China ordains Catholic bishop without Vatican approval

In this previous post, I discussed the Chinese government's attempts to assert control over Tibetan Buddhism by taking over the process of choosing the next incarnation of Tibetan Lamas.

The Chinese government also ordains its own Catholic bishops without Vatican approval. From The New York Times:

China and the Vatican exchanged renewed criticisms over the weekend about China’s selection of a new bishop over the Vatican’s objections, but there were hints on each side that the dispute might be papered over in the months ahead.

[...]

The Vatican said in a statement on Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI was “deeply pained” by the ordination of Wang Renlei [王仁雷] last Thursday as a bishop in Xuzhou [徐州] Diocese in Jiangsu [江蘇] Province in eastern China. The statement was slightly shorter and slightly less condemning than the one issued when the state-approved mainland church consecrated two other Chinese bishops last spring over the Vatican’s objections; a statement at that time said the pope “has learned of the news with profound displeasure.”

The pope warned then of the excommunication of the two bishops, Liu Xinhong [劉新紅] and Ma Yinglin [馬英林], although the Vatican has not begun the paperwork for such an action. In his statement on Saturday, he cited the same section of canonical law that includes excommunication for clergy who defy the Vatican. The Vatican’s statement was less directly critical of Beijing than the statement issued here late Thursday night by Cardinal Joseph Zen [陳日君], who is the bishop of Hong Kong and the only Chinese cardinal. He accused the Chinese government of kidnapping clergy and forcing them to participate in the consecration on Thursday, and he said the government sought to disrupt the unity of the Roman Catholic Church.

Liu Bainian [劉柏年], the vice president of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church Association [中國天主教愛國會], which oversees the government-approved mainland church, denied in a telephone interview that anyone had been kidnapped or coerced. He also provided further details of the selection of Wang Renlei to become the auxiliary bishop of the diocese. [...]

China has a history of religiously inspired rebellions, and the loyalty of large numbers of Chinese citizens to any organisation outside of state control makes the Communist Party very nervous.

南無阿彌陀佛