(ZENIT News / Rome, 03.11.2024).- A Report of the Hudson Institute, directed by Nina Shea and published on October 22, 2024, shows an increase in the Chinese Government’s repression of Catholic Bishops despite the 2018 Agreement between China’s Government and the Vatican.
Ten Bishops in the country are persecuted for their conscientious objection to the Catholic Patriotic Association, an institution created by the Communist Government and not recognized by the Vatican, to control Chinese Catholics. To affiliate themselves to the Association, priests must promise independence from the Holy See. In a letter written in 2016, Pope Benedict pointed out that, to be independent from the Successor of Peter is “incompatible with Catholic Doctrine.”
The Chinese Government allows the Catholic Church a limited existence. There are 95 Catholic Bishops in Continental China. Of these, 69 are official and 26 non-official. The Catholic Church includes 147 dioceses, many of them vacant. The Authorities keep constant vigilance on believers’ behaviour while strengthening in Patriotic Church for its governmental propaganda.
Since 2018, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, under the direct control of the United Front’s Department of Work — a propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Government –, has exerted pressure on the Bishops to join the Association. The Agreement between China and the Vatican contemplates the possibility that Bishops will opt to participate.
The Agreement between China and the Vatican hasn’t been made public. It seems that it reserves to the Vatican the appointment of Bishops. China has complied partially with the Agreement, although there have been several unilateral appointments.
The Hudson Institute’s Report reflects the fact that “the persecution of the Chinese Government against the Catholic Church in China is directed against the hierarchs who resist the control of the Chinese Communist Government over religious affairs.” There have been ten persecuted Prelates since 2018, including “indefinite detentions without due process, disappearances, open investigations by the Security Police, exiles from their dioceses and other impediments to their Episcopal Ministries, including threats, vigilance, interrogations and so-called re-education.”
China goes beyond its borders to suppress and silence religion, regarding it as opposition. Recently, Afghanistan discovered a Chinese espionage network operating from Kabul with Haqqani, a terrorist group affiliated to the Taliban, to seize Uyghur refugees and returned them to China.
The Chinese government is hostile to groups practicing their faith without control, as it has done with the Uyghur population of Muslim majority. It also harasses and closes unregistered Christian meetings, called house churches, detaining the local leaders and threatening the free practice of the faith. Nina Shea said that little is known about the harassment of ten persecuted Bishops, pivots that guarantee the ecclesial life of Chinese Catholics in the Doctrine and living of their faith.
