China criticizes Vatican for excommunicating bishops
China said on Monday the Vatican’s recent excommunication of two Chinese bishops who were ordained without papal approval was “unreasonable” and “rude,” in a sign of escalating tensions between the Vatican and Beijing.
In the government’s first response to the Vatican’s recent denunciations of the ordinations by China’s state-sanctioned Catholic church, the State Bureau of Religious Affairs said it was “greatly concerned” about the excommunication of Joseph Huang Bingzhang and Lei Shiyin.
The “threats of excommunication” are “extremely unreasonable and rude, which has severely hurt the feelings of Chinese Catholics and made its members feel sad,” state news agency Xinhua quoted a spokesman for the bureau as saying.
Huang was ordained without papal approval as bishop in Shantou City in southern Guangdong province in mid-July, and Lei was named as bishop of the city of Leshan on June 29.
Photo credit: REUTERS/Giampiero Sposito (Pope Benedict XVI conducts the holy mass of Pentecost Sunday in Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, June 12, 2011)
Traditional Anglican bloc eyeing union with Rome is far-flung group
The question of how many Anglicans will join the Roman Catholic Church has been hanging in the air since Pope Benedict made his offer last October to take in Anglican groups that cannot accept reforms such as ordaining women bishops. The largest figure mentioned is the 400,000-strong membership of the Traditional Anglican Communion, a traditionalist group that is not actually a member of the Anglican Communion that most Anglicans belong to. It is sometimes presented as a bloc whose transfer will be an important event.
Even though the TAC left the Anglican Communion two decades ago, it could be quite important to the Roman Catholic Church if that many Anglicans (of whatever standing) came knocking on the door seeking entry. And the sight of so many switching to Rome could also have an indirect impact on the Anglican Communion.
But those TAC members, even if their total does add up to 400,000, are so widely spread out that they might actually have only a small local impact if and when they “swim the Tiber.” The Church Times has a breakdown of the TAC membership that shows that 92% of the communion’s members live in India and Africa. The largest congregation, the 130,000 reported in India, might seem like an impressive number in Britain, but it’s small by subcontinental standards. The numbers in Britain and Europe (1,800), Canada (2,000) or the United States (2,500) are really small. Even if all members join at the same time, it may not seem like they are joining en bloc.
It’s interesting to see the TAC is strongest in countries where the local Anglican churches are mostly not liberal reformers. It’s also interesting to note this communion reflects far more than other Christian groups the growing concentration of global Christianity in developing countries. We’d be interested to hear from readers who can say why this is the case.
Here’s the membership breakdown, with a hat tip to Simon Sarmiento of Thinking Anglicans who reported on it:
from UK News:
Pope makes it easier for Anglicans to switch to Rome
Pope Benedict has made it easier for disaffected Anglicans to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican Church, and Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster and head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, stressed dialogue would continue between the two churches.
They were at pains to say it was not a comment on the Anglican Communion, but a response to requests from traditional Anglicans from all over the world.
Williams said he did not see it as an act of aggression, but he had no input in the new "Apostolic Constitution" and was only told about its details two weeks before it was disclosed at the offices of the Roman Catholic Church in London. A simultaneous press conference was held at the Vatican.
The head of the Anglican Church has been trying to keep together the liberal and conservative wings of the church, divided since the consecration of openly gay U.S. Bishop Gene Robinson in 2003 and the blessing of same sex marriages in Canada.
The Church of England has also experienced disagreement over the issue of women bishops.
Details of the legal framework were limited, but the constitution allows groups to join the Roman Catholic Church while maintaining some of their own traditions.
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