The Vatican’s top diplomat has said that a controversial deal with China on the appointment of bishops will continue “regard-less of reactions that may come from America” during the new Trump administration.
Italian Cardinal Pietro Paro-lin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, spoke to reporters on the sidelines of an event at Rome’s Jesuit-run Gregorian University on artificial intelligence and international humanitarian law.
Asked about tensions that arose between the White House and the Vatican over China du-ring the previous Trump admi-nistration, which included then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warning that the Vatican risked “losing its moral authority” for its approach to Beijing, Cardinal Parolin indicated there would be no change of course.
“We’ve gone forward with China regardless,” Cardinal Pa-rolin said. “We renewed the accord for another four years,” he said, referring to the most recent renewal in October. “The dialogue [with China] continues, in small steps but it continues,” he said. “I confirm this approach, regardless of reactions that may come from America.”
Veteran Italian political analyst Massimo Franco called Cardinal Parolin’s comments “a preventive move in view of an attack the [Trump] administration against the strategy of détente between Pope Francis and the regime of Xi Jinping”. In a piece for Corriere della Sera, Italy’s newspaper of record, Franco suggested that Pope Francis and his allies may be concerned with the support for Trump and his hard line on China among con-servative Catholics in America and elsewhere.