In China, Tensions Between Church and Government Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times VOICES RAISED The choir at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Beijing. The church treads carefully. BEIJING - The Rev. Peter Liu Yongbin, a wireless microphone tethered to his head, gazed out over his prospective converts and plowed into the ABCs of Roman Catholic faith. He offered a roughly abridged version of Abraham's family tree, the benefits of frequent confession and a quick guide to church hierarchy. "Think of the pope as equivalent to the minister of a government bureaucracy," he explained. Then came the pop quiz. What if China were to experience another Cultural Revolution, the traumatic decade of Maoist zealotry during which religious adherents were persecuted? "If a Red Guard puts a knife to your throat and tells you to renounce your faith, what should you do?" he asked the five dozen initiates, all of them weeks away from baptism. After an awkward silence, Father Liu blurted out the answer: "Never give it up," he said, his eyes widening for effect. Your devotion should be to God above all else. Such sentiments might be a mainstay of Christian belief but they border on treasonous in China, an officially atheist state that demands fealty to the Communist Party. The pope might be a ranking minister, but according to the party's thinking, President Hu Jintao is Catholicism's supreme leader, at least here in China. As a priest at an officially sanctioned government church - as opposed to the legion of illicit unofficial congregations - Father Liu struggles to balance his faith with the often-intrusive dictates of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the omnipotent government body that oversees religious life for China's 12 million Roman Catholics. Nearly half of China's Catholics are thought to attend underground churches. It is a balancing act shared by the leadership of China's four other official religions - Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism and Taoism - who must answer both to state authority and the exigencies of their faith. An irascible but deeply contemplative man whose knowledge of Marxist dogma rivals his command of biblical verse, Father Liu, 46, is quick to praise the past three decades of increasing openness that has paved the way for religious revival across the land. But even as he declares himself steadfastly apolitical, he acknowledges that these are trying times for state-supervised clergy members. "Sometimes the political pressures are exhausting," he said as he sat in his church office only a few blocks from the closed compound housing China's leadership. The walls of his office are dominated by a Chinese flag and a crucifix. Such pressures have been rising as Beijing and the Vatican engage in an increasingly combative struggle over the appointment of bishops. After several years of quiet negotiation and a tacit agreement to jointly name Chinese bishops, the Patriotic Association has since 2010 consecrated four bishops over the Vatican's objections, including Joseph Yue Fusheng, who was ordained Friday in the northern city of Harbin. Rome responded with an automatic excommunication. The drama intensified on Saturday, when the Rev. Thaddeus Ma Daqin, the newly installed auxiliary bishop of Shanghai, stunned his congregation by announcing his resignation from the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. Father Ma, who did not lead Mass on Sunday as scheduled, has not been heard from since. China has responded to the impasse with bravado, calling the recent excommunications "unreasonable and rude" and suggesting that it will continue to unilaterally fill as many as 40 vacant bishop seats. The Patriotic Association declined to comment for this article, as did the Vatican. Ian Johnson contributed reporting, and Shi Da contributed research.