A Vatican envoy expelled from China a few years after the 1949 Communist takeover of the country expected Mao Zedong's government to quickly collapse and be replaced by the rival Nationalists who had fled to Taiwan after defeat in the civil war.Antonio Riberi's confidential missive to the Holy See in 1952, recently seen by Kyodo News, cited a "heap of hatreds" against the Chinese Communist Party after crackdowns on the public and Catholic missionaries.It was written when governments were faced with the choice of officially recognizing Mao or Chiang Kai-shek as China's legitimate head of sta…READ FULL ARTICLE
