What China’s Catholics really think of the Vatican deal

Recently I strolled slowly up a hill with a local priest in a remote area of China. He remained close to me as we ascended steep slopes to a Marian pilgrimage church, not because he was unsteady on our climb, but because he wanted to speak in a quiet whisper about what is going on in China.

“The local authorities sent workmen with heavy equipment to ‘Sinicise’ our church,” he told me, “which meant that they destroyed our outdoor statues while we all watched in agony. What can we do? This is just the way things are.”

A few days later I was in another province at a Catholic home for orphans, the elderly and the severely handicapped. The woman in charge, a consecrated virgin, informed us that their large statue of St Joseph near the front gate had recently been removed by the authorities. No explanation was given.

What struck me most about these two incidents is that they had occurred after the provisional agreement was signed between the Holy See and the Chinese government in September 2018. The situation for Catholics in China was expected to improve after the agreement, but life for those in the pews each Sunday is no less complicated than it was previously.

To be fair, some places I visited were thriving more than I’ve seen before. But those were all locations frequented by foreign visitors, such as Beijing and Shanghai. The Church in China has entered a new era, one that requires some explanation, and one that has inspired a great deal of angst and disagreement within the larger Church.

Read more at Catholic Herald