It's about time for a China post

The AP reported today:

A senior official in China's state-sanctioned Catholic Church said in comments published Tuesday that he would like Pope Benedict XVI to visit China.

Benedict did not dismiss the possibility but said the issue was "complicated.''
Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, made the comments in an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica in which he praised Benedict's recent letter to China's Catholics as "positive.''

"I strongly hope to be able to see the pope one day here in Beijing to celebrate Mass for us Chinese,'' Liu was quoted as saying.

CNA:

Liu explained that in the past the government saw the Church as meddling in the affairs of the state, but stressed that Chinese Catholics always recognized the sole authority of the pope as far as religion was concerned.

"The Holy See is the only representative of Jesus on earth, and as Catholics we must follow it," he said. "What we must affirm is our political and economic independence; otherwise we remain a colonial church."

CWNews:

Recalling visits to Rome in 1991 and 1994, Liu recalled, "I remember that in one Roman church, there were 7 Catholics at Mass, in another 4 and in yet another, I was the only one. I wanted to cry...Italy is the birthplace of Catholicism, but in China, the churches are full." He boasted that the Catholic Church is growing rapidly in China. "In 1979, there were 1,100 priests in China, the majority of them old and sick," he said. "Today we have 1,800, whose average age is 30. The Cultural Revolution destroyed 3,600 churches, all of which we have rebuilt."

Related: Cardinal Zen warns against confusion surrounding the Pope’s China letter - CWNews

I think we could very well see a Papal visit to China by the year 2009. Granted, many things have to fall in place. But the amount of progress we've seen in the last couple months should not be ignored.