Beijing plans to select a new leader for the controversial body that controls the mainland's official Catholic Church, again raising the issue of mainland bishops being unilaterally ordained without the Pope's consent.
Joseph Ma Yinglin, the bishop of Yunnan's Kunming diocese, who was excommunicated by the Holy See in 2006 for being ordained without the Pope's approval, is the top candidate for the job at the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, two people with knowledge of the situation said.
Association vice-chairman Liu Bainian said on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference yesterday that a conference would be held in the latter half of the year to discuss a range of issues, including the election of the organisation's next leader and its national bishops' conference. The association's leader should be patriotic and devoted to God, he said.
'It's not necessary for the next leader to have ratification from the Vatican because our association is not a religious body, it's just an organisation set up by Catholics who are patriotic,' Liu said.
The association was set up in 1957 to oversee the mainland's government-sanctioned church, including the appointment of bishops. Pope Benedict said in his letter to mainland Catholics in 2007 that the organisation was 'incompatible' with church doctrine.
But an informed observer based in Hong Kong, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the meeting could risk being delayed again if ongoing but secretive negotiations between Beijing and the Vatican failed to achieve progress on a range of issues, including ratification of Ma and four other mainland bishops.