BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI welcomed the Polish Prime Minister in advance of the Pope's trip to Poland, which begins May 25. Also this week, tensions between China and the Vatican escalated again after the Chinese state-sponsored-church, for a second time this year, installed a bishop without the approval of the Pope. China's communist government refuses to recognize the Pope's authority to name Chinese bishops.
Joining us now with more on all this is author David Gibson, whose new book on Pope Benedict will be out this fall. David, welcome.
About a fifth of the world's people are Catholic and another fifth are Chinese and the leaders of those two groups are in confrontation -- how serious is that?DAVID GIBSON (Journalist and Author): Well Bob, the stakes are huge, obviously -- this is a real "clash of the Titans," you might say. The problem is for the Vatican is that while a fifth of the world's population may be Catholic, less than one percent of the Chinese are Roman Catholic, so that gives the Vatican very little leverage and China can pretty much do what it wants. But, obviously, almost like American industry, the Vatican looks at the Chinese market as a huge upside. I mean, the number of converts, the space for evangelization potential would be huge. So, they're really eager to have some true religious freedom enshrined there for the Catholic Church. But, Beijing is not very open to that and when the -- Pope Benedict recently appointed -- as a cardinal -- a Hong Kong bishop who's outspoken on behalf of democracy, that sort of led to a kind of tit-for-tat confrontation that's really left us back at square one.
ABERNETHY: And the Chinese government, as you say, is not very interested in providing freedom for any group -- Falun Gong or anybody in China. So, what's the outlook -- is this standoff going to just continue and with no resolution?
Mr. GIBSON: Well, I think they will revert back to some quiet diplomacy. There had been a great, sort of informal cooperation in recent years, so that there was a quiet agreement about who would be appointed bishops, which priests would be recognized as in communion with Rome, as the Vatican would say. 
Mr. GIBSON: I think he'll get a very warm welcome, you know, he -- Benedict is seen as almost more of John Paul's right-hand man than he is as a German pope. Benedict as Joseph Ratzinger spent 25 years almost in Rome, working side-by-side with Karol Wojtyla, who became John Paul II. So, this trip is really seen as almost a tribute to John Paul by Pope Benedict, who's not going to travel very much and this is one of the few and first trips that he is going to make.
