Refuse To Participate in Ordination of Priests
BEIJING, AUGUST 10 (ZENIT.org-FIDES).- Chinese Catholics conspicuously criticized the August 6 decision of Beijing's Patriotic Bishop Michael Fu Tieshan to ordain 4 priests (3 from the Chinese capital, and 1 from Nanjing).
The Mass was concelebrated by Bishop Fu and Nanjing's Bishop Liu Yuanren, president of the Chinese Episcopal Conference (not recognized by the Holy See), as well as 3 other priests. However, an additional 14 priests who were invited to concelebrate, refused to participate in the ordination ceremony.
No sooner did Bishop Fu Tieshan and the candidates to the priesthood enter in procession, than a number of the faithful left the Church. The clergy's and faithful's criticism, however, did not end here. The candidates to the priesthood themselves requested that the ordination not be held in Natang, Beijing's "official" Cathedral (and Bishop Fu Tieshan's See), but in Beitang (the Catholic Cathedral prior to the advent of Communism).
According to sources of the international agency "Fides," "Clergy and faithful of the Catholic Church in Beijing are showing growing disapproval of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association's Bishop Fu Tieshan who, in their eyes, is not in a position of clear communion with the Holy See."
Bishop Fu took part in the unlawful ordination of bishops in Beijing on January 6. On June 24, on the occasion of another illicit Episcopal ordination, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in an official statement that "An Episcopal ordination without an apostolic mandate is a painful wound to ecclesial communion and a serious violation of canonical discipline."
Another sign of the faithful's disapproval was the meager participation in the ordination celebration; only 700 people attended. In general, the 8 o'clock Mass on Sunday morning gathers around 1,500 people in the Beitang Cathedral. The previous day, the faithful distributed leaflets including the Vatican Press Office statement regarding the unlawful June 24 Episcopal ordination.
According to "Fides" sources in the Chinese capital, President Jiang Zemin appointed Bishop Fu Tieshan head of the delegation to represent Chinese religions at a World Peace Meeting to be held at the U.N. headquarters in New York at the end of August. The organizers of this event have not invited the Dalai Lama in order not to provoke a negative reaction by the Chinese regime.
At present, there are some 11 million Catholics in China. Just over half of this number belong to the clandestine Church that is faithful to Rome. The Catholic Patriotic Association is a church controlled by the Communist government; it does not accept communion with the Pope, regarding this as foreign interference.
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