The 2018 agreement between the Vatican and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), orchestrated by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, is again facing scrutiny as questions arise about how the newly appointed Pope Leo will approach the CCP.

The Parolin-negotiated deal has been, and remains, a contentious agreement between the Catholic Church and the CCP, which has a history of suppressing Catholics in China.

While the late Pope Francis and his Secretary of State, Parolin, promoted the agreement as a move toward normalizing Catholicism in China, experts contend it has had negative consequences for believers.

“It undermines the Pope’s authority to appoint bishops in China,” Nina Shea, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, told Digital.

“A key responsibility of a bishop is to train and ordain priests,” she explained. “Therefore, the CCP has been granted control in determining the line of authority within the Church hierarchy.”

Under this agreement, all Catholic clergy must register with the CCP’s Patriotic Association, established in 1957. The Catholic Church had long rejected this association as illegitimate because it demanded that all clergy reject foreign influence, including that of the Pope.

In 2019, Parolin stated that the aim of the deal was “to promote religious freedom by seeking normalization for the Catholic community.”

Shea noted that details of the agreement remain unclear because it has been kept secret.

Reportedly, the agreement aimed to end decades of strained relations between the Vatican and the CCP by granting China greater influence over bishop appointments. However, experts have argued for years that it ceded too much authority to the oppressive government.

A significant concern is the Vatican’s apparent capitulation to the CCP.

Following the agreement, the Vatican also agreed to withdraw its support for the underground Catholic network, which has existed in China for decades and supported millions of Catholics.

According to Shea, the CCP essentially “tricked” Pope Francis because, simultaneously and unbeknownst to Parolin, it banned children from attending Catholic Church services, including vital sacraments such as baptisms, Holy Communion, and confirmations.

This ban effectively impedes the continuation of the Catholic Church in China.

“Even during the harshest periods under Mao, the underground church carried out this education and evangelization,” Shea said. “Without the ability to perpetuate itself, the Catholic Church in China could disappear within a couple of generations.”

“It’s a campaign of extinction,” she added.

The Vatican did not immediately respond to Digital’s inquiries about whether Pope Leo will uphold the agreement with the CCP or seek to establish a new one.

However, in his first homily as the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo emphasized the Church’s battle against rising atheism.

“There are many settings in which Jesus, although appreciated as a man, is reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or superman. This is true not only among non-believers but also among many baptized Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism,” he said. “These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied.”

The Pope stated that “missionary outreach is desperately needed” for this reason.

Pope Leo cautioned that a “lack of faith” has led to not only a “loss of meaning in life” for many but also “the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family, and so many other wounds that afflict our society.”

While congratulations were issued by leaders of both Catholic and non-Catholic nations, China did not release a similar message upon the Pope’s appointment on Thursday.

During a press conference on Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian stated, when asked about the Church’s new leader, “We hope that under the leadership of the new Pope, the Vatican will continue to have dialogue with China in a constructive spirit, have in-depth communication on international issues of mutual interest, jointly advance the continuous improvement of the China-Vatican relations and make contributions to world peace, stability, development and prosperity.”