China has ordained a new Catholic bishop approved by the Vatican for
the first time since ties between the sides soured last year, according
to church figures with knowledge of the events.
Paul Liang Jiansen
was made bishop of the southern city of Jiangmen on March 30, people
with ties to the church in Hong Kong and mainland China said on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be quoted by
media.
They said Vatican officials had assented to the ordination before
it took place.
China and the Vatican have no official relations
and have long sparred over the Holy See's insistence on the right to
appoint bishops.
China's communist rulers forced Chinese Catholics to
cut ties with Rome in 1951 and maintain that bishops be elected by
members of the government-backed church.
An accommodation whereby
most new bishops received tacit approval from the Vatican appeared to
break down last year with China's appointment of Guo Jincai as bishop of
the northern city of Chengde without Rome's approval.
The rift
worsened after Ma Yinglin was named as head of the Bishops' Conference
of the Catholic Church of China, a body also not recognized by the
Vatican.
Ma's ordination as bishop in 2006 in the southwestern city of
Kunming was not recognized by the Vatican.
Chinese officials
responded to criticism by accusing Rome of seeking to undermine the
independence of the Chinese church and interfering in the rights of
Chinese Catholics to practice their faith.
China officially records
about 6 million Catholics worshipping in 6,300 congregations across the
country, although millions more are believed to worship outside the
official church.
Word of the new ordination came as the Vatican on
Monday opened its fourth annual meeting in Rome on the situation of the
church in China with Vatican bureaucrats and representatives from the
Chinese church and religious orders.
The topic of the three-day meeting
was the pastoral situation of the various dioceses in China, a statement
said.
The Vatican didn't specify if any mainland Chinese bishops
attended, but two Hong Kong prelates have become key papal advisers
about the Chinese church: Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, a frequent
critic of the official church, and Monsignor Savio Hon Tai-Fai, the No. 2
at the Vatican's Rome-based missionary office.
Liang's recent ordination was also reported by ucanews.com,
a news website with close ties to the church in Asia, which said more
than 1,400 parishioners attended the ceremony at Jiangmen's Cathedral of
Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Liang replaces Bishop Peter Paul Li Panshi, who died in 2007.
Officials
with the official Catholic Association in Jiangmen refused to comment,
although a secretary reached at the cathedral's administrative office
confirmed Liang's ordination and said officials from the ruling
Communist Party's United Front Work Department and State Administration
of Religious Affairs attended the event.
The secretary refused to give
her name because her position did not allow her to speak to reporters.
Chinese
authorities maintain a tight grip on all religious expression and
Beijing police on Sunday detained dozens of worshippers from an
unapproved Protestant church who were trying to hold services in a
public space after they were evicted from their usual place of worship, a
parishioner said.