VATICAN CITY – The Vatican said Friday that no bishops from mainland China will be attending a worldwide meeting of prelates in Rome next week – a clear sign there has been no breakthrough in the Vatican’s efforts to improve relations with Beijing.
Officials say 253 bishops will attend the meeting that will discuss the relevance of the Bible for contemporary Catholics. They include bishops from Macau and Hong Kong, but none from the mainland.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi says there were no requests from the bishops “because the conditions weren’t there.”
“It’s quite obvious knowing the Chinese that if one can’t reach an agreement, they (the bishops) can’t come,” he told reporters.
Pope Benedict XVI has made the improvement of relations with Beijing a priority of his papacy.
Ties between the Vatican and China’s communist government are long strained. Beijing objects to the Vatican’s tradition of having the pope name his own bishops, calling it interference in China.
China appoints bishops for the state-sanctioned Catholic church. In recent years, some of those bishops have received the Vatican’s tacit approval.
Still, many of the country’s estimated 12 million Catholics worship in congregations outside the state-approved church with bishops loyal to the pope.
In May, the China Philharmonic Orchestra performed for Benedict in a landmark concert at the Vatican. China’s ambassador to Italy attended the concert, even though China’s officially atheist Communist Party cut ties with the Vatican in 1951.
The Vatican meeting, known as a synod of bishops, will run from Monday through Oct. 26. Chinese bishops have not been allowed to travel to similar meetings in the past.
A document prepared for the meeting rejected a fundamentalist approach to the Bible and said a key challenge was to clarify for the faithful the relationship of scripture to science. A rabbi will address the conference on Monday, believed the first time a Jew has participated at such a meeting.
Benedict on Sunday will read a Biblical passage on Italian television to kick off a marathon televised Bible reading.
Associated Press – October 3, 2008
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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posted October 3, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Sounds like business as usual from the Chinese. You don’t play our way we won’t let the Chinese bishops leave the country. What else is new?
posted October 4, 2008 at 12:21 am
Just a thought from a rascal – why not make this meeting seem like a religious Olympics – and have it in China. O’ sure, it sounds crazy at first. But the Chinese are so desperate for international credibility they might have gone for it. There are parts of China that are as accessible as Rome. So what if it isn’t on home turf. It is about change and strengthening the Church. So take the fight to them. They just might go for it. O well, its not like they care what a wayward jester from the other side of the sacraments has to say.
posted October 4, 2008 at 12:40 am
I’ve got no dog in that fight!
posted October 7, 2008 at 11:56 am
“Taking the fight to them” won’t work either, because the Chinese gov’t will then want to control the agenda, what is agreed upon, and everything else.