Leo names underground bishop as auxiliary, Beijing agrees

The Holy See announced Wednesday the appointment of formerly underground Bishop Joseph Lin Yuntuan as auxiliary of the mainland Archdiocese of Fuzhou.

The appointment, the first involving a mainland bishop under Leo, marks a departure from the previous pattern of episcopal nominations under the terms of the Vatican-China deal: The pope made the appointment and the Chinese state subsequently agreed to accept it, instead of the other way around.

REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo

The Vatican’s announcement stated that Pope Leo XIV had made the appointment on June 5 and that it was being announced June 11 to coincide with its recognition by the Chinese government.

Beijing has in recent months and years made a point of announcing publicly the unilateral appointment and installation of bishops without Vatican acknowledgement and often seemingly without papal approval.

Most recently, Chinese state authorities announced the installation of a diocesan bishop on the mainland during the sede vacante period following the death of Pope Francis — to date the Vatican has not formally acknowledged that appointment.

Senior clerics on the mainland told The Pillar that the appointment had originated in Rome, with Leo moving to name Lin, rather than the Chinese state, and confirmed that Beijing had accepted the bishop’s new role.

Sources also confirmed to The Pillar that Lin’s appointment as auxiliary of the diocese came at the request of Fuzhou’s Archbishop Joseph Cai Bingrui, who was installed as head of the archdiocese in January.

Acknowledging that the Vatican had made the appointment with civil authorities accepting it afterwards, one senior cleric told The Pillar that Bishop Cai was well regarded by local state officials and, having requested an auxiliary, persuaded state officials to accept Lin.

“It was a case of the cat letting the mouse eat the grain this time,” one senior cleric said.

Leadership of the Fuzhou archdiocese has been previously a point of contention between Rome and Beijing, with several years in which the Vatican and the Chinese state could not agree on the question of who was actually the diocesan bishop.

After the 2018 Vatican-China deal, a sizable portion of Fuzhou’s clergy refused to join the state-sponsored Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, there remains a strong local community of Catholics of the formerly underground Church.

Lin, 73, was consecrated to the episcopate in 2017, but until his appointment this month, he had not previously been acknowledged as a bishop by the Chinese state and did not have a formal, public office acknowledged by the Vatican.

Lin attended seminary in the Fuzhou diocese, and spent several years as its apostolic administrator during periods when the diocese did not have a bishop, from 2003-2007 and 2013-2016. The Vatican’s published resumé for Lin does not list an appointment for him from 2016 until now.

Lin’s appointment and confirmation by the civil authorities is notable both for the canonically recognizable manner in which it was made — with the pope acting independent of the state — and for the significance of his involvement in the underground Church.

When Cai was announced as archbishop in January, he succeeded Archbishop Peter Lin Jiashan, a prominent bishop of the underground Church who died in 2023, having been accepted by the government as leader of Fuzhou in 2020 — 10 years after his appointment to the see by Pope Benedict XVI.

Archbishop Lin — not related to the new auxiliary — had previously spent several years in a forced labor camp during the 1980s as a priest of the underground Church.

Beijing’s decision to agree to Bishop Lin’s appointment as auxiliary marks a change from previous episcopal appointments under the Vatican-China deal, in which the state has frequently named and installed bishops without any apparent input from Rome or prior papal approval.

On April 29, the mainland Diocese of Xinxiang announced the “election” of a local priest to become its new bishop, despite the see of Rome being vacant and there being no pope to appoint a bishop.

Local priest Fr. Li Janlin was “elected” as the sole candidate for the office of diocesan bishop in a move coordinated by the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

Li’s “election” was carried out by an invited assembly of local clerics, and is seen as valid and final by the CPCA and Chinese government under laws which assert complete and independent authority by the national bodies over religious practice in China.

Following the conclave which elected Pope Leo, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State and chief architect of the Vatican-China deal, suggested in interviews that Li’s installation had been previously agreed by Pope Francis before his death. However, no official Vatican statement to this effect — or acknowledgement of Li as Bishop of Xinxiang — has yet been made.

While Rome has in the past moved to accept state-sponsored episcopal appointments after the fact, the matter is complicated in Li’s case because there is already a Bishop of Xinxiang appointed and recognized by Rome.

Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu was appointed by Pope St. John Paul II in 1991 and has led the diocese for decades as an “underground bishop,” unrecognized by the government.

The Vatican-China deal was last renewed in October 2024 for a period of three years.