Pope Leo XIV and the Vatican-CCP Agreement

Yesterday, I intervened on several X accounts—cryptically, I admit—to caution those using the election of a Pope whose politics are antagonistic to traditional and conservative Catholics to mock Trump and MAGA to look more closely at recent history and the machinations of the Church under Pope Francis’ leadership. Cardinal Robert Prevost, a 69-year-old from Chicago, now Pope Leo XIV, is openly committed to social justice doctrine. In his inaugural address, he emphasized progressive values for the Church’s future. I intervened with a single line: “Alliance with the Communist Chinese Party.” I decrypt that line in this essay. Some readers will find what I write here incredible, but here’s what we know and what can by reasonably inferred:

Those unfamiliar with strata of elites in the Catholic Church may not have heard about a Cardinal named Puerto Parolin, but Parolin is the string puller here. As Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin played a central role in negotiating the 2018 provisional agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China. The agreement centers on the appointment of bishops in China, ostensibly aiming to reconcile the state-backed Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association with the Vatican’s authority. It allows for collaboration between the Vatican and Chinese authorities in the selection process, while the Pope retains final approval.

Final approval may sound like a safeguard, but Popes can be captured. Whatever safeguards might be in place, why is the Catholic Church aligning with the Chinese Communist Party in state control over the Church? We know why the CCP seeks this arrangement. What motivates the Church to compromise its autonomy? The Church clearly doesn’t want its followers to know the reason, as the details of the agreement remain confidential. However, Catholics know enough about the agreement to be concerned. More than concerned, really. Any arrangement with the CCP is inevitably a Faustian bargain. The People’s Republic of China is a totalitarian surveillance state.

What does all this have to do with the new Pope? Let’s make the connection. Cardinal Parolin’s role in the 2025 papal conclave, and his stance on the election of Prevost (now Pope Leo XIV), while officially secret, is not beyond reasonable inference. Moreover, institutions are leaky. In addition to serving as Secretary of State, Parolin is a senior cardinal bishop. He presided over the conclave and oversaw the voting process. He was widely regarded as a leading candidate himself. According to Italian media, Parolin withdrew his candidacy after the third vote and encouraged his supporters to back Prevost.

Prevost and Parolin are ideological allies—both considered moderates (whatever that means) with progressive leanings and globalist inclinations. For example, both have expressed support for open borders and large-scale immigration. Migration trends are seen by many (including me) as weakening nation-states and easing the path to integration with a global economic system—one in which China, alongside international finance and transnational corporations, is striving to assert greater control. Moreover, Parolin’s loyalty to Pope Francis, the architect of the Vatican-CCP agreement, along with his moderate-progressive and globalist views, suggests he would back a successor capable of continuing Francis’s reforms while maintaining institutional stability. The Church, after all, cannot risk moving too radically without courting schism.

Parolin reportedly stepped aside because he lacked the support needed to reach the required two-thirds majority, largely due to tensions with conservative cardinals over the Vatican-China agreement, and, under these circumstances, Prevost was seen as a suitable substitute, since he was not directly involved in the Vatican-CCP agreement, but, by record and likely through consultation with Parolin, supportive of the Vatican’s alliance with the People’s Republic of China. The Church missed a historic opportunity to put in place a bulwark against the rise of China, an entity that not only oppresses Chinese Christians, but threatens religious autonomy everywhere if it obtains its goal of world domination.

My intervention on X yesterday thus had more in mind than cautioning petty people using the election of a Pope to poke Trump and MAGA. I wanted them to reflect on why they’re supporting progressive and globalist machinations undermining nation-states and facilitating the rise of China. The affinity between those promoting progressive and globalist ambitions and the ambitions of the Chinese Community Party are not accidental. It’s more than just a convergence of interests (albeit that’s damning enough). China’s rise is fueled by transnational corporate and world finance capitalism and the free trade regime; Western progressivism and globalism advance the agenda. Encouraging open reflection on motives allows others to see more clearly the forces transforming our world—exposing what lies at the heart of opposition to Trump’s nationalist economic policies: desire for a new world order.