Tainan Church

I lived for two 6 month periods in Tainan, a city in southern Taiwan, so I thought I knew that place petty well. But on the web I saw a story about a famous church in Tainan that I had never been to. So on a recent trip to Tainan, I had to check it out. OK so what denomination is this church?

Looks pretty Asian but if you could read the 3 character in gold on black you'd know the answer. How about this interior? does that help?

I guess lots of Christian Churches have pews so that's not much of a clue. (Are those Confessional Booths?) How about this one?

The Holy Water font at the entrance has to be a big clue. And an altar has to be a give away.

This is the Catholic Church in Tainan: "Our Lady, Queen of China Cathedral" Here is Mother Mary as a Chinese.

But this is not just a church, this is a cathedral,  cardinal's residence, Taiwan has less than 100,000 Catholics how come it merits a cardinal? (Some parishes in the US have more that 100,000 members but no cardinal.)

In China there is no religious freedom, each religion must recognized  the communist party as the highest authority in China. This is a problem for the Catholics and the Pope. So the Catholic religion is outlawed in China. For a long time, the Vatican recognized the ROC(Republic of China(Taiwan)) at the rightful government of China because if they returned to the mainland the  ROC would let the Catholics operate as usual. But even the Vatican now believes that that is not going to happen.

But a cardinal in Taiwan is a good place to have an observer on the world's  largest potential source of believers(1.3 billion).

Anyway, the Catholic church in Tainan is in the Daoist style. Most Christian churches are in the European style. So when does "adaptation" become "pandering".