A century after Pius XI ordained 6 Chinese bishops, who chooses China's bishops?

When Pope Pius XI ordained six Chinese priests as bishops in St. Peterʼs Basilica on Oct. 28, 1926, he had picked each of them himself from lists sent from China.

A century later, bishops in mainland China are appointed under a controversial agreement the Holy See made with Beijing in 2018. Its text has never been published.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vaticanʼs secretary of state, defended the deal in a 2022 interview . New bishops, he said, were being ordained under a procedure “that leaves the pope the final and decisive say.” He called the results “small achievements” but “important steps toward the progressive healing of the wounds inflicted on ecclesial communion by the events of the past.”

Human Rights Watch said in 2025 the Vatican had never exercised its veto . Critics who spoke to EWTN News say the Chinese Communist Party now has a role in choosing bishops.

‘Spiritual colonies’ On the seventh anniversary of his own episcopal ordination in 1919, Pope Pius XI spoke of his joy at seeing the first “bishops of the native Chinese clergy” consecrated in Rome.

“Unlike the situation in China today, the 1926 consecrations of Chinese bishops were intended to give China…