Last week, news broke that the Hong Kong government is working to confiscate millions from Hong Kong democracy advocate and devout Catholic Jimmy Lai, 78, funds that it claims are tied to his “crimes.” Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February for alleged violations of the Chinese Communist Party’s national security policy. According to his daughter Claire, his access to holy Communion has been extremely limited while in prison. When asked about Lai’s predicament, Pope Leo said he “cannot comment.”
The reason? In 2018, the Holy See made a deal with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in an effort to “contribute positively to the life of the Catholic Church in China, to the common good of the Chinese people and to peace in the world.” The deal, aimed at protecting Chinese Catholics’ right to worship, was hotly contested, with early detractors like Cardinal Joseph Zen, calling the deal an “incredible betrayal” that sent “the flock into the mouths of the wolves.” Yet, lacking the levers of pressure available to the United States, the Holy See had few alternatives. The Vatican alone is incapable of influencing Chinese policy through pressure and hoped the diplomatic route would bear fruit.
It has not worked to this point, but what other recourse did Rome have, absent committed partners? Exiting the deal now would make an already untenable situation worse should China react negatively and escalate its repression. Instead, the United States should coordinate with the Vatican to improve conditions for Chinese Christians—which has a deal of precedent in American history.
In 2014, the Holy See under Pope Francis used quiet moral suasion while Washington applied leverage to help the U.S. normalize relations with Cuba. Over roughly 18 months of secret diplomacy, Vatican officials hosted delegations in Rome and carried messages between the Obama administration and Raúl Castro, with Francis personally sending letters urging resolution of “humanitarian questions,” including religious and political prisoners.
At the same time, the United States maintained the full weight of its sanctions regime and negotiating pressure, making clear that normalization would hinge on verifiable steps. That dual-track approach produced tangible outcomes: the release of imprisoned American contractor Alan Gross, a broader prisoner swap, and the December 2014 announcement restoring diplomatic relations.
A similar pattern characterized earlier Cold War interactions with the Vatican under Pope John Paul II. President Reagan and the pope coordinated secretly to bolster Poland’s Solidarity movement in the 1980s. While the Vatican used church networks to sustain morale among Polish Catholics and provided political cover for Solidarity-linked organizing, the Reagan administration imposed economic sanctions on Poland after it declared martial law. President and pope regularly communicated through backchannels and shared intelligence from the church’s contacts in Poland and American intelligence bodies.
Washington should revive this model of cooperation with the Vatican. And Beijing is the place to start, as it has dramatically increased its persecution of Christians in the past decade.
In 2015, Xi Jinping had tasked the United Front Work Department (UFWD), a CCP organ charged with enforcing religious repression laws, to begin the “Sinicization” of religion. The nominal goal of “Sinicization” is ensure religion is “guided by the Core Socialist Values” of the CCP. In practice, “Sinicization” aims to supplant religious authority with Party doctrine.
“Sinicization” policies include: state oversight of Bible translations, monitoring and censorship of sermons, and the incorporation of “Xi Jinping Thought” into clerical education. Churches must display national flags and portraits of Xi, substitute traditional hymns with nationalist music, and promote China’s socialist system in their preaching. In effect, “Sinicization” places religious authority under Party control, a shift many Chinese Christians oppose as an attempt to elevate a human institution above God.
Catholics in China broadly fall into two categories: unregistered and members of the state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA). At the time of the agreement, there were 8.3 million CCPA members and an estimated 11.7 million unregistered Catholics. The reason most Chinese Catholics choose not to join the CCPA isn’t only because of the “Sinicization” restrictions, but because the CCPA requires all clergy and members to declare “independence” from the Holy See—a requirement Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, said was “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”
The CCP has implemented a top-down approach, increasingly targeting bishops it dislikes and can now replace without fearing much pushback from Rome. Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin of Wenzhou, a city colloquially dubbed “China’s Jerusalem” for its substantial Christian population, has been detained eight times in seven years, most recently in April 2025, for refusing to join the CCPA. Bishop Augustine Cui Tai was detained four times after the deal before being taken into police custody in 2021 and never reappearing. Underground Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu was taken from his seminary along with 10 bishops, after undergoing cancer surgery, for failing to register his clergy with the state. The Vatican, who ordained him secretly in 1991, didn’t condemn this and instead accepted a coerced “resignation” he drafted in prison six years before the canonical retirement age.
Cardinal Joseph Zen was arrested and convicted in Hong Kong in 2022 while Jimmy Lai, baptized by Zen, suffered the same fate.
The CCP seems to have no intention to scale down its persecution of Christians—quite the opposite. Every day this deal stands is another day the CCP can use the agreement’s existence as political cover to deny its human rights abuses.
Washington can help in this regard: strongly opposing China’s persecution of Christians would signal to the Vatican that it is not along in this fight. The initial deal was borne of necessity. China had been increasing its efforts to stymie free worship with its “Sinicization” push for three years. Standing alone, there were few options available to the Holy See. Should Washington increase its efforts to fight Christian persecution in China, Rome would gain a powerful partner and have the leeway to explore alternatives to its current deal.
The State Department should establish a standing case-coordination mechanism to share non-classified information on detained bishops, coerced clergy registrations, and church closures, enabling the Holy See to press these cases privately in Beijing. Washington should simultaneously escalate targeted visa bans and place Global Magnitsky designations on members of the UFWD and local police bureaus in Beijing and Wenzhou that have recently participated in massive crackdowns against underground churches. The U.S. should also condition limited diplomatic engagement on measurable improvements, such as releases imprisoned clergy, while the Vatican quietly negotiates those outcomes through its existing channels.
Finally, Washington should coordinate sequenced multilateral pressure, aligning Vatican diplomatic messaging with U.S.-led statements in multinational organizations and expanding export controls on surveillance technologies used against religious groups. These steps would ensure that Beijing faces coordinated moral, diplomatic, and material costs for its continued repression.
