CHINA:There were signs of slightly easier relations between the Vatican and Beijing yesterday after a bishop was ordained in China's state-controlled Catholic church with Pope Benedict XVI's blessing.
However, the death in jail of an "underground" bishop was a grim reminder of just how tense relations remain between the Catholic Church and the Chinese Communist Party.
Paolo Xiao Zejiang (40) was ordained as bishop of Guiyang in the southwestern province of Guizhou over the weekend with the pope's approval, according to Asianews, a news agency affiliated to the Vatican.
The US-based Cardinal Kung Foundation, which highlights cases of oppressed Catholic priests in China, reported at the weekend that John Han Dingxiang, the underground bishop of Yongnian in the northern province of Hebei, had died from a "grave illness".
Bishop Han spent 35 of his 71 years in jail, in labour camps or under house arrest since his first detention in 1960 for "counter-revolutionary activities". He was held in solitary confinement and had suffered from lung cancer.
The foundation says there are four or five bishops in jail in China, many others under house arrest and surveillance, while some 15 priests and an unknown number of lay people are also in jail.
Relations between Beijing and the Vatican have been strained since the communists kicked foreign clergy out in the 1950s, and severed ties with the state.
China's officially atheist government requires that Christians of all denominations worship in state-registered churches. Beijing refuses to allow Catholics to recognise the authority of the pope and instead they have to join the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which has five million members. The Vatican estimates some eight million Chinese Catholics worship secretly in "underground churches" not recognised by the government.
The Vatican is one of the few states in the world which granted diplomatic recognition to Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province and this is a key irritant to relations between the Holy See and Beijing. There are ongoing talks about switching diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, but obstacles to this exist, not least Beijing's demand to have a veto over who the Vatican appoints as bishop in China.
Pope Benedict said in an open letter to China's Catholics in June that "grave limitations" on religious freedom remain in China that were continuing to "suffocate" the church.
He described China's unilateral ordination of three bishops without papal approval last year as "a grave violation of religious freedom".