Rome Newsroom, Sep 10, 2025 / 12:21 pm

Pope Leo XIV has created a new Catholic diocese in northern China with the same name as one established decades ago by Beijing without Vatican approval, underscoring ongoing tensions over how China has redrawn Catholic diocesan borders independently of Rome.

The Vatican announced Wednesday that the pope has suppressed two historic dioceses of Xiwanzi and Xuanhua — both erected in 1946 by Pope Pius XII — and replaced them with the Diocese of Zhangjiakou. The see of the new diocese is based in the city of Zhangjiakou, where China’s state-controlled Catholic association set up its own diocese in 1980 using boundaries never recognized by the Holy See.

Notably absent from the Vatican’s announcement was any mention of Bishop Augustine Cui Tai, 75, the lo

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