VATICAN CITY — Officials at the Vatican cited church law calling for immediate excommunication as they condemned China for appointing bishops without papal consent, but legal experts said yesterday that the clergymen may be spared formal censure.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls didn't use the word "excommunication" in his statement Thursday condemning the ordinations of two bishops this week by China's state-controlled church. Instead, he cited Canon 1,382 of the Code of Canon Law, which in turn states that if there is no papal consent, a newly ordained bishop and the bishop who consecrates him incur a "latae sententiae excommunication" — or excommunication outright.

However, experts said other articles in Canon Law provide for mitigating factors that could nullify, or at least diminish, the penalty. They also said that for the excommunication to have any actual effect, it must be formally proclaimed.

"This one is an automatic penalty, but in order for it to have effect in the external forum, it must be declared," said the Rev. James Conn, a professor of canon law at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University. "That doesn't mean it isn't binding in conscience on the person if he incurs it automatically ... (but) there needs to be a procedure before a penalty is declared."

Attempts to reach Navarro-Valls yesterday were unsuccessful. But a Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to interpret church law, said Thursday that while church law provides for immediate excommunication, the prospect that the prelates may have been pressured by China's state-run church was important.

Conn noted that Canon 1,323 sets out exceptions to when penalties can be imposed, such as when someone "acted under the compulsion of grave fear, even if only relative, or by reason of necessity or grave inconvenience."

"If the act was not a free act, then it's less imputable, less punishable," Conn said.

In his statement, Navarro-Valls said Chinese bishops and priests had been subject to "strong pressures and to threats" to take part in the ordinations by "external entities to the church" — an apparent reference to the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, the church's official name in China.

"Various prelates have given a refusal to similar pressures, while others were not able to do anything but submit with great interior suffering," the statement continued.

The Rev. John Coughlin, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame Law School, said it was often difficult to incur a declared excommunication because there were so often legitimate mitigating factors.

"It's subjective to the individual," Coughlin said. "In a highly coercive situation, in that there could be serious retaliation against (the Chinese bishops) — they could be arrested, put in jail — that would be a circumstance that removes the 'latae sententiae' excommunication," he said.

Conn likened the situation to that of a woman who has an abortion. The act carries with it the same outright excommunication. But since there is rarely a formal declaration of an excommunication for an abortion, the woman is burdened with the penalty in her conscience if she doesn't fall under any of the mitigating factors, he said.

Coughlin said, however, that unlike the abortion example, it remained a "real possibility" that the Vatican would formally pronounce the Chinese bishops excommunicated because their cases concerned the public order of the church.

In 1988 the Vatican called for a formal declaration, known as a "ferendae sententiae" excommunication, when it formally excommunicated ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for having consecrated four bishops without papal consent. The bishops were also excommunicated.

However, Coughlin said he expects the Vatican to pursue a more "diplomatic" approach "to avoid a schism in the Catholic Church in China."

Official ties between the Holy See and Beijing were severed after communists took control of China in 1949. While Pope Benedict XVI has reached out to Beijing in hopes of restoring ties, the ordinations this week set back the efforts.

In China, a senior official in the state-backed church said yesterday that religious conflicts can be addressed only after the Vatican establishes diplomatic relations with Beijing.

Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, a state-backed agency that oversees administration of the church, said by phone: "Once the relationship between the Chinese government and the Vatican improves, the church issues can be resolved.

Liu's comments were the first official response since the Vatican lashed out against the Chinese church's ordination of the bishops.