This agreement, first hailed as historic, allowed for all bishops in China to be in full communion with the Pope Photo: Revista Ecclesia

Vatican’s dialogue with China and Pope Francis’ realism

In the last six years, also marked by a period of rare contact in relations between the parties during the pandemic, nine new Catholic bishops have been ordained in China. In the same period, eight so-called «non-official» bishops, ordained in the past outside the procedures imposed by the Chinese apparatus, have asked for and obtained public recognition of their function also from the political authorities in Beijing