BEIJING — A cleric well-regarded by the Vatican was installed as bishop of Beijing by China's state-controlled Catholic Church, a move that officials said should help ease tense relations between the communist nation and the Holy See.

Joseph Li Shan was appointed to the influential post in China's capital at a ceremony at the city's 400-year-old Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Attendance was limited to several hundred priests, nuns, officials and ordinary Chinese Catholics invited by the Beijing diocese.

Dozens of uniformed police officers were positioned around the church, controlling access and keeping foreign journalists from entering the cathedral. Despite the security, the ceremony drew little public attention, with Catholics numbering more than 60,000 among Beijing's 15 million people.

The ceremony began with a procession of seminarians, nuns, priests and bishops, including ordaining prelate John Fang Xingyao of the eastern diocese of Linyi. Proceedings were broadcast to those outside via loudspeaker and closed-circuit television.

The 42-year-old Li took a traditional oath of service to the church that also added a nod to government authority. He promised to "lead all the priests seminarians and nuns of this diocese in adhering to the nation's constitution, maintaining national unification and social stability."

Li replaces Bishop Fu Tieshan, a Communist Party supporter and hard-liner toward the Vatican whose death in April provided an opportunity for the state-controlled church and Rome for rapprochement. When Li was named as Fu's replacement in July, Vatican officials praised him, though said Beijing had not consulted Rome before his appointment.

VATICAN APPROVES

The Vatican's daily newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, carried news of the installation yesterday, implicitly showing the Vatican's approval of the new bishop.

Also referring to an earlier ordination in southern China, the newspaper said the Catholic communities in Guiyang and Beijing "had news of the communion granted by the pope" to the two prelates.

It mentioned with regret that some of the bishops who showed up at yesterday's ceremony were not in communion with the pope.

It expressed the hope "that all dioceses may have worthy and suitable pastors, able to be in full communion with the Catholic Church and with the successor of Peter and to announce the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Chinese people."

Liu Bainian, the vice chairman of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, the party-controlled body that oversees the church, said priests such as Li "should be encouraged, not condemned" and added: "We know that the pope loves China."

The appointment of bishops has long been a sticking point in the difficult relations between the Vatican and Beijing in the past half-century. The officially atheist government dislikes groups that operate outside Communist Party control and has refused to yield authority over bishop's appointments, while the Vatican is loath to concede its traditional right to appoint church leaders.

COMPROMISE SOUGHT

Despite that, with the Vatican eager for greater access to China — where religious belief is booming alongside the economy — and Beijing keen for greater legitimacy worldwide, both sides have searched for a compromise. Many bishops in recent years were first named by China but then asked for and received the Vatican's approval — as church officials said was the case with Li.

Strains with the Vatican date to 1952 when the Communists, just three years in power, demanded Chinese Catholics cut ties to Rome. Banned for much of the 1960s and '70s when all religion was outlawed, the church has made a rapid recovery in the past 20 years, boasting 12 million to 15 million followers.