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vol, 9
no. 32

     BEIJING (CWN) - An official of the Communist Chinese-controlled Catholic association told a delegation of US religious leaders on Wednesday said the Vatican should open diplomatic ties with China and that the absence of such relations hurts Catholicism in the country.

      Liu Bonian, vice president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, met the US delegation, including Catholic Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Newark, as part of their ongoing discussion on religious freedom and persecution in China. The Communist government has mandated that Catholics must belong to the state-controlled association which eschews the authority of the Pope and much Catholic doctrine. The strained relations with the Vatican stem from the 1950s when the Communist government evicted foreign missionaries and persecuted most Christians, forcing them underground.

      The Vatican maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan which mainland China regards as a renegade province and not a sovereign nation. The Communist government wants the Vatican to cut ties with the island-nation and cede authority over the selection of bishops to the government.

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