A Lion Must Roar: Why Pope Leo XIV Must Break Rome’s China Pact

A fortnight ago Pope Leo XIV signaled in his first interview since his election that he is listening to persecuted Chinese Catholics and is weighing the future of the Sino-Vatican agreement. His words, though cautious, already contrast with the silence of his predecessor and offer fragments of hope. Yet if Leo is to live up to his name and the legacy of St Leo the Great, he must do far more than offer gestures. He must roar.

The Sino-Vatican Agreement as Betrayal
The agreement first signed in 2018 and renewed in 2020, 2022, and 2024 remains secret in its details, but its effects are plain. Bishops loyal to Rome have been compelled to resign, replaced by men chosen by the Communist Party. The underground Church, faithful for decades under persecution, has been told to submit to Beijing. Even as Rome proclaims it retains a “veto,” in practice the Vatican has allowed Beijing to dominate the appointment of shepherds of souls¹. The pact has legitimated state interference in the Church’s divine constitution and has emboldened the regime to install bishops without Vatican consent². Instead of defending the persecuted, Rome has asked them to compromise.

The Collapse of Moral Authority
This deal has not bought peace; it has purchased silence. While crosses are removed, clergy imprisoned, and the faithful watched, Rome’s public voice has faltered. The Vatican speaks softly of “dialogue” while refusing to denounce atrocities against the Uyghurs or the campaign of “Sinicization” of religion³. By its silence, the Holy See has placed itself dangerously near complicity in the repression of God’s people⁴. What credibility has the papacy to condemn abuses elsewhere when it accepts a bargain with Beijing?

Cardinal Zen: The Confessor Ignored
Nowhere is the scandal clearer than in the treatment of Cardinal Joseph Zen, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong. At ninety-three years of age, frail in body but resolute in faith, Zen has never ceased to defend the freedom of the Church and the dignity of the faithful. He opposed the Sino-Vatican deal from its inception, calling it a “betrayal” of the underground Church⁵. For his courage, he was arrested by Hong Kong authorities in 2022 under the National Security Law, subjected to harassment, and silenced in the public square⁶. Yet his voice, when allowed, has remained consistent: fidelity to Rome must never mean submission to communism.

How has Rome responded to this courageous confessor? With coldness. Pope Francis refused to grant him an audience when Zen travelled to Rome to plead for the underground Church. The Secretariat of State sought to distance the Vatican from him, treating him as a nuisance rather than a prophet. Instead of honouring him as a living martyr, Rome allowed Beijing and its proxies to humiliate him⁷. The message to persecuted Catholics was chilling: the Holy See prefers silence to solidarity.

Cardinal Chow: Accommodation Masquerading as Pastoral Sensitivity
In stark contrast stands Cardinal Stephen Chow, the current Bishop of Hong Kong. A Jesuit, no doubt pastoral and personally sincere, yet he has publicly denied that Hong Kong is experiencing religious persecution. By such statements he has given Beijing the gift of legitimacy. He has bent over backwards to assure the authorities that the Church will not rock the boat, that Catholicism in Hong Kong will be “harmonious” and “constructive.” His language echoes the slogans of “Sinicization” and functions as a shield for repression.

While Zen has endured arrest and disgrace for defending freedom, Chow has sought accommodation with power. He has justified his silence by narrowing the definition of “persecution” to exclude all forms of pressure short of bloodshed. But persecution does not begin with martyrdom — it begins with the erosion of conscience, the silencing of the pulpit, and the surveillance of worship. To deny this is to accept Beijing’s narrative, and to weaken the Church’s resistance.

The irony is bitter: the man who resisted, Cardinal Zen, was sidelined by Rome; the man who accommodates, Cardinal Chow, has been promoted and praised. Fidelity is punished, pliancy rewarded.

The Witness of History
The Church’s past popes spoke with clarity where today Rome hesitates. Pius XI in Divini Redemptoris condemned atheistic communism as “intrinsically perverse”⁸. Pius XII in Ad Apostolorum Principis warned against the Communist attempt to build a schismatic “patriotic church” in China⁹. John Paul II by his witness in Poland helped to dislodge the Iron Curtain, proclaiming in Warsaw, “Be not afraid.” By contrast, the recent Vatican policy has appeared timid, secretive, and deferential. When the Church barters with tyrants, she loses souls; when she proclaims truth, tyrants tremble.

The Underground Church Forgotten
While Rome negotiates, the faithful suffer. Bishops disappear into detention. Priests are harassed and coerced into state structures. Sermons are censored. Schools are filled with Party propaganda. The underground faithful, once the pride of Catholic witness, are treated as obstacles to diplomacy. Some bishops languish in prison even now¹⁰. This is not unity; it is betrayal.

The Path Before Leo XIV
If Pope Leo is serious, there are steps he must take at once. He should pray publicly for Jimmy Lai, the imprisoned Catholic layman of Hong Kong, and demand his freedom. He should receive Sebastien Lai, to show solidarity with persecuted families. He should honour Cardinal Zen, the courageous confessor of the faith, and hear his counsel. He should extend his concern beyond Catholicism, speaking with the Dalai Lama on religious freedom and condemning the genocide of the Uyghurs. Yet more than gestures, Leo must suspend or terminate the Sino-Vatican agreement and condition any future arrangement on the release of all imprisoned clergy, the restoration of free episcopal appointments, and the full transparency of every clause.

A Moment of Reckoning
St Leo the Great met Attila the Hun and defended Rome with truth and faith. This new Leo faces an enemy no less cruel, though clothed in bureaucracy and ideology rather than steel. If he continues the path of compromise, history will judge him another pope who traded Christ’s flock for diplomatic favour. And the parallel with Pius XII’s silence during the Holocaust will not be lost: as Jews were deported to their deaths while the Vatican equivocated, so too Chinese Catholics and Uyghur Muslims now languish in camps while Rome clings to its concordat.

History is merciless with shepherds who abandon their flock. If Pope Leo XIV wishes to live up to his name, he must choose the path of the lion, not the path of the mute lamb. He must defend Zen, liberate the underground Church, and repudiate the bargain with Beijing. Only then will the blood of China’s martyrs bear fruit, and only then will heaven remember Leo as a pope who roared.

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¹ “China–Holy See Relations,” Wikipedia (accessed October 2025).
² “China says it has extended agreement with Vatican on bishops,” Reuters, Oct 22, 2024.
³ “The Vatican’s Agreement with China Looks Even Worse Now,” Hudson Institute, 2024.
⁴ “Vatican’s Disgraceful China Deal Ought to End,” Human Rights Watch, Sept 30, 2024.
⁵ Joseph Cardinal Zen, interview with Catholic News Agency, Sept 2018.
⁶ “Cardinal Zen arrested in Hong Kong under National Security Law,” BBC News, May 11, 2022.
⁷ Edward Pentin, “Cardinal Zen Rebuffed in Rome,” National Catholic Register, Oct 2020.
⁸ Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris (1937).
⁹ Pius XII, Ad Apostolorum Principis (1958).
¹⁰ “The Continuing Scandal of the Vatican’s China Policy,” First Things, 2024.