Poor China. Under attack from all sides. First, Taiwan cruelly and heartlessly abolished a defunct council with a $30 a year budget, and now Benedict XVI mistreats China even further by appointing Joseph Zen, a Hong Kong anti-communist bishop, as cardinal.
Imagine that. Benedict XVI appointed someone cardinal. Just who does that guy think he is, the pope or something?
But Beijing isn’t taking THIS lying down. No, sir. The "pontiff" of the Chinese government-directed "Patriotic Catholic Church", Liu Bai Nian, stepped up to the plate and denounced the move as "an act of hostility to China". Jack Fowler over at the National Review had this to say about the new cardinal, and the basis for the Chinese government’s opposition to his appointment:
[Cardinal Zen is] a revered figure on Hong Kong, and increasingly around the world, except in Beijing, [and] is well known for his outspoken defense of religious freedom and the democracy movement. [He is despised] by the PRC, which banned Zen from the mainland in 2000 when he defended Pope John Paul II for canonizing Chinese martyrs. Nian based his attack on Zen’s appointment on the Bible: “China’s socialist system comes from God. We should all protect it and obey it. This is what the Bible tells us to do.” Of course, Nian is referring to Paul’s Letter to the Cantonese, 3: 7-11. [emphasis added]
What, you can’t remember Paul’s Letter to the Cantonese from Sunday school? Don’t be so lazy, then – look it up in your Bible. It’s probably there in the back, somewhere.