Shanghai bishop gets Pope’s approval; Vatican chides China

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has approved a new bishop of Shanghai as the Vatican chided China for transferring him there without consultation, in violation of bilateral accords.

A Vatican statement on Saturday said the pope had named Bishop Joseph Shen Bin to head the vacant Shanghai diocese.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said in an interview issued separately that it had not been consulted when Shen was moved to Shanghai from the diocese of Haimen, in Jiangsu province.

Parolin said the unilateral move went against “the spirit of dialogue and collaboration” stipulated in a landmark 2018 accord on the naming of bishops.

Conservative Catholics have criticised the secret accord as a sellout to communist China, but the Vatican has defended it as an imperfect means to have some form of dialogue with the authorities for the good of Chinese Catholics. The pope had decided to approve Shen “for the greater good” of the Shanghai diocese.