China pressuring more Catholics into official religious organization

China’s state authorities are exerting greater pressure on the country’s underground Catholics to join government-approved organizations, according to reports. According to the Catholic Herald (April 20), Human Rights Watch has found that President Xi Jinping’s policy of “Sinicization” is intensifying, forcing many Chinese Catholics to “face a stark choice between compliance and continued persecution.” The Human Rights Watch report says that the 2018 agreement between the Holy See and Beijing has not eased conditions for those Catholics who have remained outside official structures, but rather has been used as a framework within which local officials can insist that underground communities regularize their status by joining the state-backed church. The report is based on accounts of informants living outside China who are said to have direct knowledge of Catholic life inside the country. Witnesses cited in the report said that “many believers now feel they are left with little practical alternative but to enter the official Church, while others who have resisted say they feel abandoned by Rome.” Human Rights Watch also found cases of bishops and priests under detention, “forced disappearance,” and continuing harassment. There are also recent restrictions preventing Catholic clergy from teaching or evangelizing online. 
 

(Catholic Herald, https://thecatholicherald.com/article/china-steps-up-pressure-on-underground-catholics-rights-group-says)