No Gains Reported From Trip to China
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VATICAN CITY — A visit to China by American religious leaders, including a Roman Catholic archbishop, did not make progress on restoring ties between the Vatican and the Communist country, a Holy See diplomat said Thursday.
“Normalization is not yet a priority” for China, said Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican secretary for relations with states.
“We can’t speak of any concrete initiatives,” said Tauran. “There is not much positive in that we haven’t seen anything concrete on the table.”
At the request of President Clinton, Theodore McCarrick, Roman Catholic archbishop of Newark, N.J., Don Argue, president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals, and New York Rabbi Arthur Schneier visited China in February.
The Vatican has no diplomatic relations with China. Chinese are allowed to belong to an officially sanctioned Catholic church, but Catholics who pledge loyalty to the pope risk persecution.
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