First, just last week, China and the Vatican were becoming all friendly...
But now...
HONG KONG, April 30 — Despite objections from the Vatican, the state-controlled Catholic church in China installed as a bishop today a senior official who has been involved in the government's political control of the church...
The official, Father Ma Yinglin, was consecrated as bishop of Kunming in southwestern China despite a strong warning on Saturday from Joseph Cardinal Zen Zi-kiun of Hong Kong. Cardinal Zen said in a statement then that, "to conduct the ordination without the Holy See's approval is to sabotage intentionally Sino-Vatican relations."...
Liu Bainian, the secretary general of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, said in a telephone interview this evening that the consecration of Bishop Ma could improve relations with the Vatican, because the diocese of Kunming had been vacant for 11 years.
"Without a bishop, there is no church," Mr. Liu said.
Mr. Liu also asserted that it was inappropriate for Cardinal Zen, as the bishop of Hong Kong, to make statements regarding activities in another diocese.
"Father Ma was chosen by 100 percent of the votes by local fathers, church representatives and members," Mr. Liu said. "The government did not participate in the whole election process."
Communist countries often describe winners of rigged elections as having received all or nearly all of the votes.
Is a rigged election better or worse than no election at all, which is standard operating procedure in the rest of the Catholic Church (and no, it makes not much sense to count pope elections when there's no other elections)?
And of course there's no mention of that in the Times article.
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