China's state-controlled Catholic Church says it will move swiftly to appoint new bishops in dioceses where there are none, in a step certain to worsen tensions with the Vatican.

Pope Benedict XVI’s eagerly-awaited letter to Roman Catholics in China will be released today, in the pontiff’s latest effort to reach out to Beijing and bring all of China’s faithful into the Vatican fold.

China’s official Catholic church today called on its followers to boycott the film The Da Vinci Code as immoral and an offence to the faithful, the government’s main news agency reported.

VATICAN officials cited Church law that called for automatic excommunication in condemning China for appointing bishops without papal consent, but yesterday legal experts said the appointees may be spared formal censure because they may have been pressured.