VATICAN CITY: The Vatican said Saturday (Oct 22) it had renewed a secretive 2018 deal with Beijing allowing China to choose bishops on the mainland and then have Rome approve them.

It said the deal had, as widely expected, been renewed for two years.

“After appropriate consultation and assessment, the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China have agreed to extend for another two years the Provisional Agreement regarding the appointment of Bishops,” read a statement from the Vatican press office.

The agreement, signed in September 2018, was previously extended in October 2020.

The accord is designed to bring closer together Catholics caught between the official state-backed church in China and an underground movement loyal to Rome and the pontiff as the church’s supreme leader.

It also provides for greater cooperation between the Vatican and Beijing, while affording the pope the final say in the appointment of Chinese bishops.

Opponents of the deal, who have highlighted restrictions on religion in China, point to the fact that only six new bishops have been appointed since the deal was first struck.

Diplomatic sources say the renewal of the accord had been called into doubt by the arrest in early May in Hong Kong of 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, one of Asia’s highest-ranking Catholic clerics.

Originally detained earlier this year under a national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong to quell dissent, he went on trial last month alongside five fellow democracy supporters over their role in running a fund to help defend people arrested in anti-government protests.

Zen was arrested for “colluding with foreign forces”.

Former South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who is Catholic, has urged Francis to visit North Korea, saying a papal visit to Pyongyang would help build peace on the Korean peninsula.

When he met the pope in 2018, Moon relayed a verbal invitation to Francis from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Gallagher’s comments were significant because they came three days after North Korea fired an intermediate-range missile over Japan, prompting joint South Korean and US missile drills.

North Korea also fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea on Thursday in the direction of Japan, after the return of a US aircraft carrier to the region and a UN Security Council meeting in response to the North’s recent launches.

Those launches were the sixth time in 12 days that North Korea has test fired ballistic missiles, the latest display of its increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear bomb programs.

Gallagher also reminded his listeners of the Vatican’s support for a total ban on nuclear weapons.

Pope Francis visited South Korea in 2014, and Vatican officials have said that any papal trip to North Korea would include stops in the South to underscore his support for a re-unified peninsula.