A bishop's public resignation to the official church provokes reprisals and unrest
Shanghai, Sept.8.─ Students at Shanghai's Sheshan Catholic seminary, one of China's biggest, learned on August 22nd that classes would be suspended indefinitely. The announcement was another twist in the latest standoff between Catholics and the government that began on July 7th.
On that day, Bishop Ma Daqin (photo), the new auxiliary bishop of Shanghai, announced at the end of his ordination homily at the Cathedral of St Ignatius that he would need to devote every effort to his new post, and it would therefore be "inconvenient" to remain a member of the government's Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA), the body which oversees China's Catholic church. The faithful, packed into the pews, rose in spontaneous applause. Shanghai's government was less thrilled; he has since been held under house arrest.
The very public resignation is a blow to the CCPA's already tenuous authority. Since it was established in 1957 to ensure Catholics no longer acted "contrary to the interests of their country", the Vatican and many of China's Catholics have taken a dim view of the body, which does not recognise the authority of the Pope and often appoints its own bishops. One Shanghai bishop, who requested anonymity, calls the CCPA a bully. Its members, he says, seek power, status and government accolades without having the faith's best interests at heart.
There are between 8m and 12m Catholics in China, according to Anthony Lam of the Holy Spirit Study Centre, a research institute in Hong Kong ...
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