The Vatican's China problem

WHEN Mao Tse-tung and his Communist forces swept across China and won its civil war in 1949, the pope's representative to China, Msgr. Antonio Riberi, sent a message from his office in Nanjing to the 5,500 Catholic missionaries spread across the country. It ordered the faithful to stay on post and keep up God's work, even in the face of certain persecution.

Although Riberi was the Catholic Church's envoy to the Nationalists -- Mao's enemies who had fled to Taiwan -- he refused to join the mass exit from Nanjing. He also resisted pressure to recognize the People's Republic as a legitimate government. Instead, he actively opposed Communist plans to co-opt Chinese Catholics and create a religious organization controlled by Beijing. Facing a brick wall, sure to fail, Riberi fought on.

It may sound noble, yet Riberi's stubborn determination was equally suicidal. It set the tone for the Catholic Church's relations with Beijing over the next half a century: openly hostile and mutually suspicious, resulting in a countrywide ban of both the religion and its representatives.

The latest eruption came last week when Beijing consecrated two bishops of its own choosing, against the wishes of Pope Benedict XVI. The pontiff responded angrily, saying the two Chinese holy men would be excommunicated.

This new rift spoils recent progress between Rome and Beijing. Over the last year, the two had been inching closer, each promising cooperation and talking positively about efforts to finally establish diplomatic relations. But the appointments came as a slap in the pope's face. Now that the goodwill has evaporated -- despite a conciliatory gesture by China on Monday to name a third bishop, this one already approved by the Vatican -- Pope Benedict's hope of visiting China seems an ever more distant dream.

Beijing and the Vatican, like many antagonists, have some key traits in common. Both are intolerant of dissenting opinions. Both follow rigid orthodoxies, and both are control freaks. It's tempting to suggest that they deserve each other.

Their tortured relationship started off on the wrong foot, then deteriorated. The Vatican was a strong supporter of Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, a practicing Christian. Like the United States, the Vatican was unable to accept the possibility of a Communist victory in China, so when it actually happened, Rome lived in denial, stubbornly insisting that Taiwan was the true government of the mainland.