Here's a thought, are the Chinese ordinations even valid?

Canon Lawyer Ed Peters asks an interesting question about the validity of these two recent Chinese ordinations:

"The excommunications consequent to the illicit episcopal ordinations (1983 CIC 1382) staged by Chinese Communists are so obvious that few commentators have mentioned them. Here I raise a different question: In the face of some sacraments being so obviously celebrated with no discernible pastoral sense and, in fact, driven by little besides a "let's stick it to the Catholic Church" animus, has the time come to step back and ask some hard questions about the canonical validity of such sacraments?"

Read the rest.

[photo: Reuters/Jianan Yu ... h/t Rocco]