The Chinese government has banned Pope John Paul II from visiting Hong Kong during a planned Asian tour later this year, citing the Vatican's diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
The Pope had expressed a desire to make a stopover in Hong Kong to say Mass for its 250,000 Chinese Catholics and 120,000 Filipino Catholics, but lengthy negotiations on the request have broken down.
The refusal by Beijing further narrows the limits of self-rule promised the former British colony after it was reunited with China in 1997. Under this one-country-two-systems scheme, Beijing retains control over foreign and defence issues while guaranteeing Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy.
Bishop Joseph Zen of Hong Kong broke the news yesterday on his return from a visit to Rome, and said the Pope would go to New Delhi or Bombay instead.
"The mainland [China] says the Vatican has ties with Taiwan and no ties with us, therefore such a visit is not convenient," Bishop Zen said. Any prospect that the communist government in Beijing would allow the Pope to visit Hong Kong evidently faded as Beijing-Taiwan relations worsened sharply last month over growing pro-independence sentiment in Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a breakaway province. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman in Beijing told the Union of Asian Catholic News agency that "as the Vatican maintains so-called diplomatic relations with Taiwan, obviously it is not appropriate for the Pope to visit Hong Kong".
Beijing may also have been concerned about the effect of a papal Hong Kong visit on believers in mainland China, where Catholics are forbidden to acknowledge the authority of the Pope.
Beijing's refusal to tolerate any rival authority in mainland China, either spiritual or temporal, was starkly illustrated last month when it cracked down on the Falun Gong movement which had demonstrated an ability to organise mass demonstrations by followers of its spiritual and physical disciplines.
The Vatican said in March it was willing to reassess its ties with Taiwan - where its diplomatic mission is already virtually non-existent - and open diplomatic relations with communist China, if it was allowed to appoint its own bishops as in other communist countries like Cuba and Vietnam.
However, Beijing insisted that the Vatican must cut ties with Taiwan before any talks begin, and agree not to interfere with China's internal affairs, which would mean forgoing the right to appoint bishops.
Predictably, many Hong Kong voices were raised to protest against the latest limitation of the territory's autonomy, already weakened by a Beijing decision in June to overrule Hong Kong's highest court over right of abode for Chinese citizens.
The head of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong, Cardinal John Baptist Wu Cheng-chung, has already been sharply critical of the Hong Kong government for giving in to Beijing on the right-of-abode issue, saying it was a threat to autonomy which would undermine international confidence in Hong Kong.
Pro-democracy opposition politicians also protested that the ban on the Pope set further limits on Hong Kong autonomy. Many prominent figures in Hong Hong, including the leader of the Democratic Party, Mr Martin Lee, are devout Catholics.
"Catholics and others would like to know why the Pope came in the past and what is different now and is it really true that we are not as free as under British rule," said Ms Emily Lau, leader of the pro-democracy Frontier Party, referring to a three-hour stopover by Pope Paul VI in Hong Kong in 1970.
The South China Morning Post said that disquiet had been growing among Hong Kong Catholics about what they felt was increasing religious repression on the mainland.
The Vatican first made the request for a papal visit to Hong Kong some months ago through the Chinese embassy in Rome. The neighbouring Portuguese colony of Macau has invited the Pope to visit before it reverts to China on December 20th, but no decision has been taken.