
On September 10, the Holy See Press Office announced that Leo had agreed to the suppression of the dioceses of Xuanhua and Xiwanzi, created in 1946, to “promote the pastoral care of the Lord’s flock and to attend more effectively to its spiritual good.”
The Vatican revealed that Leo had also approved the CCP-created diocese of Zhangjiakou in place of the dioceses of Xuanhua and Xiwanzi, an ecclesiastical fabrication of the state-controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), also known as the Patriotic Church.
A Patriotic Church loyalist and collaborator, Fr. Joseph Wang Zhengui was ordained as bishop of Zhangjiakou on the day the Vatican announced the new arrangement. Zhengui has coordinated pastoral activities in Zhangjiakou diocese, which the CCP created in defiance of the Vatican in 1980.
Leo Continues Predecessor’s Policy of Appeasement
The Zhangjiakou diocese is the first CCP-orchestrated reorganization in China Leo has approved since he assumed the pontificate. It represents a significant step in the implementation of the secret China-Vatican agreement, signed in 2018 under Pope Francis, which both liberal and conservative Catholics continue to oppose, as well as prominent human rights activists.
Faithful Catholics have slammed the new arrangement as a betrayal of Chinese Catholics who remain loyal to the Vatican in the face of persecution. According to the Spanish Catholic portal InfoVaticana, for over a century the now-suppressed dioceses of Xiwanzi and Xuanhua were bastions of Catholicism in northern China, with a strong missionary tradition to Mongolia.
More: https://stream.org/pope-leo-xiv-capitulates-to-chinas-crushing-of-historic-catholic-dioceses/
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