ONLY a year ago, a great diplomatic breakthrough—the exchange of ambassadors between the world’s largest church and the world’s most populous country—seemed to be in the offing. Now the mood between China and the Holy See is as bad as it has been for half a century.

On July 14th China’s state-backed Catholic hierarchy, which the Vatican does not recognise, held a three-hour ceremony to consecrate a bishop in the city of Shantou. This was the third time in eight months that a hierarch had been elevated in defiance of the pope. What gave the latest rite a nasty taste was the reported abduction by police of four Rome-aligned bishops who were then pressed to take part in the ceremony. One dissident bishop was “seen sobbing as he was dragged” from home, according to AsiaNews, a Vatican-linked news service.

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