Saturday, September 22, 2018 will go down in history for the signature of a agreement between China and the Vatican on the appointment of bishops. A giant step has thus been taken in the improvement of relations between the Chinese government and the Vatican authorities after seventy years full of difficulties.

Mao Zedong (1893-1976) won the Chinese civil war and established a totalitarian communist regime. From October 1, 1949, the courts of justice were replaced by party committees and censorship stifled all media. Among those persecuted by the Maoist regime were Catholics. In response, Pius XII published the encyclical Ad Sinarum gentem (1954), on the persecution of the Church in China and the existence of a Chinese national church separate from Rome. In 1957, the Pope condemned the patriotic association of Chinese Catholics.

After Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping proposed a great reform, based on three major challenges: the modernization of agriculture, the granting of some autonomy to industry, and foreign investment in the South and on the coast. From this moment on, China began to open up more to the world, and not only economically. Gradually, the government of Deng Xiaoping and his successors ushered in an era of a certain tolerance of the Church.

In recent years, the boundaries between the so-called patriotic church, controlled by the government, and the underground church, persecuted at times by local authorities, have been blurring. However, while in some dioceses bishops and priests could move freely and the faithful could attend parishes, in other places the government imprisoned and persecuted the clergy and the Christian people.

Everything seems to indicate that the agreement signed yesterday could lead, in the more or less near future, to the progressive disappearance of these "two churches" and the creation of a space of certain freedom granted by the Beijing government.