VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis said on Wednesday that his teachings at his weekly general audience at the Vatican would also be translated into Mandarin starting next week.

At the audiences held every Wednesday, Pope Francis speaks in Italian, and his teachings are translated and read out in English, French, German, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic.

"Next week, with the Advent (period starting), the Chinese translation will also be here in the audience," he said, likely referring to Mandarin, China's official language.

Relations between the Vatican and communist China have historically been fraught, but Pope Francis has made it a priority to normalize them.

In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in the North Asian country for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties.

The Vatican said the agreement, initially struck in 2018, resolved a decades-long split between an underground church loyal to the pope and the China-supervised Catholic Patriotic Association, which operates independently of the Holy See.

There are an estimated 10 to 12 million Catholics in China. — Reuters