The latest self-inflicted blow to the Vatican’s China policy came in mid-July, when the Holy See announced that Pope Francis had “recognized” Bishop Joseph Shen Bin as Bishop of Shanghai—despite the fact that the bishop had been “transferred” to China’s most important and prestigious diocese by the Xi Jinping regime, not by the pope. A few days later,
America
published a lengthy analysis of this Roman kowtow by Gerard O’Connell, its Vatican correspondent. O’Connell, for his part, drew on what
Vatican News
described as an interview with Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, but what was actually an auto-interview, the cardinal having sent the prewritten Q&A to the various instruments of Vatican media for publication.