defended its accord with china saying it was purely an ecclesial matter about bishop nominations and was not a political or diplomatic agreement the vatican has said the agreement had borne limited but positive fruit and was worth extending for another determined period of timecritics including the retired hong kong archbishop have said the vatican sold out chinas underground catholics who for decades remained loyal to rome often at great personal cost more sympathetic china watchers say at most the agreement has prevented an irrevocable schism in china by creating a mechanism through which bishops can be named through a process of dialogue asked on wednesday how the holy see received pompeos essay gallagher told reporters it was received critically he also said the proximity of pompeos visit to the us election was one of the reasons why the holy father is not receiving the secretary of state pompeo who met with the pope last year when he spoke at a similar conference instead will meet on thursday with gallagher and parolin at the vaticanafter the conference pompeo met with italian premier giuseppe conte the first group of seven leader to sign onto chinas infrastructurebuilding belt and road initiative conte said at the time of italys 2019 signing which was done over us objections that it would not put into question italys transatlantic partnershipsa state department deputy spokesperson cale brown said pompeo raised the issue during his meeting with conte and noted the risks of doing business with china