CHINA threw down a fresh challenge to the Vatican yesterday by installing a third bishop in its state-approved Catholic church in defiance of Rome.

Zhan Silu, 45, became bishop of the Mindong diocese in southeastern Fujian province, where the Catholic Church is particularly strong but where most of the faithful are members of an underground church loyal to Rome.

His appointment is controversial because it was sanctioned by China’s state-approved church but has not been blessed by Pope Benedict XVI. It jeopardises any progress achieved in recent tortuous and quiet contacts with the Vatican towards normalising relations, which have been frozen since the 1949 Communist takeover.

China’s state church has twice angered Rome in recent weeks. It unilaterally consecrated a bishop in Wuhu, in the eastern province of Anhui, and another in Kunming, in southwestern Yunnan, drawing warnings from the Vatican that both could be excommunicated.

Last week an assistant bishop was appointed in the northeastern Shenyang with Vatican approval. But the damage to the fragile breakthrough in relations may be long lasting.

China and the Vatican cut ties after 1949, but recently the two sides have taken wary steps towards the possibility of restoring formal relations. Much depends on how much say the Vatican will have in selecting and controlling China’s church leaders.

China’s Communist Party rulers have for decades feared the erosion of their authority by a church that owed its allegiance to the Pope rather than Beijing.

There are estimated to be 12million Catholics in China, divided between an illegal, underground church loyal to the Holy See and the state-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which respects the Pope as a spiritual figurehead but rejects any papal control.

But even in the state-approved church, growing numbers of clergy and parishioners seem to expect their bishops to have the Pope’s blessing.

In the past five years, Beijing appeared to have overcome its fear of Vatican meddling in China’s internal affairs and reached a tacit understanding that allowed prospective bishops to seek Vatican approval.

However, relations deteriorated in February when Pope Benedict elevated the Bishop of Hong Kong, Joseph Zen, an outspoken advocate of democracy for China, to cardinal.

Last week, Cardinal Zen warned China that its unilateral appointment of bishops might not be in its best interests.

He said: “If Beijing’s position is to take over the authority for ordaining bishops, and to maintain a patriotic association that surpasses the bishops, these would do no good at all to the country and would not be accepted by the majority of the clergy and the faithful.” The matter seemed to carry weight in the cathedral in the small southeastern city of Ningde, where many faithful hoped their new bishop had won the Vatican’s blessing — or felt he needed it.

Yesterday the building was overflowing with urban worshippers and farmers in their faded Sunday best.

There was a family atmosphere. The faithful smoked and chatted. Children squatted to pee. Silence fell when Bishop Zhan entered to lead the ceremony.

He presided over a Mass under a figure of Christ on the crucifix and quotations from the scriptures written in stylised Chinese calligraphy.

The bishop said that he would have liked the Vatican’s approval but it never came.

Xu Hancun, a parishioner, said: “We all hope to create an atmosphere that will encourage the Vatican and China to establish relations, but the situation is complex.”

KEEPING FAITH

There is a strong Catholic presence in the province of Hebei, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared twice

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