Chinese Catholics resist religious oppression

Chinese Catholics are resisting Beijing’s campaign to restrict religious freedom.

As the law forbids minors from entering places of worship, Catholics are “reinventing” their homes as temporary “churches” for services that can include the whole family.

“Each family is continuing its faith activities at home and maintaining its strong bonds with God,” says a young Catholic whose parents have helped organise local home churches.

Priests at the house meetings explain church teachings to young Catholics and strengthen their faith amid fears that younger generations will lose their family’s traditional belief in Christianity: Beijing views all religions as a threat to its dominance.

Communist Party rules are more strictly observed in Henan province than elsewhere in China. Besides the prohibitions on minors from attending religious studies classes, the provincial government has been gathering data on Christians to monitor their activities.

In Henan:

  • Elderly villagers have had to renounce their faith amid threats that their social security benefits will be withheld if they fail to comply
  • Civil servants and teachers say their families have been threatened with punishment unless they stop attending services at their parish churches
  • Protestant churches in several districts have had their crosses demolished
  • A cathedral in Anyang diocese was ordered to remove its cross and hoist the national flag as a sign of patriotism
  • Authorities reportedly forced the Anyang diocese bishop and priests to disclose where parishes’ religious materials are printed
  • Anyang’s churches were ordered to remove all posters and other religiously-themed promotional materials
  • At least four churches in Nanyang city were raided at dawn last Wednesday,

Practising religion in a clandestine fashion “is becoming a general trend in China now,” one mother said. “There’s no way to stop it.”

Another underground Catholic said the new level of persecution reminded him of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution which he experienced as a child.

“Now we seem to be returning to that period so our kids will get to experience just how bad things can get.”

“Every round of persecution just makes the church stronger and the faithful more determined,” he said. “External blows can’t destroy one’s inner faith.”

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