China’s Catholics Rue Church’s Slide as Powers Debate Control<br />"We believers just go to church and pray." The Vatican has already asked Guo Xijin, the underground bishop in Mindong, to yield his leadership<br />of an estimated 70,000 Catholics to a government-appointed cleric who commands about 10,000 followers — a huge concession to Beijing.<br />One lay nun whose order has deep roots in Mindong said Bishop Zhan would have difficulty running the diocese<br />because most worshipers are in the underground church and support Bishop Guo.<br />Others say that the outside world’s binary view of Chinese Catholicism — of loyalist underground church members<br />and government flunkies — misses more subtle realities on the ground.<br />This time, it centers on talks between China and the Vatican to bridge their historical differences by settling the thorniest issue dividing them: control of the bishops<br />and priests who run the Roman Catholic Church in China.<br />In 1957, the authorities added to the church’s problems by setting up the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association to replace the Vatican in appointing the clergy<br />and give Beijing’s atheist leaders control over the church.<br />Bishop Guo, 59, who has been a priest in Mindong since 1984, said in an interview<br />that he was willing to accede if it helped heal the long split between the underground and government churches.
