The Vatican has been working for years to try to improve relations with China that were officially severed over seven decades ago when the Communists came to power. Relations had long been stymied over China’s insistence on its exclusive right to name bishops as a matter of national sovereignty, while the Vatican insisted on the pope’s exclusive right to name the successors of the original Apostles.
The 2018 deal was aimed at uniting the flock, regularizing the status of seven bishops who weren’t recognized by Rome and thawing decades of estrangement between China and the Vatican.