Vatican Excommunication

The Vatican said today that a Chinese bishop ordained without papal approval had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church, bringing relations between the Vatican and Beijing to a new low. This move by Pope Benedict is in stark contrast to his refusal to take action against Cardinal Sean Brady who has been forced to admit publicly that he was present when two children were forced to sign letters of secrecy that they were raped by a Catholic Priest.




In a statement condemning Thursday's ordination of the bishop as illegitimte, the Vatican also said Pope Benedict "deplores" the way communist authorities are treating Chinese Catholics who want to remain faithful to Rome instead of switching their allegiance to the state-backed Catholic church.



China's state-sanctioned Catholic church ordained Joseph Huang Bingzhang as bishop in Shantou city in southern Guangdong province Thursday morning, the honorary president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Liu Bainian, said.



Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong, an outspoken critic of Beijing and at times of the Vatican's handling of issues with China, said on a visit to the United States that relations could only be improved in the long term through dialogue with China's communist party leadership.



"We hope that by this new confrontation the government is made aware of the problems and then may really come to a dialogue with the Holy See, then we may find some solution," Cardinal Zen said at a news conference in New York earlier this week.



The ordination is the latest in a long-running dispute between the Vatican and Beijing over the status of China's state-backed Church, which has disregarded injunctions not to name bishops without papal authorization.



China's 8 million to 12 million Catholics are divided between the state-sanctioned church that names bishops without the Vatican's approval and an underground church wary of government ties.



The source close to the Vatican said that the Holy See believes China has plans to consecrate more bishops, a move that could further damage a relationship that is "deteriorating." "With this insistence to ordain them, we have to react," he said.



Last November, the pope's office issued a similar condemnation following the ordination of Joseph Guo Jincai, a member of the state-backed church in Chengde in north China.



The source close to the Vatican said four other bishops, who were unwilling to attend the ordination, were held for days and placed under surveillance in separate places.



Beijing and the Vatican broke formal diplomatic relations shortly after the Chinese Communists took power in 1949. They differ over who has the authority to appoint bishops but had previously been engaging in a secretive and cautious exploration of normalizing of ties.



The Vatican has previously condemned what it called "external pressures and constrictions" on Catholics in China.