Pope giving up separation of church and state in China

Magister's column in an italiannewspaper has a long article about the "agreement" by the (dare I say this?) white European leftist ideologues in the Vatican and the Chinese government.

he notes that the official reports don't give a lot of information (Cardinal Zen says it is a masterpiece of saying nothing with a lot of words, and notes the many vital questions left unanswered)

But Magister has lots of links, which also say nothing, and then he goes to note why this is indeed "historic":

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, then added in a statement that for the Holy See the accord “has a pastoral objective” and responds to the need for pastors “who are recognized by the successor of Peter and by the legitimate civil authorities of their country.”

What is not said is that the Chinese authorities will still be first in line in the selection of future pastors, with only a feeble right of veto granted to the pope on any candidates who may not be to his liking.

 In this sense, the accord can rightly be defined as “historic,” because it marks a sensational about-face in the journey that the Catholic Church has made over centuries of history to free itself from submission to political powers, particularly in the “investiture” of its pastors.

the church has been there before: See Wikipedia on the Investiture controversy of the medieval church.

The reforms of Pope Gregory VII led to the separation of church and state.

It separated the way many rulers appointed bishops (i.e.made the church as an arm of the state) and put the church as outside and independent of the state, with the idea that God's laws were above the state.

This is usually interpreted as a power grab by the Pope, but actually it means that rulers can be opposed by bishops, and can never be absolute rulers, since God's law is above man's law.

How does that work in reality?

In China, it would mean that bishops could oppose the "forced abortion" government policies, in the Philippines, it means the bishops can oppose Duterte's drug war, and in the US it means bishops can oppose Trumpieboy's immigration reforms.

But it also means that a fiat by the local bishop can be ignored by the state, so there is no theocracy as one sees in Iran.

 The agreement has implications beyond the ten million Catholics in China:  because it essentially silences official Catholic opposition to the persecution of believers of many religions there, replacing religion with the religion of the state as god.

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update: Related article on AlJ on China's crackdown on investigative journalism.