The 2018 accord sought to resolve the issue of who has authority to appoint bishops.

Pope Leo XIV made his first appointment of a Chinese bishop under the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with Beijing, signalling he is continuing one of Pope Francis’ most controversial foreign policy decisions.

Pope Leo XIV has appointed a new president for the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, a bioethics think tank that Catholic conservatives criticized under Pope Francis for departing from official church teaching on issues such as contraception and euthanasia.