Beijing, China - A leader of China's state-sanctioned Roman Catholic church on Tuesday defended its practice of choosing bishops without papal approval, saying it has led to a blossoming of the church, a government news agency reported.
“The growth of the Chinese Catholic church in the past 20 years has greatly exceeded that of the 300 years before,” said Liu Bainian, deputy chairman of the China Patriotic Catholic Association, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
Liu credited the growth of China's official church to the government's management, saying, “This is the arrangement of the Christ,” Xinhua reported.
Liu, who is not a clergymen, said it has up to 900 more priests than in 1980, according to Xinhua. He said the official church has 5 million followers, nearly double its membership of 2.7 million in 1958.
After coming to power in 1949, the communists set up a state-backed Catholic church outside the Vatican's authority, forcing Catholics to divide their loyalties.
While some of China's estimated 10 million to 14 million Catholics shun the state-approved churches and others dislike the “underground” ones, most Catholics and clergy circulate between both worlds.
Liu called on Chinese Catholics to obey their government.
In recent weeks, China's state-approved Catholic hierarchy appointed three bishops without papal assent, drawing a threat of excommunication from the Vatican and aggravating the split.