With the China-Vatican pact, the Pope rejects Trump’s line and shows long memory (and vision)

Francesco shoots right. The agreement with Beijing it was extended for another two years. The object of the agreement refers to the appointment of bishops, but its importance at this particular moment affects the geopolitical scene. Strong interference from the US Secretary of State. Mike pompeo – implemented in recent weeks with the propaganda intention of signaling the dialogue with China initiated by Bergoglio as a sale of the freedom of religion of Chinese Catholics – has contributed to shedding greater clarity on the Trump administration strategy: veto the renewal of the agreement with the intention of involving the Holy See in the new cold war against Beijing launched by the United States.

That is exactly what Francesco does not want. Like John Paul II, after the end of the USSR, he was strongly opposite label Islam as the “enemy” of the new world (and in fact Wojtyla did not agree with the invasion of Afghanistan and fought with all the tools of diplomacy against the invasion of Iraq by the United States George W. Bush) also the pontiff Argentine opposes the Vatican and the Church propaganda and economic warfare that Trump unleashed against Beijing.

The Vatican shares practically nothing with the international policy line of the Trump administration, especially the systematic pickets carried out against the architecture of the multilateral agreements. The US withdrawal from the Climate Agreement, the Iran agreement, the nuclear arms control and limitation agreements with Russia, the withdrawal of UNESCO, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the white paper granted to the government Netanyahu because new annexations of the Palestinian territories, including the Arab half of Jerusalem, are all initiatives that find the Holy See on the other side.

Less than ever, especially in this dramatic moment pandemic universal: the Vatican agrees with Trump’s threat to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization and with his crude accusations related to “Chinese virus”.

An icy Vatican silence has accompanied the words of the Burmese cardinal in recent months Charles Bo, when he declared that “the Chinese Communist Party regime is primarily responsible” for the spread of the coronavirus, arguing that “what it has done and what it has not done is causing damage to lives around the world.”

Francis does not ignore Beijing’s initial silence on the outbreak of the pandemic, does not ignore the repression implemented against the Chinese doctor who first raised the alarm, does not ignore the economic and strategic problems that China poses to the international community, does not ignore the authoritarian character of the Chinese state, but is convinced that the path to address the problems does not go through a hysterical call to arms against the country of Xi Jinping.

Vatican diplomacy has long memory. The cold war with the USSR, they recall in the apostolic palace, was overcome not by sanctions or military aggressions but by tireless work of negotiation and multilateral cooperation, of which the Helsinki Act was signed in the 1975, at the end of the negotiations of the Conference on Security and European Cooperation.

Yes, as he said years ago Henry Kissinger in the Vatican during a session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, China’s millennial problem was their isolation and its historical inability to conceive itself as part of a “concert of powers” (like the European states of the modern era), then the solution is precisely to involve it more and more in a network of multilateral agreements, also apt to feed a culture of liberal democratic relations.

Regarding the agreement on bishops, which still remains a secret, nobody hides that it is a lion pact in which Beijing predominates. China has even rejected the old method of the countries of the Soviet area according to which the pontiff chose three candidates and the communist governments had the right of veto.

The agreement provides that the Chinese episcopal conference indicates the candidate (and it is a process largely influenced by the Chinese authorities) and the Pope only has the power to reject the candidacy for strictly moral or religious reasons. In addition, the Beijing government has banned the religious instruction of young people under 18 and any other educational activity for minors.

However, Francisco believes that it was important, as a first step, to involve China in a structured and permanent dialogue. orders Bishop ‘ illegitimate. Beijing has recognized three “unofficial” bishops appointed by Rome at the time. Two new bishops were elected according to the new procedure. On the other hand, as Francis recalled, there was a moment in European history when kings were the ones who elected bishops. It’s about proceeding with patience and tenacity.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the Vatican is also considering Beijing’s role as an extremely important initiative. India me South Africa asked the World Health Organization to apply a clause, which in “exceptionally serious cases” would allow the suspension of the intellectual (and economic) property of patents relating to essential drugs. It would mean being able to produce the coronavirus vaccine at affordable prices for all nations of the world.