China reacts angrily to Vatican warning on illicit ordination

July 05, 2012: After the Vatican warned that Chinese prelates would be excommunicated if they participated in the illicit ordination of a bishop on July 6, the Beijing government condemned the statement from Rome as “barbaric and irrational.”

China’s Office of Religious Affairs angrily denounced the Vatican’s “outrageous” and “shocking” stand, and said that Chinese Catholics should not need approval from Rome.

The Congregation for Evangelization had warned: “If the Church in China is to be Catholic, episcopal ordinations that have no prior papal approval must not take place.” Chinese authorities plan to go ahead with the episcopal ordination of Father Joseph Yue Fusheng, a vice-president of the government-backed Patriotic Association, in Harbin on July 6.