China has revoked the title of a new Catholic bishop in Shanghai who outraged Chinese officials by immediately dropping out of a government agency which oversees the country’s officially sanctioned church, religious leaders have said.

China's state-controlled Catholic church is investigating the ordination of a bishop who announced he was quitting the government body.

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.