Pope Leo XIV Appoints First Chinese Bishop, Continues Vatican Accord

Pope Leo XIV made his first appointment of a Chinese bishop under the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with Beijing, signaling he is continuing one of Pope Francis’ most controversial foreign policy decisions.

The Vatican expressed satisfaction that Leo’s June 5 nomination of Bishop Joseph Lin Yuntuan as auxiliary bishop of Fuzhou was recognized Wednesday by Chinese authorities.

The Vatican said in a statement that Lin taking possession of the diocese and the civic recognition of his appointment “constitutes a further fruit of the dialogue between the Holy See and the Chinese authorities and is a significant step in the diocese’s communal journey.”

Francis had riled conservatives when he approved a deal in 2018 over bishop nominations, which had been the most divisive issue in Vatican-China relations since diplomatic ties were severed when the Communists came to power. China had insisted on an exclusive right to name bishops as a matter of national sovereignty, while the Vatican asserted the pope’s exclusive right to name the successors of the original Apostles.

China’s estimated 12 million Catholics have been divided between an official, state-controlled church that didn’t recognize papal authority and an underground church that remained loyal to Rome through decades of persecution. The Vatican tried for decades to unify the flock and the 2018 deal was aimed at healing that division, regularizing the status of seven bishops who weren’t recognized by Rome and thawing decades of estrangement between China and the Vatican.