U.S. News
Chinese Catholics Face Mounting Pressure from Beijing
Clear Facts
- The Chinese government is escalating pressure on Catholics to join state-controlled institutions.
- Reports say a decade-long campaign is pushing religious groups to align with Communist Party ideology through surveillance and detention.
- Human Rights Watch says the 2018 Vatican-China agreement is under strain as repression appears to intensify under Sinicization policies.
Religion must remain free from the grasp of communist mandates and state-enforced ideological alignment.
The ongoing Sinicization campaign seeks to replace traditional faith with total loyalty to the ruling party.
“A decade into Xi Jinping’s Sinicization campaign and nearly eight years since the 2018 Holy See-China agreement, Catholics in China face escalating repression that violates their religious freedoms,” Human Rights Watch researcher Yalkun Uluyol said in the report.
“Pope Leo XIV should urgently review the agreement and press Beijing to end the persecution and intimidation of underground churches, clergy, and worshipers.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry continues to deny these human rights violations, claiming they protect religious freedom according to their own laws.
However, reports from those fleeing the country describe a reality of stripped religious identities and state-monitored worship.
“I’m also in ongoing dialogue with a number of people, Chinese, on both sides of some of the issues that are there,” Leo said.
“It’s a very difficult situation. In the long term, I don’t pretend to say this is what I will and will not do, but after two months, I’ve already begun having discussions at several levels on that topic.”
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