Wu Xiuying
(ZENIT News – bitterwinter / Beijing, 08.26.2024).- China’s Patriotic Education Law is in force since January 1, 2024. On January 4, 2004, the 25th meeting of the National Joint Conference of Religious Groups issued guidelines on how the Patriotic Education Law should be implemented by religious communities. The law was hailed as the main tool of CCP domestic propaganda for years to come. The guidelines aimed at making state-controlled religions into mouthpieces of the Party propaganda, even more than before.
Recently, the United Front Work Department, whose mandate includes supervising the five authorized religions, has complained that the guidelines are not being implemented quickly enough. The Patriotic Catholic Church, once regarded as schismatic from Rome but now in communion with the Holy See after the Vatican-China deal of 2018, is answering this criticism by organizing training courses in patriotic education for clergy and lay leaders.
Church bureaucrats, on the other hand, know they cannot escape the new policy of “strict governance of religion,” which is based on the idea that pro-government religious hierarchs alone are not able to control religious communities and a direct supervision by the CCP and the United Front is needed.
One example of what is happening in several provinces was the Patriotic Education Training Course for Catholic Representatives in Jiangxi, hosted by the Jiangxi Provincial Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau this month of August 2024 at the Jiangxi Fuzhou Socialist College in Fuzhou, Jiangxi province (not to be confused with Fuzhou, Fujian province).
The training included special lectures provided by department leaders from the Central United Front Work Department. Bishop John Baptist (Li) Suguang of the Jiangxi Diocese, Auxiliary Bishop John (Peng) Weizhao, all the clergy, and over sixty members of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Catholic Two Conferences attended the educational and training sessions.
The program featured lectures and hands-on learning, with expert-led courses on topics like Xi Jinping’ thought, the hundredth anniversary of the CCP, and how Catholics can uphold the Party and its Central Committee, focusing on the recent Third Plenum. Cautiously, the theme of “strict governance” was also introduced.
Interestingly, one of the field trips of the course brought the priests and lay workers to the Red Army Slogan Museum in Hufang, Le’an County. The area is rich in surviving slogans of the Red Army dating back to the Civil War time, which are being collected and moved to the museum. It was, as the organizers said, a unique opportunity for the Catholic priests and lay workers to “inherit the red gene” as loyal followers of the Communist Party.
Thank you for reading our content. If you would like to receive ZENIT’s daily e-mail news, you can subscribe for free through this link.
