China raises pressure on underground Catholics to join official church, Human Rights Watch finds
Chinese authorities are intensifying efforts to force underground Catholic communities into the state-controlled church. Human Rights Watch reports increased surveillance and travel restrictions targeting the country's 12 million Catholics. The campaign aims to ensure religious groups maintain loyalty to the officially atheist Communist Party. Despite a 2018 Vatican-China agreement regarding the appointment of bishops, religious repression continues to escalate.
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Chinese authorities are intensifying a campaign to force underground Catholic communities in China to merge with the state‑controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, while expanding surveillance and travel restrictions on the country’s estimated 12 million Catholics. The pressure is part of a broader “Sinicization” effort that seeks to align all religious practice with Communist Party ideology, and it has prompted calls from human‑rights groups for Pope Leo XIV to reassess the 2018 Vatican‑China agreement on bishop appointments1.
Human Rights Watch reports that the Chinese government is using arbitrary detention, forced disappearances and house arrests to coerce underground clergy and believers into joining the official church1.
New regulations introduced in December require state approval for any foreign travel by Catholic clergy, tightening control over religious leaders’ movements1.
The campaign includes demolition of church buildings, removal of crosses, and confiscation of Bibles and other religious materials not sanctioned by the state1.
Underground Catholics, who remain loyal to the Pope, face heightened repression that violates their religious freedoms, according to HRW researcher Yalkun Uluyol1.
Reports describe the use of surveillance and travel restrictions against all Catholics, regardless of affiliation, further limiting worship and community activities1.
The 2018 agreement, brokered by Pope Francis, allows Beijing to propose candidates for bishoprics, with the Pope retaining veto power, though the full text remains unpublished1.
Pope Leo XIV made his first Chinese bishop appointment under the agreement shortly after his election in May 2025 and indicated he would continue the arrangement in the short term while engaging in dialogue with Chinese officials1.
Human Rights Watch urges the new pope to review the deal and press Beijing to end persecution of underground churches1.
Since President Xi Jinping’s 2016 directive to “Sinicize” religions, the state has increased ideological control over Buddhism, Taoism, Protestantism, Islam and Catholicism1.
The campaign has also targeted Tibetan Buddhism and Islam with similar repression tactics1.
In October 2025, Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri of the underground Zion Church was detained at his home in Guangxi, along with dozens of other church leaders, highlighting the ongoing crackdown1.
ChinaAid urged U.S. President Donald Trump to demand Mingri’s release ahead of a planned meeting with Xi Jinping, calling the crackdown a systematic effort to eradicate independent religious life1.
Examine Catholic Church’s response to state‑controlled ecclesiastical pressures
The Catholic Church’s response to state-controlled pressures on ecclesiastical life is consistent: it insists that the Church’s mission must remain free from coercion, that the State may not command or inhibit specifically religious acts, and that any arrangement whose practical aim is the subjection of Church life to civil power is contrary to Catholic doctrine and to the rights grounded in human dignity.
At the core of the Church’s teaching is the conviction that the act of faith must be free. Vatican II teaches that “no one therefore is to be forced to embrace the Christian faith against his own will,” because “the act of faith is of its very nature a free act.” In other words, religious belief and religious worship cannot be produced by political pressure without violating the nature of faith itself.
This has direct implications for State power. Vatican II also states that “every manner of coercion on the part of men should be excluded” in matters religious, and that it would be an overreach for government to regulate religion by force: “it would clearly transgress the limits set to its power, were it to presume to command or inhibit acts that are religious.”
Religious freedom is therefore not merely a pragmatic social tolerance; it is a right rooted in human dignity. Pope John Paul II highlights that curtailing religious freedom is not simply an unfortunate conflict: it is “above all an attack on man’s very dignity,” a “radical injustice,” and a situation where believers may be treated as “second-class citizens” or “deprived of the rights of citizenship.”
Key takeaway: For the Church, the test is not whether the State has laws, but whether those laws violate the immunity from coercion in religious matters and the Church’s right to carry out its mission according to its nature.
