Taiwan yesterday said it supported the Vatican’s efforts to reach out to Beijing and hoped the move would improve China’s “deteriorating religious freedom and human rights issue,” while Pope Francis, who is in Mongolia on a state visit, warned the young democracy of risks such as corruption and environmental ruin.
As the papal plane passed over China’s airspace, the pontiff sent a customary telegram to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) bearing “greetings of good wishes.”
The Holy See is Taipei’s only diplomatic ally in Europe and does not have official ties with Beijing.
Photo: AFP
“Our country fully respects religious freedom and supports the Holy See’s continuous attempts to engage in dialogue with China to resolve the Catholic Church’s religious issues in China,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taipei said in a statement. “We hope that Vatican-China exchanges will help improve China’s deteriorating religious freedom and human rights issues and realize the ideal of religious liberalization in China.”
In response to the pope’s telegram, Beijing said it was keen to “strengthen mutual trust” with the Vatican and that the pope’s words “reflect friendship and goodwill.”
The pontiff has led a years-long effort to build ties with Beijing, and in 2018 the Holy See reached a secretive agreement allowing both sides a say in appointing bishops in China. The accord was renewed for two years in October last year.
Meanwhile, Francis, on the first papal visit to the Asian nation sandwiched between China and Russia, was feted with an official welcome ceremony that included a phalanx of Mongolian horsemen in metal armor parading past the State Palace.
The 86-year-old, who waved to the crowd in front of a massive bronze statue of Genghis Khan as a group of young Mongolian Catholics yelled “Viva il Papa,” is seeking a neutral ally in the sensitive region.
Welcomed by Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, Pope Francis called himself a “pilgrim of friendship” and extolled the virtues of the country, including its “ranchers and planters [being] respectful of the delicate balances of the ecosystem.”
Mongolia’s shamanist and Buddhist traditions of living in harmony with nature and its creatures “can contribute significantly to the urgent and no longer deferrable efforts to protect and preserve planet Earth,” he said.
Francis also praised Mongolia for its religious tolerance and nuclear-free policy, but said that corruption was “the fruit of a utilitarian and unscrupulous mentality that has impoverished whole countries.”
Religions can “represent a safeguard against the insidious threat of corruption, which effectively represents a serious menace to the development of any human community,” he said.
Mongolia has been marred by corruption and environmental degradation in recent years, with its capital suffering from some of the world’s worst air quality and a scandal over embezzlement by officials sparking street protests last year.
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