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Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast.

I'm Damien Thompson.

This week is the Catholic Church, including Pope Francis, being manipulated by Beijing?

It's a question many people have been asking ever since the Vatican signed a deal with China,

which supposedly ended a rift between Rome and an independent Chinese Catholic church

that's entirely run by the Communist Party.

In 2018, the Vatican signed a secret deal, and it's still secret, its text has never been published,

whereby China would stop persecuting an underground church loyal to Rome in return for its own bishops being recognised by Pope Francis.

The Pope kept his side of the bargain.

He recognised Chinese communist bishops loyal to the party.

President Zee, meanwhile, didn't keep his.

He stepped up his persecution of all Christians, which have seen countless churches,

including Catholic ones, demolished. Underground priests have been forced to sign up to a new

United Church, that is, of course, entirely controlled by the Politburo. Lord Patton, the Catholic

former governor of Hong Kong, last month condemned the deal, saying this was an

extraordinary time to be doing business with an administration in China which has gone back on

human rights. And he declared his support for Cardinal Joseph Zen, retired leader of the church

in Hong Kong, who in a letter leaked a few days ago,

...