Excommunicated bishops ‘may have been pressured’
On Thursday, the Vatican said the consecration of two bishops this week in China carried automatic excommunication for the two men as well as the bishops who ordained them, because Pope Benedict XVI hadn’t approved the appointments.
On Thursday, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls cited Canon Law which says both the ordained bishop and the bishop who consecrates him without papal consent incur a “latae sententiae excommunication” — automatic excommunication.
