The most prominent bishop in China's state-approved Catholic church has died, opening a major vacancy at a time when Pope Benedict is preparing a letter about the future of the country's divided church.The death of Bishop Fu Tieshan, who oversaw the politically sensitive Beijing diocese, was announced by the official Xinhua news agency. He died of lung cancer, said the vice chairman of the state-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Liu Bainian.
"His passing is a hard blow for our country's Catholics," Liu, chief spokesman for the state-backed church, told Reuters. "He defended China's independence -- economic, political and spiritual -- and he was devoted to the church."
China's Catholics are divided between a government-approved church, which honors the Pope but accepts controls demanded by the ruling Communist Party, and an "underground" one, which rejects such controls and recognizes only Vatican authority.
Fu, who also used the Christian name Michael, was the most prominent figure in the state-backed church, having served as bishop of Beijing since 1979, when religion was just recovering from the ravages of Mao Zedong's radical Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Xinhua reported previously.
He did not have the Vatican's blessing, something many bishops in even the state-approved church have sought and won, according to local church members.
Fu also served as a vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the rubber-stamp legislature, and was chairman of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
"I felt he was an astute churchman who felt he was doing by his own light what he felt was right for the church," said Sister Janet Carroll of the U.S. China Catholic Bureau, a group that promotes contact with Chinese Catholics.
"In more recent years he appeared to have leaned too closely to the government in a way that many in the church felt was difficult to understand."
Fu, 75, was born in Hebei, epicenter of Chinese Catholicism, which has some 10 million followers nationwide, including a third or more in the "underground" church.
His passing opens a sensitive vacancy at a sensitive time.
Pope Benedict is preparing a letter to Chinese Catholics that will spell out his ideas for healing divisions among them -- a document that may appear within weeks.
In recent years, China's religious authorities and the Vatican have clashed over the appointment of bishops.
Rome has said it wants the final say. China's state-approved church has said it controls bishops, and the government has accused the Holy See of "interfering in internal affairs" by demanding authority over bishops.
"The Holy See would have been preparing for this for some time, and now it's going to be interesting to see how his funeral and succession are handled," said Carroll.
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