Once again, the atheist Red Chinese choose confrontation over reconciliation with the legitimate authorities of the Catholic Church.

China's state-approved Catholic Church welcomed the installation Sunday of another bishop who was not approved by the pope, exacerbating the strain in Beijing's relations with the Vatican.

Bishop Zhan Silu, also known as Vincent Zhan, celebrated Mass for 500 Catholics and officials in a church in the southern city of Ningde to mark his formal appointment as head of the Mindong diocese. Hong Kong Cable TV showed Zhan holding a gold staff and wearing the pointed hat, or miter, used by bishops.

The welcoming ceremony compounded tensions in Vatican-China relations. Just a few months ago, Catholics had expressed hope that back-channel communications and concessions by the Vatican would end a rift between Rome and a separate Chinese church set up by the Communist government a half-century ago.

In recent weeks, China's state-approved Catholic hierarchy ordained two other bishops without papal assent, drawing a threat of excommunication from the Vatican and aggravating the split.

"They had to know that this would cause a serious reaction, a breakdown in the efforts to normalization," Richard Madsen, an expert on China-Vatican ties at the University of California at San Diego, said of the ordinations. "This shows at some level, they just didn't want relations to go forward."

In the fallout, the Vatican put on hold a review of Zhan's appointment that could have led to his approval by Pope Benedict XVI, a church official in Hong Kong said on condition of anonymity because of his involvement in the Rome-China dialogue.

Seems to me that the butchers in Beijing don't want to be seen as allowing too much religious freedom to the ever growing Christian population of China, so they are intentionally weakening relations with the Vatican -- relations that had been leading to Vatican acceptance of many officially sponsored episopal candidates.

For more on the status of Chinese Catholics loyal to the Vatican, click here.

UPDATE: More on this story here.