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SYNOD-CHINA Sep-8-2005 (680 words) xxxi
Pope names four mainland Chinese bishops to October synod
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In what could be a promising move for Vatican-China relations, Pope Benedict XVI has named four mainland Chinese bishops as members of the October Synod of Bishops.
Church sources in Rome said two of the bishops belong to the government-approved Catholic Church in China, while the other two have been members of the underground church that has rejected official government ties. None are listed in the Vatican's official pontifical yearbook.
The appointments were announced without comment by the Vatican Sept. 8. Those named to the synod were:
-- Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian of Shanghai. The government-recognized bishop, born in 1916, recently consecrated an auxiliary bishop who is expected to become his successor, with the blessing of Rome and the approval of the Chinese government.
-- Bishop Anthony Li Du'an of Xi'an, 78, vice president of the bishops' council of the government-approved or "official" Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association in China. He served three prison terms in the 1950s and '60s and is a much-respected figure by all Chinese Catholics. When he ordained an auxiliary bishop of Xi'an in July, a source in Rome said the auxiliary had the approval of the Vatican.
-- Bishop Luke Li Jingfeng of Fengxiang, who has been a leader of one of China's strongest clandestine Catholic communities. The bishop, believed to be 85, has been arrested at least once by Chinese authorities in recent years.
-- Bishop Wei Jingyi of Qiqihar, 47, another pastor of the underground church, whose arrest in 2004 brought a strong Vatican protest.
The appointments to the Oct. 2-23 synod were seen as a potential breakthrough, in part because the full spectrum of the Catholic community in China would be represented at the Rome assembly for the first time.
"I'm very happy Pope Benedict has invited bishops from both the 'official' and 'unofficial' branches of the Catholic community, illustrating that, for the pope, the church in China is one," said Father Bernardo Cervellera, head of the missionary news agency AsiaNews.
"The pope understands the importance of China and the importance of the church in China," Father Cervellera said.
Father Cervellera, who has followed events in China for many years, said it could be presumed that all four of the Chinese bishops had reconciled with the Vatican. He said the pope apparently was trying to show the Chinese government that it had nothing to fear from close ties between Rome and local churches.
Father Cervellera cautioned, however, that it remained to be seen whether the Chinese government would allow the bishops to attend.
In 1998, Pope John Paul II invited two bishops from mainland China to attend the Synod of Bishops for Asia, but they were denied travel visas by the Chinese government. Two chairs were kept empty in the synod hall to mark their absence, which was lamented by the pope.
Also on the papal list of synod appointees were Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong and Taiwanese Cardinal Paul Shan Kuo-hsi of Kaohsiung.
Since the 1950s, China has had a government-approved Catholic Church that elects its own bishops with government approval and initially was forced to reject ties to the Vatican. An underground church has always maintained loyalty to the Vatican.
Recent years have brought signs of rapprochement between the clandestine and official branches of the church in China.
Catholic officials familiar with the Chinese church say that up to 85 percent of the government-approved bishops have reconciled with the Vatican and that, in many regions of China, Catholics from the two churches intermingle at the parish level.
At the diplomatic level, meanwhile, the Vatican's equivalent of a foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, said in June that there were "no insurmountable problems" to establishing diplomatic relations between the Vatican and China.
China and the Vatican do not have diplomatic relations, and in the past church officials have said the Vatican's two main conditions for such relations were the free appointment of bishops and freedom for Chinese Catholics to maintain religious links to Rome without government control.
END
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