THE Vatican is preparing to break its ties with Taiwan and establish diplomatic relations with mainland China, ending more than 50 years of mutual hostility with Beijing, The Times has learnt.

A Vatican official said that Cardinal Angelo Sodano was sending a deliberate signal this week when he said that the Vatican was ready to move its nuncio (ambassador) from Taiwan to Beijing immediately. Taiwanese officials also told The Times that they expected the Vatican to have established relations with Beijing within 18 months.

The movement follows signs that Beijing is tacitly accepting the Pope’s right to approve, if not appoint, bishops in China.

Cardinal Sodano, speaking at a conference, said that in return for the Vatican cutting its links with Taiwan, China would have to respect religious freedom.

“It is not a question of whether the Vatican will reach a deal with Beijing but when,” a Vatican source said.

Beijing said that it welcomed better relations but would not tolerate the Vatican meddling in its internal affairs.

However, Chinese officials hedged the question of whether Beijing would regard the Vatican appointing Chinese bishops as interference in its internal affairs, saying only that it respected religious freedom.

China and the Vatican have not had diplomatic ties since 1951, two years after the Communists took power. Rome recognised Taiwan, which still maintains an embassy to the Holy See.

Officially Catholics in China can attend only state-sanctioned churches in a “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association” led by bishops loyal to and appointed by Beijing. There is, however, a much larger underground Church loyal to the Pope with eight million members, double the so-called official church. Beijing has repeatedly persecuted its leaders.

Four Chinese bishops were not allowed to attend the Synod of Bishops in Rome this month, the first held under Pope Benedict. He ordered four chairs to be left empty, labelled with their names. In August, the Pope quietly received 28 “Patriotic Church” clerics at the Vatican.

This month La Civiltà Cattolica, a Jesuit journal, whose contents are vetted by Cardinal Sodano’s office, carried an article by Father Hans Waldenfels, a Jesuit priest who knows China well, in which he wrote that there were “signs of a future understanding” between China and the Vatican including a “tacit deal” on the nomination of bishops. He said bishops appointed by Beijing were now seeking approval from Rome before being consecrated.

At the Synod, Monsignor Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun, the Archbishop of Hong Kong, said that congregations and clergy in China were refusing to accept bishops not approved by the Pope.

The trend began in June when Joseph Xing Wenzhi was installed as auxiliary bishop of the “Patriotic Church” in Shanghai — with the Pope’s approval. “Everybody knew about it,” Aloysius Jin Luxian, the “official” Bishop of Shanghai, told the Catholic magazine 30 Days, adding: “Rome specifically requested that I should be the consecrating bishop.” A process of reconciliation is also under way in the city of Xian.

Father Bernardo Cervellera, an Italian missionary priest who has served in China, said the Synod showed that “never before has the Chinese Church been so much at the heart of the Church as whole”.

He said the official and underground churches were overlapping, and that the Vatican had so far approved 49 of 79 government-sanctioned bishops.

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