VATICAN CITY – Christian monastic XVI insisted Sat on his exclusive correct to invest bishops as he ordained a Asiatic prelate in an inherent contest to attempts by China's official faith 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 digit of fivesome bishops ordained by monastic in St. Peter's Basilica.
His elevation comes amid a newborn low point in relations between the Holy See and Peiping over the Asiatic state-backed church's ordination of bishops without Christian consent.
Benedict didn't intend specifically to China in his discourse but insisted in generalized on the duty and need for the pope to study bishops to secure disciple succession. He said digit 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, have the mission to conserve this Christian communion," monastic said. "You undergo that the Lord 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 romish Catholics to revilement ties with the residence in 1951 shortly after the communist seizure of power. Although exclusive state-backed Christian churches are recognized, millions of other Asiatic belong to summary congregations hardcore to Rome.
Dialogue has been utilised to ease tensions, but a important sticking point has been the Asiatic church's insistence that it — not the pope — has the correct to constitute bishops. It maintains that Rome's function amounts to trouble in its interior affairs.
The sides had come to a breakable improvement in recent eld whereby leaders tacitly authorised the bishops appointed by Beijing. But that appeared to fortuity downbound late last assemblage when the Asiatic faith ordained a bishop who did not have the pope's approval, a advise it said it was unnatural to verify because of a demand of salutation from the Vatican.
The frictions worsened after a gathering in December 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 nous of the Bishops' Conference of the Christian Church of China.
The residence at the time condemned the gathering as a ravishment of churchlike freedom and manlike 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 bridge between leaders and Bejing and that his high-profile designation was a clew of the pope's fuck for China.
On Saturday, Liu Bainian, spokesman for the Asiatic Patriotic Christian Association, congratulated Hon and said there was no need for him to be a bridge since the residence and China already had a dialogue.
But in an discourse with The Associated Press in Beijing, he said the faith could meliorate relations between the digit by respecting what he said were digit conditions place nervy by the Asiatic government: "First, to cut the so-called smooth ties with island and discern the People's Republic of China as the mend legitimate government. Second, do not interfere in China's interior affairs, including in the naming of bishops," he said.
The residence has said it is primed "at some time" to switch its smooth relations from island to China, which claims island as its territory.
Liu said Hon could help meliorate Sino-Vatican ties. "Bishop Hon is a Asiatic citizen and has the domain to physique 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 laid their safekeeping on their heads in prayer. The fivesome then conventional their pointed 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.
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Associated Press writer speechmaker Hou in Peiping contributed to this report.
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