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tached.
• Like Lee, Park is a member of South Korea's main conservative party, but she has promised to find a middle ground by re-engaging Pyongyang through aid shipments, reconciliation talks and the resumption of some large-scale economic initiatives as progress occurs on the nuclear issue. Park has also held out the possibility of a summit with Kim Jong Un.
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China Catholics say hopeful for next pope, but see little sign of Beijing-Vatican breakthrough
• BEIJING (AP) -- Shanghai's would-be Catholic bishop has been a virtual prisoner in that city's main seminary for nine months and counting, his penalty for openly challenging China's ruling Communist Party by withdrawing from the country's official bodies that oversee the church.
• The treatment dealt out to Thaddeus Ma Daqin is the most glaring and high-level example of China's heavy-handed control of the church and the challenge that poses for the Roman Catholic Church as cardinals gather to choose a new pope.
• As the College of Cardinals meets at the Vatican for a second day, the fate of the church in China is receiving scant attention amid bigger concerns over priest shortages, clerical sexual abuse scandals, and giving greater voice to women and laypeople. Yet China will certainly be an issue before the next pontiff, not only because of continuing repression of Catholics in the country, but also because China's rising economic and diplomatic status is propelling it ever more quickly toward the center of global affairs.
• "It would be worth it to see China's authorities open their minds and lose their fear and distrust of religion," parishioner John Liu said while standing in the weather-beaten courtyard of Beijing's 400-year-old Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
• He was hopeful the new pope could help the mend ties with China, but didn't think it could happen quickly: "It will take time," he said.
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House GOP sending mixed signals on Obama's efforts to mend fences, reach fiscal grand bargain
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans are sending mixed signals in agreeing to meet with President Barack Obama for talks over the budget impasse.
• On the one hand, many Republicans who long have chided Obama for failing to (Continued on page 35)
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