VATICAN CITY — Lay Catholics in China have been scandalized by priests who are ordained bishops without papal approval and by the participation of Vatican-recognized bishops in those ordinations, said the Vatican Commission for the Catholic Church in China.
The very identity of the Catholic Church as apostolic, guided by the faith handed down from the apostles through bishops in communion with the pope, “has been obfuscated by those clerics” who have been ordained bishops without papal recognition, said the statement released April 26 after a three-day meeting at the Vatican.