By Barb Fraze
WASHINGTON (CNS)

The controversy surrounding a bishop in a Catholic diocese about 160 km from Beijing illustrates the problems facing Chinese Catholic communities trying to follow Pope Benedict XVI's instructions to unite.

Coadjutor Bishop Francis An Shuxin of Baoding, who spent 10 years under house arrest for refusing to join the government-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, agreed last year to join his local patriotic association, a move he hoped would foster unity between Catholic communities who have registered with the government and those who have refused to register.

In August, the government arranged an installation Mass to make Bishop An head of the Catholic community in Baoding. However, the move caused controversy because the Vatican-recognized head of the diocese, Bishop James Su Zhimin, was detained in October 1997 and has not been released. He surfaced briefly in a hospital in November 2003, but there has been no news about him since then.

The ceremony provoked much dissension in the Catholic community that Bishop An hoped to unify. Much of the controversy centres on instructions in the 2007 letter from Pope Benedict and a follow-up Vatican document issued in 2009.

One priest who operates in the open or registered Catholic community in Baoding told the Asian church news agency UCA News that Bishop An's installation Mass was "just a formality required by the government to recognize him. His own decision is most important. For me, he is my bishop, installed or not."

But UCA News reported that one of the 40 unregistered priests who chose not to attend the ceremony said there is "no more space for reconciliation" with the registered community, at least for the time being.

"At a meeting in June, we reminded Bishop An to be loyal to the Church, his faith, and the Pope's letter. It is he who has not followed the faith, not we who are refusing to reconcile," he said.

A canon lawyer who preferred to remain anonymous told UCA News that an installation ceremony is not restricted to bishops only.

"Even a priest can have an installation when he is transferred to a new parish," he said. "So Bishop An's installation does not mean there is any change to his status, if he understands his own situation."

The Vatican still regards Bishop An as coadjutor.

"The canonical status of His Excellency Bishop Francis An Shuxin is that of coadjutor bishop of Baoding," Passionist Father Ciro Benedettini, vice director of the Vatican press office, told Catholic News Service in mid-August. "The bishop of Baoding is His Excellency Bishop James Su Zhimin."

Belgian Missionhurst Father Jeroom Heyndrickx, who directs the Verbiest Institute at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and is one of the most authoritative experts on Catholicism in China, told Catholic News Service in an e-mail, "It is well-known that Bishop An insisted with Chinese authorities that he considers Bishop Su ... the bishop of Baoding and himself as coadjutor. Authorities did not contradict that, but they did insist on having such an `installation ceremony.'"

Pope Benedict's 2007 letter to Chinese Catholics urged reconciliation between the two Catholic communities which, in some parts of China, such as Hebei province where Baoding is located, operate in the same cities and sometimes even the same parishes. The letter emphasized that some aspects of the government's religious policies were incompatible with church teaching and said the Holy See "leaves the decision to the individual bishop," having consulted his priests, "to weigh ... and to evaluate the possible consequences" of joining the association.

Last November Bishop An spoke to UCA News. "I refused to join the CPA at first after I was released in 2006," he said. "I changed my mind after reading the Pope's letter."

Bishop An told UCA News he felt helpless over the divisions in the Catholic community in his diocese and hoped that by taking positions in the government-sanctioned bodies, he could "facilitate the diocese's development."

Since his installation, Bishop An has been criticized, including in an article from Baoding in the Rome-based AsiaNews, which referred to Bishop An as "a puppet" of the government.

Father Heyndrickx told CNS that those who call Bishop An a puppet "have not properly read and understood the letter of the Pope."

In a statement, he said many readers of the papal letter overlook a phrase in which Pope Benedict "expresses his full trust in the bishops who bear the heat of the day inside China and who, in a situation of extremely limited freedom, do their best to deal with it in faithfulness to the Holy See. He fully trusts the decisions they take in conscience in order to face the very controversial requests from civil authorities."

"The letter of the Pope teaches us all to trust the bishops in China rather than to criticize them," he emphasized.