It has taken a while, but the long-brewing battle between the Pope and the Chinese government for control of the Chinese Catholic Church has finally simmered over into the public arena. The centre of the latest contention has been the institution of a new Chinese Catholic bishop without the pope's permission.
The Vatican announced that the Chinese government forced bishops to participate in the ordination of Joseph Guo Jincai, while Beijiing charged the Vatican with interfering with religious liberty in China.
Guo was ordained as bishop on Saturday, the Vatican reported, terming the unauthorized act "a grave violation of Catholic discipline." Apparently, the Vatican has warned China "several times" this year not to make Guo a bishop and that going ahead with the ordination "offends the Holy Father, the Church in China and the universal Church, and further complicates the present pastoral difficulties."
However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei immediately hit back saying the Chinese Catholic Church was independent and that any "intervention" constituted "restriction of freedom and non-tolerance."
The last time that China’s Catholic Church appointed bishops without approval from Rome was in 2006. The Vatican responded by excommunicating those two bishops, and this week threatened to excommunicate both Guo and the bishops who presided over his appointment.
The United States Foreign Department, in it’s annual global report published last week, despite limited praise for Beijing, also expressed grave concern over the reality of religious freedom in China last week in its annual global report on the subject.
The State Department listed China as one of eight countries of "particular concern" on religious freedom accusing the country of the persecution of followers of the Dalai Lama in Tibet and Uyghur Muslims in western China.