Pope Benedict has given his backing to Beijing's new state-approved Catholic bishop, the official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said yesterday, hours after Mgr Li Shan was installed in the Chinese capital in a sign of a thaw in relations.
Mgr Li Shan became bishop of the Chinese capital in a Mass that mixed pungent incense and soaring hymns with delicate evasion of whether his appointment was blessed by Pope Benedict.
But in a gesture that could help narrow long-standing disputes over religious control between the Vatican and Beijing, the official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said yesterday that Pope Benedict had given his backing to Bishop Li.
L'Osservatore said the Catholic congregations in Beijing and Guiyang, which also recently got a new bishop, Xiao Zejiang, had celebrated "on receiving news of the communion conceded by the Pope to Monsignor Xiao and Monsignor Li".
The Vatican's mouthpiece entrusted "these two young prelates and their dioceses to the protection of the Virgin Mary", but it noted "with regret that some bishops not in communion with the Holy See took part in the consecration rite".
China's eight to 12 million Catholics are divided between a state-sanctioned Church and an underground Church wary of government ties.
Members of the state-approved Church also honour the Pope, but the Communist-run government restricts formal contacts with Rome, which has had no diplomatic ties with Beijing since 1951.
Bishop Li's appointment has become a test of relations between the Catholic Church and China at a time when Pope Benedict has urged better ties and also healing between divided believers, while demanding that the Vatican choose bishops, possibly with some government consultation.
Bishop Li made no mention of papal approval during his consecration, attended by dozens of bishops, priests and nuns and hundreds of lay Catholics who spilled out of the 400-year-old Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception southwest of Tiananmen Square.
He instead vowed to lead the city's faithful and also "protect the unity of the state and social stability and unity".
But several priests and parishioners attending the ceremony said that they believed he had won quiet Vatican backing, underlining the importance they attach to the Pope's backing.
"Of course, Vatican approval is important for us," said parishioner Chang Shuhua. "I think he's been approved by both sides. That's most important, because it means then that he's a true follower of the apostles."
A senior Vatican official said this week that Mgr Li's appointment should be a "favourable step forward, a good occasion to build on something".
"It's widely said among the clergy that Mgr Li has indicated he is acting with the approval of the Pope," said a priest at the ceremony. "We can't know for sure, but we all hope that he does."
Beijing has publicly rejected a formal role for the Vatican in appointing Chinese bishops as interference in internal affairs. It has demanded that the Holy See sever ties with Taiwan, which split from China in 1949 after the Nationalists lost a mainland civil war to Mao Zedong's Communists.
A spokesman for the state-sanctioned Church said he did not know whether the Pope had been involved.