The bishops who conferred episcopal ordination on candidates chosen in the manner laid down by the CPCA, without a mandate from the Holy See, and those who accepted such ordination, participated in a schismatic act and were thereby automatically excommunicated. However, not all of them are considered to be still in schism since, beginning in the early 1980s, nearly all "took advantage of the renewed contacts with missionaries and foreign priests to send letters to Rome in which they declared their full communion with the Pope and the desire to be recognized as legitimate bishops. So ... the bishops subjected to the political control of the Patriotic Association tried the path of canonical "sanatio" to ... affirm their communion with the Pope, kept hidden because of external conditions, but never renounced in their hearts." Those few Chinese bishops who have not done so remain in formal schism.