Liu Xinhong in Wuhu, China. (Reuters)

Beijing, May 3 (Reuters): A battle between Beijing and the Vatican over control of church posts flared today as China’s state-backed Catholic church installed another bishop without papal blessing.

Liu Xinhong was consecrated bishop of Wuhu in the eastern province of Anhui at the city’s Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, an official in the cathedral office said by phone. But like the priest who became bishop of Kunming in southwestern China on Sunday, Liu took the step without the Vatican’s mandate.

Hong Kong’s recently promoted Cardinal Joseph Zen, who has promoted dialogue between China and the Vatican, said talks between the two sides should now stop at least until Beijing accounts for its “very disloyal and very rude” actions. “I don’t think it’s possible to have any mutual trust anymore,” he said. “It’s very damaging to the relationship ... I think it can’t be worse than this.”

In recent years, Beijing and the Holy See ? warily exploring restoration of formal ties ? came to an understanding that usually allowed prospective priests and bishops to seek Vatican approval before taking up posts in the state-controlled church. Now that arrangement appears to be breaking down, as the state church administration pushes through its own choices.

A third or more of China’s 12 million or so Catholics belong to an “underground” church that stayed loyal to the Vatican throughout decades of harsh repression under the Communist Party after it won power in 1949.

With easing of restrictions on religion since the 1980s, growing numbers of clergy in the state church have also sought Rome’s blessing, and it was usually given. Father Bernardo Cervellera, director of the Rome-based AsiaNews service that reports on Chinese Catholicism, estimated that about 85 per cent of China’s bishops had papal approval.

In 2004, China had 120 bishops, 74 in the state-backed church, according to the Holy Spirit Study Centre in Hong Kong, which monitors the Chinese church.

Liu Xinhong, a priest from Anhui, was not under consideration by Rome and was considered by local Catholics to be “too close to the government”, said Cervellera. Footage of the ceremony broadcast on Hong Kong television showed him draped in a white, red and gold robe and wearing the telltale bishop's hat.