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 BEIJING (AP) - Bishop Fu Tieshan, the hard-line chairman of the state-sanctioned Catholic Church who sparred with the Vatican over China's insistence on appointing its own bishops, died on Friday. He was 76.
The government-backed church, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, refuses to recognize the Vatican's authority, but many clergy and ordinary Catholics remain loyal to the pope and have been persecuted for it.
As the top authority of the Chinese church, Fu clashed with the Vatican over China's right to independently appoint bishops without papal approval and the Vatican's diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which China claims as its territory.
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