The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is intensifying efforts to bring the country’s state-sanctioned Catholic Church further under its control, according to believers who say churches are increasingly required to conduct political study sessions, enforce ideological campaigns, and accept tighter regime oversight.
The CCP recognizes only one official Catholic church, overseen by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China, both of which operate under the CCP’s supervision rather than the Vatican.
Recent meetings held by official Catholic organizations in the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu called on clergy and lay leaders to advance Beijing’s policy of the “Sinicization of religion” and implement what authorities describe as “strict governance of religion”—campaigns that critics say are steadily transforming churches into extensions of the Party’s political system….
Beijing Expands Political Campaigns Inside Catholic Churches
