News Agency: Shantou Bishop and Asia News

news agency: Zen confirmed reports by the Asia News missionary news agency that the Vatican had asked Shantou Bishop Peter Zhuang Jianjian, 88, to step down in favour of Bishop Joseph Huang Bingzhang, according to CTV. Huang was excommunicated by the Vatican in 2011 after he was consecrated without papal approval. Cardinal Joseph Zen, the most vocal opponent of Pope Francis' opening to China, bitterly criticized the proposed changing of the guard in Shantou diocese and revealed in a Facebook post Monday that he had travelled to the Vatican earlier this month to personally raise it with the pope. Zen said that he was exposing the confidential information -- including the contents of his Jan. 14 audience with Francis -- so that the Chinese faithful may know the truth to which they are entitled. The issue of bishop nominations is the key stumbling block in Vatican-Chinese relations that were officially severed when Beijing ordered Chinese Catholics to cut ties with the Holy See soon after the foundation of the Communist state in 1949. My conscience tells me that in this case, the right to truth should override any such duty of confidentiality, he wrote. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.