Thanks to Amy Welborn, a link is available to the full Wall Street Journal story on "Canossa: The Sequel", a.k.a., the stand-off between China and the Holy See on the question whether China, or the Catholic Church, gets to run the Catholic Church. Here's a key bit:
The tensions over the Catholic Church are also turning into a test of just how much freedom China's government is willing to allow religious organizations in a materialist society whose people are increasingly hungry for spirituality. The difficulty is made more acute for Catholics by the central role of the pope and the religious bureaucracy he heads, which the Communist Party sees as a rival for political authority. . . .
Today's China is somewhat more welcoming. The country officially recognizes five religions, including Catholicism, but still keeps tabs on their leaders through a government bureaucracy and a collection of five "patriotic" organizations. Catholics, in particular, have long been viewed with suspicion as possible political activists with loyalties to a foreign power in Rome.
"The Chinese government and the Chinese people are afraid of the church turning and playing the role that it did in Poland," says Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the official Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, referring to the church's influence in the uprising against Poland's Communist rulers in the late 1980s that paved the way for free elections.
Political freedom and the Freedom of the Church. It's like a Reese's Peanut Butter cup.
