Beijing urged to honour a pact and prevent Jiangsu ceremony Vatican officials have made a final plea to Beijing to not ordain a Catholic priest as a bishop tomorrow, asking it to honour a pact to avoid such acts without Vatican approval. The scramble to resolve the matter through diplomatic channels came as a top mainland church official said the local diocese had decided to ordain Father Wang Renlei as bishop of Xuzhou , Jiangsu province , and the decision had nothing to do with the state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. A Vatican source yesterday said it was 'completely dismayed' about the decision to ordain Father Wang as a bishop and efforts were being made to stop the planned ceremony from going ahead tomorrow. 'Rome is hopeful that the ordination will not go ahead, because there was an earlier agreement between both sides that there would be no further ordinations until each case had undergone the process of investigation and approval,' the source said. Despite Beijing's unilateral ordinations earlier this year of bishops Ma Yinglin of Yunnan and Liu Xinhong of Anhui, the mainland and the Vatican had sought to improve ties through talks. A high-level Vatican delegation agreed with the mainland during a visit to Beijing in June that no further ordinations would be carried out without Vatican agreement. Father Wang, vicar-general of about 20,000 Catholics in the diocese, was elected in late October by his diocese as the coadjutor bishop to eventually succeed the ageing Bishop Qian Yurong . Father Wang did not go through the established process of applying for Vatican approval and it became aware of the ordination plan only on November 21. The diocese made an announcement on Sunday. 'How can we approve someone without us knowing anything about him? They could have easily waited another three to six months. They gave us no chance,' the Vatican source said. When asked about the role the patriotic association had played in the incident, Liu Bainian, a vice-chairman of the body which controls the mainland church, appeared to try to distance himself from the ordination plan. 'Father Wang was elected locally, and the China Catholic Bishop's College approved it. The local diocese decided the date and time,' Mr Liu said. He did not know whether Father Wang had sought Vatican approval, but added: 'Before China and the Vatican have diplomatic relations, churches on both sides will have no interaction.' Two bishops from Shandong, one from Suzhou and one from Nanjing are expected to assist in the Mass in which Bishop Qian would be principal celebrant. Preparation for the ordination Mass, which will start at 8am in the Xuzhou Catholic Church tomorrow, gathered pace yesterday with booklets being printed with Father Wang's episcopal coat of arms.