US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday urged the Vatican to ramp up its opposition to governments abusing religious freedom.
Shortly after landing in Rome on the first day of a two-day visit, Pompeo lost no time in pointing the finger at China as the Vatican prepares to renew a deal on the appointment of bishops there.
“Nowhere is religious freedom under assault more than it is inside of China today,” Pompeo told a conference organized by the US embassy to the Holy See. “As with all communist regimes, the Chinese Communist Party deems itself the ultimate moral authority.”
Photo: Bloomberg
US President Donald Trump’s administration has opened a religious front in its campaign to pressure China, picking on the accord over bishops.
Pompeo is not scheduled to meet Pope Francis when he visits the Vatican today, holding talks instead with Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Secretary for Relations with States Paul Gallagher.
Pompeo’s team had initially raised the possibility of an audience with Francis. The pope does not usually grant meetings to government leaders or politicians close to elections, said Vatican officials, who asked not to be named discussing confidential talks.
The Vatican on Tuesday defended its pursuit of an extended agreement with China on bishop nominations.
Vatican editorial director Andrea Tornielli said that the accord only covers bishop nominations, and does not enter into political or diplomatic relations with China.
“The Provisional Agreement exclusively treats the process for the appointment of bishops: an essential question for the life of the church and for the necessary communion between the pastors of the Chinese Catholic Church with the bishop of Rome and with the bishops throughout the world,” Tornielli wrote in an editorial printed in yesterday’s edition of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.
Tornielli quoted Parolin as saying that it was worth negotiating an extension to the deal, despite unspecified “difficulties” aggravated by the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Even though contact was blocked in recent months due to the pandemic, the results have been positive, although limited, and suggest going forward with the application of the agreement for another determined period of time,” Tornielli said.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS