Saturday, February 5, 2011

Pope challenges China with HK bishop ordination (AP)

VATICAN CITY – Pope monastic XVI insisted Sat on his exclusive correct to invest bishops as he ordained a Asiatic prelate in an implicit challenge to attempts by China's authorised establishment to invest bishops without his approval.

Monsignor Savio Hon Tai-Fai, a 60-year-old Salesian prelate from Hong Kong fresh titled to the No. 2 spot in the Vatican's religionist office, was one of fivesome bishops ordained by monastic in St. Peter's Basilica.

His elevation comes amid a newborn low saucer in relations between the Holy See and Peiping over the Asiatic state-backed church's designation of bishops without papal consent.

Benedict didn't refer specifically to China in his discourse but insisted in general on the obligation and requirement for the pope to study bishops to secure disciple succession. He said one of the key jobs of a bishop is to secure that there is an "uninterrupted concern of communion" with the apostles.

"You, my dear brothers, hit the assignment to confiture this Christian communion," monastic said. "You know that the nobleman entrusted St. saint and his successors to be the edifice of this communion, the guarantors of being in the totality of the disciple communion and the faith."

China unnatural its Roman Catholics to revilement ties with the residence in 1951 presently after the communist getting of power. Although exclusive state-backed Christian churches are recognized, millions of other Asiatic belong to summary congregations hardcore to Rome.

Dialogue has been used to assist tensions, but a main sticking saucer has been the Asiatic church's instancy that it — not the pope — has the correct to appoint bishops. It maintains that Rome's position amounts to interference in its interior affairs.

The sides had become to a fragile accommodation in past eld whereby leaders tacitly approved the bishops appointed by Beijing. But that appeared to break down New terminal year when the Asiatic establishment ordained a bishop who did not hit the pope's approval, a move it said it was unnatural to take because of a demand of salutation from the Vatican.

The frictions worsened after a meeting in Dec of most 300 bishops, priests and laymen in Beijing, at which Bishop Ma Yinglin — who is not constituted by the Holy See — was chosen as head of the Bishops' Conference of the Christian Church of China.

The residence at the instance condemned the meeting as a ravishment of religious immunity and human rights; there were reports that some prelates hardcore to leaders had been unnatural to attend.

Hon was fresh titled No. 2 in the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. He has said he hopes to be a denture between leaders and Bejing and that his high-profile designation was a clew of the pope's love for China.

On Saturday, Liu Bainian, spokesman for the Asiatic Patriotic Christian Association, congratulated Hon and said there was no requirement for him to be a denture since the residence and China already had a dialogue.

But in an interview with The Associated Press in Beijing, he said the establishment could meliorate relations between the digit by respecting what he said were digit conditions place nervy by the Asiatic government: "First, to sever the so-called diplomatic ties with Taiwan and recognize the People's Republic of China as the sole lawful government. Second, do not interact in China's interior affairs, including in the naming of bishops," he said.

The residence has said it is primed "at some time" to alter its diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China, which claims Taiwan as its territory.

Liu said Hon could support meliorate Sino-Vatican ties. "Bishop Hon is a Asiatic citizen and has the responsibility to build the socialist country with Asiatic characteristics unitedly with the Asiatic people and make contributions to the rejuvenation of the Asiatic nation," he said.

During the solemn Mass, which began with a biblical reading in Chinese, the fivesome newborn bishops prostrated themselves before the altar. The men then kneeled as mountain of bishops ordered their safekeeping on their heads in prayer. The fivesome then conventional their spinous headgear from the pope.

In addition to Hon, the other bishops ordained Sat were: Monsignors Marcello Bartolucci, the No. 2 in the Vatican's saint-making office; Celso Morga Iruzubieta, the No. 2 in the Vatican's Congregation for Clergy; and Antonio Guido Filipazzi and Edgar Pena Parra, both of whom are residence diplomats.

___

Associated Press writer speechmaker Hou in Peiping contributed to this report.


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