Pope Francis refused to meet Pompeo during a visit to Italy because he feared the Trump campaign would use him as a tool in the election

• Pope Francis declined to meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit to Rome over fears he would be used a tool in the 2020 presidential election.
• Pompeo led a symposium at the US Embassy to the Holy See on Wednesday, but the Pope did not attend despite being invited.
• A cardinal told Reuters "the Pope had already said clearly that political figures are not received in election periods."
• When asked by the Ansa news agency if the event "amounted to exploitation of the Pope," an archbishop said: "Yes, that is precisely why the Pope will not meet American secretary of state Mike Pompeo."
• Hours after the snub, Pompeo slammed the Vatican for planning to extend a 2018 deal to let the Pope help appoint bishops in China.

Pope Francis refused to meet Mike Pompeo during the Secretary of State's trip to Italy this week, fearing that the Trump campaign would use him as a political tool in the November election.

On Wednesday, Pompeo hosted a symposium on religious freedom at the US Embassy to the Holy See in Rome. The Pope was invited to the event but did not attend.

Asked if the event "amounted to exploitation of the Pope," Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican's secretary for relations with states, told Italy's Ansa news agency: "Yes, that is precisely why the Pope will not meet American secretary of state Mike Pompeo."

The symposium went ahead regardless, with Gallagher and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, attending instead.

Parolin told Reuters that Pompeo explicitly asked to meet with Pope Francis "but the Pope had already said clearly that political figures are not received in election periods."

Hours later, Pompeo launched a thinly-veiled attack on Pope Francis for planning to extend a 2018 deal with Beijing, which entails the Vatican helping appoint bishops in China.

"Nowhere is religious freedom under assault more than in China," Pompeo told a press conference, according to the Christian Broadcasting Network.

"Catholic churches and shrines have been desecrated and destroyed. Catholic bishops like Augustine Cui Tai have been imprisoned."

"Authorities order residents to replace pictures of Jesus with those of Chairman Mao and those of General Secretary Xi Jinping," he said.

When asked if Pompeo's statement was designed to whip up support back in the US, Cardinal Parolin said: "Some have interpreted it this way ... that the comments were above all for domestic political use. I don't have proof of this but certainly this is one way of looking at it."

It is not the first time Pompeo has tried to dissuade the Pope from signing a deal with China.

On September 18, Pompeo wrote an article published in the Christian journal First Things in which he warned the deal "has not shielded Catholics from the Party's depredations."

He tweeted the article the same day, writing: "The Vatican endangers its moral authority, should it renew the deal."

China's ruling Communist Party, which is official atheist, has for decades attempted to control religious groups and allowed only state-controlled religion to exist.

Under Xi Jinping, the country's crackdown on religion has become stronger. In 2015, the party introduced the term "sinicization" into official government lexicon, in which they told Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist leaders to fuse and reinterpret their religions with Chinese socialism.

China has re-translated the Bible and closed churches. In recent years, however, Muslim group and ethnicities appear to be the focus of China's efforts.

China is currently enforcing a sweeping persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. At least 1 million Uighurs, a mostly-Muslim ethnic group, and other ethnicities are held in detention centers where they are brainwashed and taught to adopt Chinese culture.