How anyone can continue to see this as a religious or spiritual organization rather than a political one is beyond me.
Vatican Excommunicates Chinese Bishops
By Frances D'Emilio,
AP ONLINEVATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican lashed out Thursday at Beijing, announcing the excommunication of two bishops who were ordained by China's state-controlled church without Pope Benedict XVI's consent.
Benedict's first major political clash since his election as pontiff a year ago dimmed hopes for any re-establishment soon of official ties between the Holy See and Beijing that ended after communists took control of China in 1949.
Also automatically excommunicated for defying the pope were the bishops who performed the ordinations in separate ceremonies since Sunday, according to a provision of church law cited by Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.
Benedict learned about the defiant ordinations "with great sadness," said Navarro-Valls. "It is a great wound to the unity of the church."
The Vatican said that according to its information, "bishops and priests have been subjected - by institutions outside the church - to strong pressures and threats, in order for them to take part in the ordinations that, because they were not approved by the Vatican, are illegitimate and go against their conscience."
Navarro-Valls said some prelates refused, while some others "could not do anything else but submit ... with great inner suffering."
"We are therefore faced with a grave violation of religious freedom," he said, adding that the Vatican "had thought and had hoped that such deplorable episodes belonged to the past."
Likely compounding the Vatican's bitterness was a recent overture by the Holy See toward Beijing in hopes of removing a serious obstacle to restoring ties with China - the Vatican's diplomatic relations with Taiwan, mainland China's rival.
Earlier this spring, the Vatican's foreign minister confirmed it was ready to move its embassy from Taiwan, saying the "time is ripe" for the Holy See and Beijing to establish diplomatic relations.
Chinese Foreign Ministry officials were not available to comment on the Vatican's denunciation.
But the ANSA news agency reported from Beijing that the Chinese Foreign Ministry defended the move by the state-approved church, saying it "fully reflects the opinion of the majority of faithful."
"The pope's condemnation makes no sense," the statement said, according to ANSA.
The Rev. Bernardo Cervellera, a China watcher who heads Asia News, a Vatican-affiliated news agency, said that by "outside the church," the Holy See was referring to the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, China's state-approved Catholic church, which does not recognize papal authority, including the right to appoint bishops.
Cervellera said the threats were likely psychological pressure to hurt the prelates' careers if they didn't agree to be ordained bishops without papal consent. "They would have ended up being a priest somewhere in the countryside," Cervellera said in a telephone interview.
Asia News receives reports from faithful and clergy loyal to the pope who worship in an underground church in China.
On Wednesday, China's official church ordained Liu Xinhong as bishop at the city of Wuhu's St. Joseph's Church in the eastern province of Anhui. On Sunday, the official church ordained Ma Yinglin as a bishop in the southwestern province of Yunnan.
Cervellera said that nine bishops took part in the ordination ceremony Sunday and five bishops participated in the second ceremony in Wuhu. He said there were indications that ordinations of some 20 more bishops would take place soon in defiance of the pope.
In view of indications more defiant ordinations are in the offing, Navarro-Valls said that "the Holy See reiterates the need to respect the freedom of the church and of the autonomy of its institutions from interference of any kind."
The Vatican spokesman said the Vatican hopes strongly that "such unacceptable acts of violent and inadmissible coercion are not repeated."
Chinese Catholics loyal to the Vatican are frequently harassed, fined and sometimes sent to labor camps.
Even while efforts between Beijing and the Vatican continued to overcome tensions, reports have come of the arrests of some Vatican-loyal priests over the years.
Despite the harsh words Thursday, the Vatican was leaving the door open to "honest and constructive dialogue with the competent Chinese authorities to find solutions that would satisfy the legitimate requirements of both sides," according to Navarro-Valls' statement.
But he lamented that the defiant ordinations of bishops "not only don't favor this dialogue, but instead create new obstacles."
Formal ties between Beijing and the Holy See would give Vatican loyalists in China some security.
"The Vatican is battling for religious liberty" in its dealings with Beijing, Cervellera said, adding that the Holy See was willing to sacrifice Taiwan but not freedom of worship in its bid to have formal relations with China.
Beijing, by improving relations with the Vatican, even at the expense of the state-approved church, stands to gain a reduction in "enormous tensions inside Chinese society," Cervellera contended.
Excommunication is the church's severest penalty. Those who are excommunicated remain baptized church members and can still attend Mass, but they are forbidden to receive Holy Communion or other sacraments.
The last high-profile excommunication came in 2002, when the penalty was imposed on seven women - including Dagmar Braun Celeste, the ex-wife of former Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste, as well as women from Austria and Germany - who participated in an ordination ceremony aboard a boat traveling the Danube River and called themselves priests.
The case was handled by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before becoming pope last year.
Vatican-Beijing relations have suffered lows previously but then have bounced back.
In 2000, John Paul II canonized 120 martyrs of Chinese religious persecution, roiling Beijing. That same year, China's official church shocked the Vatican by ordaining five bishops on the same day the pope also elevated bishops - though none were Chinese - a gesture that appeared to belittle the pontiff's authority.
