Cardinal Joseph Zen, retired from Hong Kong, interrupted his tour of North American Chinese communities to speak in New York on July 14 about renewed tensions between Beijing and the Vatican. That same morning in Shantou City, China’s state-sanctioned Catholic church ordained Joseph Huang Bingzhang as bishop. It was the third episcopal ordination this year arranged by China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs that had not received papal approval. A clarification from Rome on June 11 stated that both a bishop who consecrates without the apostolic mandate and a bishop who receives episcopal ordination in this manner incur excommunication through their actions under Canon 1382. It is not clear how many of the bishops who have participated in the three ordinations will be subject to excommunication, since many appear to have been forced to attend by Chinese security officers.
In China, More Excommunications
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
What is happening to migrants in courtrooms across the country is a complete embarrassment to the justice system and an affront to human dignity.
Being a kid in the summer is all about existing in an eternal present moment, a feeling of freedom and potential that it will never go away.
Father Thomas Hennen, vicar general of the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, has been appointed Bishop of Baker, Oregon.
My writing during these past five years is filled with memories of my long journey with God over a lifetime; but very significantly, it is the expression of my prayer at this later time of my life.