Chinese bishop breaks with official church

SHANGHAI, July 10 (UPI) -- A Catholic priest in China announced immediately after his elevation to auxiliary bishop that he will no longer work with the government-backed church.

The Rev. Thaddeus Ma Daqin made the statement Saturday to applause from a packed church in Shanghai, The New York Times reported. His consecration made him the likely successor of Shanghai Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian, 95, who serves with the approval of the Vatican and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

"In the light of the teaching of our mother church, as I now serve as a bishop, I should focus on pastoral work and evangelization," Ma said. "Therefore, from this day of consecration, it will no longer be convenient for me to be a member of the patriotic association."

Ma was consecrated a day after the Rev. Joseph Yue Fusheng, who was excommunicated by the Vatican for accepting the association's appointment as bishop of Harbin.

Church members in Shanghai said Ma was taken from the cathedral after the ceremony and they believe he is being held at a monastery near the city.

The first Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in China in the 13th century. But the church's greatest growth came in the 1940s after Pope Pius XII decreed that customs like venerating ancestors were not superstitious.

Since the Communist revolution in 1949, only state-recognized churches have been allowed. But millions of Chinese Catholics are believed to worship in "underground" churches.