China Games: Vatican Ousts Beijing Bishops
In the wake of news of two illicit
ordinations of bishops by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Pope
Benedict XVI expressed “profound displeasure” with the actions of the
government-controlled “official” Catholic Church in
Father Joseph Liu Xinhong, 41, was ordained bishop of
On April 30, Father Joseph Ma Yinglin, 41, was ordained bishop of
The ordinations represent a major
setback for hopes of improved relations between
The events led the Holy See to
“give voice” to the suffering of the entire Catholic community of the country,
said a statement issued today by
“An act so relevant for the life of the Church, such as an episcopal ordination, has been carried out without respecting the requirements of communion with the Pope,” stated Navarro-Valls.
“It is a grave wound to the unity
of the Church, for which severe canonical sanctions, as it is known, are
foreseen,” said the
Those sanctions may include excommunication of the bishops involved in the ordinations (see sidebar).
Navarro-Valls said that “bishops and priests have been subjected to — on the part of entities external to the Church — strong pressures and threats, so that they would take part in the episcopal ordinations which, being without pontifical mandate, are illegitimate and, besides, contrary to their conscience.”
“Various bishops have given a refusal to similar pressures, while others were not able to do anything but submit with great interior suffering,” Navarro-Valls said. “We are facing ... a grave violation of religious liberty, notwithstanding that it was sought to present the two episcopal ordinations as a proper act to provide the bishops for vacant dioceses.”
Navarro-Valls
said the
Who’s Responsible?
According to AsiaNews, an agency of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, the Chinese Patriotic Association was behind the illicit ordinations.
In
When the communist government
formed the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association in the 1950s, the association
officially spurned ties with the
Five million Chinese Catholics currently belong to a state-controlled “Catholic” church, while at least 8 million faithful are believed to belong to the underground Church.
Regarding the illicit ordinations,
AsiaNews’ director, Father Bernardo Cervellera, said that “on the topic of diplomatic
relations, both the [Chinese] government as well as the
“Over the past two years the
Father Cervellera said that this unofficial understanding “left the PA out,” which for “decades” has controlled ordinations, “diminishing its power over the official Church,” something with which the PA is not in agreement.
Father Cervellera
explained that “on the part of the
Mixed Signals
Navarro-Valls
said the ordinations created an obstacle to Vatican-Chinese dialogue. And
earlier in the week, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of
Hong Kong called for a halt to informal talks between the
But before the ordinations,
relations between the two parties showed signs of improvement. Several new
Chinese bishops chosen recently by the
And in March, the Vatican’s top foreign affairs official, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, sent a positive signal when he told the Chinese press that the “time is ripe” for improvement in Vatican-China relations.
But problems over ordinations have
arisen before. On Jan. 6, 2000, five bishops were ordained in
In early 2001, UCA News reported
that some 70 seminarians and teachers were expelled from
One Chinese Catholic source told
Catholic News Service that at least one and probably more than one of those
bishops have since reconciled with the
Nine papally
approved bishops from the government-approved church ordained Bishop Ma, UCA
News reported. The five government-approved bishops named as ordaining Bishop
Liu also have reconciled with the
Most Catholics in
The layman said public security officers had already tightened control on underground Catholics and “warned Catholics not to create trouble.” For this reason, he said, he and several other lay leaders left home for a few days to avoid government control.
According to Italian Father
Giancarlo Politi, a member of the Pontifical
Institute for Foreign Missions and a long-time
First, the Chinese authorities may
have wanted to send a clear message of displeasure over the recent raising of
Cardinal Zen’s profile. Benedict elevated the
Second, Father Politi said, Chinese Catholics need bishops. With more than 40 sees currently unfilled and others headed by very elderly prelates, the church’s leaders there may feel they cannot afford to wait for papal approval on every candidate.
A third element, Father Politi said, was that whenever Vatican-China relations move significantly forward — as they appeared to do last year — a backtracking seems to occur.
“The main problem in
One Vatican source, who asked not
to be named, said that confusing signals from
“For 50 years we’ve seen things
swing from good to bad many times. This latest episode was a little surprising,
because we had been able to approve four bishops over the last year without a
problem,” said the
The
“We need to wait and see whether
these were two isolated cases, to send some kind of message, or if it’s the beginning
of a new style of doing things,” the
(CNS, Zenit and RNS
contributed to this report.)
Canon Lawyer: Bishops’
Excommunication Not Certain
And even if they incurred
excommunication automatically by acting of their own free will, the penalty is
limited until Pope Benedict XVI publicly declares their excommunication to the
bishops and their faithful, said Jesuit Father James Conn,
a professor of canon law at
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said May 4 that the ordination of Bishop Joseph Liu Xinhong of
He referred specifically to Canon 1382 of the Code of Canon Law: “A bishop who consecrates someone a bishop without a pontifical mandate and the person who receives the consecration from him incur a latae sententiae excommunication (excommunication incurred automatically at the time of the offense) reserved to the Apostolic See.”
That means in this instance, the act by the Chinese bishop would provide the penalty of excommunication without the need for a formal decree of excomunication by the Pope or a bishop.
But Navarro-Valls
also said the
Canon 1323 specifies that a person “coerced by grave fear, even if only relatively grave,” is not subject to penalty.
If the bishops involved “were not laboring under an external burden, it would be clear,” he said.
Excommunication “may have been
incurred, but we do not know that because we do not know their consciences or
the external factors involved,”
If they were automatically excommunicated, they immediately are forbidden to celebrate the sacraments, receive the sacraments or perform the functions of a bishop unless the good of souls requires them to do so, he said.
Public notification is not simply a formality, he said, but it is “for the good of the people of God,” who have a right to know when a minister is celebrating the sacraments illicitly.
Said
(CNS)
- Keywords:
- May 14-20, 2006