The Apostleship of Prayer began in 1844 in a Jesuit house of formation in France. It was adopted as a pontifical network by Pope Leo XIII in the 1890s.
"Today, the Church in China looks to the future with hope," Pope Francis said on Thursday.
In September of 2018, the Holy See reached a provisional agreement with the People's Republic of China on the ordination of bishops, with the intent of unifying the underground Catholic Church-which had long been loyal to the Holy See-and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), the state-sanctioned Church which had illicitly ordained bishops without Vatican approval.
The Holy See hoped the agreement would normalize conditions for underground Catholics in China, which for decades had been persecuted by the communist government. There are an estimated more than 10 million Catholics in China, with six million belonging to the CPCA according to official statistics.
While the details of the agreement have not been released, the Vatican is believed to have accepted joint authority on the selection of bishops with Communist party authorities. Seven bishops illicitly ordained in the Communist-run church were brought into full communion with the Vatican after the deal was agreed with underground bishops being asked to step aside by the Holy See.
There have been reports of continued persecution of the underground Church in China after the Vatican-China agreement. A report of the U.S. China Commission found that, in 2018 and 2019 conditions for underground Catholics remained poor and had arguably gotten worse.