Pope looked anti-Trump by refusing to meet Mike Pompeo, says retired Hong Kong bishop

Retired Hong Kong bishop Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun has criticised the Vatican’s decision not to grant US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo an audience with Pope Francis during his trip to the Holy See last month. The Vatican said at the time – weeks before the US elections on November 3 – that it did not meet politicians during election campaign periods, but Zen, who was also snubbed by Pope Francis on his recent trip to Rome, said in an interview that it was “ridiculous” for the Pope not to see an incumbent US secretary of state on such grounds. “Now, they have made an enemy of [US President Donald] Trump,” Zen said. “So I don’t know how they can repair such damage.” Zen suggested that the Vatican’s efforts to remain non-partisan had made it appear “against Trump”, and that the Pope would have granted an audience to an official from the presidential campaign of Trump’s opponent Joe Biden. Although the Rome trips of Zen and Pompeo overlapped, Zen said the two did not meet in the city. However, Pompeo and Zen – an outspoken critic of China’s authoritarian rule – had previously spoken over Skype about topics including the situation in Hong Kong. Before his trip, Pompeo had written in the US religious journal First Things in September that the Vatican should take a tougher line on its agreement with Beijing over the appointment of Catholic bishops in China, and should stand up to the Chinese government over human rights abuses in the country. “The Holy See has a unique capacity and duty to focus the world’s attention on human rights violations, especially those perpetrated by totalitarian regimes like Beijing’s,” Pompeo wrote. The deal, over which Zen has repeatedly raised concerns, was renewed last month. Zen said he believed that the Vatican might have refused to meet Pompeo for fear of jeopardising the agreement, which was still under negotiation at the time of the American’s trip. Pope Francis congratulates Joe Biden, stepping into political fray Francesco Sisci, a researcher at Renmin University and long-time observer of China-Vatican affairs, said the Vatican went to great lengths to stay out of US electoral matters, pointing to the Pope’s refusal to meet presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders four years ago – although in that instance, Sanders managed a brief handshake with the pontiff. “My sense, however, is that the Holy See objected to the way Pompeo decided to intervene as if trying to prise open the split in the Catholic Church of America,” Sisci said. Sisci maintained, though, that it was “absolutely legitimate” for Pompeo to object to the Vatican’s relations with Beijing. Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, agreed that Pompeo’s highly public criticism of the Vatican may have cost him his audience. “It was definitely a snub and probably had to do with Pompeo’s very vocal decision to criticise the Vatican’s then pending decision to renew its deal with Beijing,” Johnson said, adding that the Pope probably wanted to avoid “picking sides” in the increasingly bitter debate over the Catholic Church’s relationship with China. Hong Kong’s Cardinal Zen favoured Trump over Biden in the US presidential election, viewing Trump as the tougher of the two in countering Beijing. The former bishop signalled he would welcome the US playing a greater role in responding to China’s clampdown on democracy in Hong Kong. “Something big must happen soon,” Zen said. “We cannot go on just like this.” Zen said Pompeo had twice contacted him after the enactment of the controversial national security law that was imposed on Hong Kong by the Beijing government in June. But Zen underlined that he joined the conversation only at Pompeo’s request and that he did not advocate for any “punishment” or action from the US. Hong Kong protesters rooting for anti-Beijing Trump to win The secretary of state got in touch before his speech in California in July, titled “Communist China and the Free World’s Future”, Zen said. Pompeo declared in the speech that American engagement with China had been a failure. According to Zen, Pompeo initially contacted him through an intermediary to invite him to the United States – an invitation he declined, saying, “I’m not coming so far.” The two later conversed over Skype about Hong Kong. “I said, ‘What can I tell you to do?’” Zen said. “Because anything wrong, you may put your Americans in Hong Kong in danger. Because they [the Chinese government] are like beasts, they are unreasonable, they can do anything to you.” Hong Kong’s national security law gives the authorities sweeping powers to criminalise acts of succession, subversion, separatism and terrorism, as well as acts perceived to constitute collusion with a foreign power. It has already been used to arrest more than 25 people, including pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow Ting and media mogul Jimmy Lai Chee-ying. Trump had proven popular with many pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, who admired his tough anti-China rhetoric. A recent poll conducted by the British-based public opinion firm YouGov found that Hong Kong posted the second-highest level of support for Trump among eight Asia-Pacific countries and regions, after Taiwan. “Trump is not doing all of this for the love of the Chinese,” Zen said. “He’s doing it for the love of America.” The US president met the Pope in 2017, in a 30-minute meeting at which he was reportedly given a copy of the Pope’s encyclical on climate change, seen as a politically loaded message. Trump, a climate change sceptic, later withdrew the US from the Paris climate accord. Can Pope Francis and Xi Jinping find common ground? The Pope telephoned US president-elect Biden on Thursday to congratulate him on his election win, according to a statement by the Biden team. A Catholic who could be considered a natural ally for the Pope, Biden was said to have discussed climate change, immigration and refugees – all topics on which the Pope has previously criticised Trump. Biden also name-checked the pontiff in a speech on the eve of the election. “Time and again, throughout our history, we’ve seen charlatans, the con men, the phoney populist, who sought to play on our fears, appeal to our worst appetites and pick at the oldest scabs we have for their own political gain,” Biden said. “Pope Francis warns us against this phoney populism.”