At stake in the current negotiations between China and the Holy See is the question of control over the local Church, which essentially boils down to the question of who gets to appoint bishops in China: Rome or the Chinese government?
This question has a long history as far as the Church is concerned. If we take our own country, before the Reformation all the bishops were effectively state appointees, though being in communion with the Pope, they were also approved by Rome. What this meant in practice was that men like Cardinal Wolsey worked their way up through the Church not by serving the Church but by being useful to the King. Because Wolsey was such an outstanding royal servant, he was rewarded with benefices, the greatest of which was the archbishopric of York, and he even owed his cardinal’s hat to the King’s favour.
