A group of about 10 people gathered for their regular conference in a small chapel hidden in a side street in northeastern Hebei province the day after Pope Francis passed away at the age of 88.
The Brazilian pontiff’s death was announced by the Vatican on Monday, who piqued admiration but irritated reactionaries during his 12-year rule.
In 1951, just communist China cut relationships with the Holy See, making Catholics must choose between joining the state-run Foreign Catholic Patriotic Association and non-sanctioned temples dedicated to the pope.
Poll
Do you think the Vatican and China may carry on the temporary arrangement?
However, under Francis, China and the Vatican signed a 2018 deal that gave Beijing and the Holy Notice a say in choosing priests in an effort to end the 12-million-strong Catholic rift in China.
In the little Hebei shelter, where there were murals of scriptural figures and a hanging Jesus-on-the-cross sculpture in front of a dozen columns of pews, mourning worshipers sung and prayed together on Tuesday.
A description of the Last Supper was next to a translucent glass bookcase displaying President Xi Jinping’s written works and texts from the Chinese Communist Party.
One church member who requested anonymity claimed that the priest’s death” really felt like the pain of losing a loved one.”
He “taught us to have passion for one another,” the 53-year-old said, adding that Francis had always prayed for harmony and specifically for war-torn areas.
People who came together said they were” frightened” to learn of his death because it” seemed but sudden,” especially given that he had made an appearance at the Vatican on Easter Sunday the day before.
Since Beijing recognizes Taiwan while the city-state maintains its own province, the Vatican and China do not have formal diplomatic relations.
Despite this, researchers attributed Pope Francis to recent improvements in Vatican-Chinese relations.
Francis, an analyst on Christianity in Asia and a study fellow at the National University of Singapore, said he played a “key function” in the “key function” in resetting and resetting the dialogue with Beijing during his career.
The pope, the Chinese government acknowledged for the first time, when it comes to the management of Chinese Catholics, Chambon said.
A longtime member of an underground church in northwestern Inner Mongolia described the agreement as” a great, big deal” for many Chinese believers, according to a phone caller from an underground church in northern China.
The man, named Wu, credits Francis with assisting in the formation of” a state of unity” between Catholics in China’s underground and uprooted communities.
He reportedly was slowly praying for the Chinese Church, according to the 36-year-old. We believed that we had never been forgotten.
The Catholic Church has received mixed responses to the agreement, whose language has never been made people.
Some view it as a move toward closer ties with the Vatican, while others see it as a letting the Socialist government tighten its grip on the nation’s Catholics.
It was renewed in 2020, 2022, and 2024, most just for a four-year expression as Francis attempted to influence the Church in China.
Will there be for a temporary agreement among the following pope? Wu .asked.
China will be one of the main topics being discussed by the saint delegates at the conference to choose Francis ‘ replacement, according to Paul Mariani, a Jesuit priest and professor of history at Santa Clara University.
According to researchers, the Vatican and Beijing’s relationship is still in doubt as to the potential of the agreement.
With the interim agreement, the next pope is undoubtedly completely to do whatever he pleases, Mariani told AFP.
” It is true that it can be changed at will because it is not a matter of philosophy.”
The state recognizes Catholicism, and the Chinese law guarantees religious liberty.
Rights groups claim that religious organizations are routinely persecuted and that freedom of worship is severely restricted, a pattern that they claim has gotten worse under Xi.
Fenggang Yang, the director of the Center on Religion and the International East at Purdue University, said the Vatican” compromised many” to secure the deal while the ruling Communist Party” took it as a triumph for effectively reducing the underground church.”
He claimed that the underwater Catholic training is now much more expensive.
According to Inner Mongolia’s Wu, the underground religion is not attempting to fuel section.
We only want to practice an conservative and natural belief, he continued.
And Chenxing, the Hebei christian, refuted the notion that Catholicism was rooted in international influence.
She said, referring to Jesus Christ,” Only those who don’t know Him think He is American.”
Standing slowly near, longtime believer Jingtu was in agreement.
The farmer said,” Faith has no nationality.”
