Chinese authorities are increasing pressure on underground Catholic communities to join the state-controlled official church while tightening surveillance and travel restrictions on all of China’s estimated 12 million Catholics, a rights group said Wednesday.

The detailed reportfrom Human Rights Watch said the heightened pressure was part of a decade-old campaign to ensure that religious denominations and independent churches are loyal to the officially atheist Communist Party, a claim the Chinese government rejected, saying the group is “consistently biased against China.”

China’s Catholics have been divided between an official, state-controlled church that doesn’t recognize papal authority and an underground church that has remained loyal to Rome through decades of persecution.

Pope Francis, in 2018, sought to ease Vatican-China tensions witha dealgiving the state-controlled church a say in naming bishops — a task traditionally exclusive to the pope.

Despite that deal, “Catholics in China face escalating repression that violates their religious freedoms,” said Yalkun Uluyol, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Pope Leo XIV should urgently review the agreement and press Beijing to end the persecution and intimidation of underground churches, clergy, and worshippers.”

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, didn’t immediately respond Wednesday when asked to comment on the report.

In a statement sent to The Associated Press, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson’s Office said Human Rights Watch “fabricates all manner of lies and rumors, and lacks any credibility whatsoever.”

It added that the government “oversees religious affairs in accordance with the law and protects citizens’ freedom of religious belief and normal religious activities.”

Human Rights Watch said its researchers are not allowed into China. It said its report is based on input from people outside China “who had firsthand knowledge of Catholic life in China,” as well as experts on religious freedom and Catholicism in China.

Under the 2018 agreement, Beijing proposes candidates for bishop that the pope can then veto, though the agreement’s full text has never been made public.

Source: VidNews » Feed