— So much for the hopes of Vatican-Chinese “détente.”
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 May 3 at ’s , the cathedral of the Wuhu Diocese before the government-approved church administration in changed diocesan boundaries.
On April 30, Father Joseph Ma Yinglin, 41, was ordained bishop of , also without papal approval.
The ordinations represent a major setback for hopes of improved relations between and .
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 spokesman Joaquín Navarro Valls (see full text, page 5).
“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 spokesman.
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 hoped that “such unacceptable acts of violent and inadmissible” pressure would not be placed on priests and bishops in the future, although the has heard that other episcopal ordinations without papal approval were being planned.
Who’s Responsible?
watchers are trying to decipher what is behind the unexpected ordinations, which came at a time when many observers were predicting friendlier ties between and .
According to AsiaNews, an agency of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, the Chinese Patriotic Association was behind the illicit ordinations.
In , the government permits Catholic religious practice only with recognized personnel and in places registered with the Religious Affairs Office and under the control of the Patriotic Association.
When the communist government formed the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association in the 1950s, the association officially spurned ties with the , while an underground Church continued to exist and often faced persecution. In recent years, Catholics familiar with the situation in have said more than 90% of the government-approved or open-church bishops have reconciled with the , and in some areas of there is intermingling of the two groups. Much of this depends on the local bishop, they said.
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 wish to act without the PA (Patriotic Association).”
“Over the past two years the government and the had come to a de facto agreement that left to the indication of a candidate to the episcopate,” said Father Cervellera. “The auxiliary bishops of , Xian [and] Wanxian, and the ordinary of Suzhoy were ordained in this way,”
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 , of the official and underground Church,” the idea is increasingly growing of “accepting the registration of communities and bishops in the government’s Religious Affairs Office, but without adhering to the PA, which is working for a national church independent of .”
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 and aimed at restoring diplomatic ties that were severed in 1951.
But before the ordinations, relations between the two parties showed signs of improvement. Several new Chinese bishops chosen recently by the received government approval.
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 without papal mandate, which strained relations between and the . ordained another bishop that June without papal approval.
In early 2001, UCA News reported that some 70 seminarians and teachers were expelled from ’s national seminary for not attending the unapproved ordinations.
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 ; other concelebrants included about 30 Chinese priests and some visiting priests from overseas.
Most Catholics in belong to the underground Church and refuse to join the open church. An underground lay leader in who asked not to be named told UCA News May 2 that his community as well as open-church Catholics would not accept a bishop without papal approval, and that such an ordination would harm Church efforts in evangelization and reconciliation.
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.
’s Backtrack
According to Italian Father Giancarlo Politi, a member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions and a long-time watcher, several elements may have come into play in the latest ordinations.
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 archbishop to the rank of cardinal at last March’s consistory.
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 is still very basic: It hasn’t yet decided to pass from a revolutionary regime to a more democratic one. This impacts the Church, of course, especially in the nomination of bishops, which is the crucial thing,” he said.
One Vatican source, who asked not to be named, said that confusing signals from are the norm.
“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 official.
The took a hard line in its most recent statement in part because it fears this could be the start of a series of unapproved ordinations, the source added.
“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 official said. “If it’s a new way of doing things, then we’ll go backward 50 years.”
(CNS, Zenit and RNS
contributed to this report.)
Canon Lawyer: Bishops’
Excommunication Not Certain
— The threat of excommunication hangs over two Chinese bishops ordained without papal approval, but only if they acted knowingly and freely, said a canon lawyer.
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 ’s .
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said May 4 that the ordination of Bishop Joseph Liu Xinhong of May 3 and the ordination of Bishop Joseph Ma Yinglin of Kunming April 30 could lead to “severe canonical sanctions.”
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 knew it was possible that the bishops who were ordained and those ordaining them “were placed under strong pressure and threats” to participate.
Canon 1323 specifies that a person “coerced by grave fear, even if only relatively grave,” is not subject to penalty.
said Navarro-Valls “simply noted that the act (of ordination without approval) objectively has this automatic penalty attached, but there always are conditions.”
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,” said.
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.
said the penalty is formal and more extensive once it is publicly declared by the Pope, the only person in the Church with the authority to impose penal sanctions on a bishop.
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 , “There cannot be just a vague declaration because the good of souls is at stake.”
(CNS)