The Church has long distinguished between legitimate civil respect and schemes that, while presented as cooperation, effectively aim to control the Church.
Pope Pius XII, responding to a particular pattern of Church–State arrangements, warned that while these initiatives claim to ease mutual relations, “in reality [their] aim is… to set aside and neglect the rights of the Church and effect its complete subjection to civil authorities**.” In other words, the Church judges the real intention and practical effect** of a policy, not just its stated language.
Pope Leo XIII described the same underlying dynamic in his critique of anti-Church policies: public enactments were being framed “either to forbid the action of the Church altogether, or to keep her in check and bondage to the State,” with the common aim “to paralyse the action of Christian institutions” and to “curtail her ever single prerogative.”
Even the debate over “separation” is treated critically when it dissolves the legitimate relationship between ecclesial and civil authority in a way that empties the Church’s freedom. Leo XIII cites earlier teaching warning that those who want to “dissolve the concord between the secular and ecclesiastical authority” hope for results that would actually harm both sacred and civil interests.
Key takeaway: The Church interprets “state control” not as an administrative detail but as a threat to the Church’s prerogatives—especially when it is designed to suppress, bind, or neutralize her religious mission.
Where pressure becomes systematic—such as restrictions on clergy formation, governance, or sacramental life—the Church’s response is twofold: maintain the integrity of doctrine and sacramental/ecclesial communion, and avoid unnecessary division.
A concrete and highly sensitive example is the Holy See’s response regarding Catholic life in China. In an explanatory note on Benedict XVI’s letter to Chinese Catholics, the Pope points out that when a climate of tolerance opened, many communities revived—but some clergy chose clandestine consecration because they refused “undue control exercised over the life of the Church” while trying to remain in full fidelity to the Successor of Peter and to Catholic doctrine. The explanatory note also stresses the Church’s moral evaluation of such a decision: “the clandestine condition is not a normal feature of the Church’s life, and history shows that Pastors and faithful have recourse to it only amid suffering,” specifically “in the desire to maintain the integrity of their faith and to resist interference from State agencies in matters pertaining intimately to the Church’s life.”
At the same time, Benedict XVI did not treat every irregular situation as a permanent ecclesial rupture. The explanatory note describes that some clergy received episcopal ordination without the pontifical mandate but later asked to be received into communion with Peter and the episcopate; in consideration of the complexity and the desire for full communion, Benedict XVI granted many “full and legitimate exercise of episcopal jurisdiction.”
The companion “Compendium” (questions and answers) further emphasizes pastoral care in constrained environments: bishops and priests should “avoid giving rise to situations of scandal,” and conduct discernment with attention to real intentions beyond objective shortcomings; “every case, then, will have to be pondered individually, taking account of the circumstances.”
Key takeaway: Under state-controlled pressure, the Church teaches a proportional response: resist interference (because it compromises what is “intimately” ecclesial), but also seek reconciliation and communion through pastoral discernment, when possible.
A frequent practical issue in state-controlled contexts is legal recognition. Benedict XVI’s materials explicitly connect “civil effects” (legal status) with ecclesial freedom.
The Compendium states that the Holy See hopes “these legitimate Pastors may be recognized as such by governmental authorities for civil effects too – insofar as these are necessary,” and that “all the faithful may be able to express their faith freely” within their society.
However, Benedict XVI also rejects the kind of state-driven ecclesiology where civil entities place themselves above bishops. The Compendium warns that some entities, desired by the State and “extraneous to the structure of the Church,” claim “independence and autonomy, self-management and democratic administration of the Church,” which is “incompatible with Catholic doctrine,” since the Church is professed as “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.”
Key takeaway: The Church distinguishes between (1) legal recognition for civil effects and (2) the State’s attempt to restructure Church governance so that ecclesial authority is displaced or subordinated.
The Church’s refusal is not anarchic. Benedict XVI quotes the Gospel logic of Christ’s approach: Jesus recognized civil authority (“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”) while insisting on the higher claim of God (“and to God, the things that are God's”). This supports a consistent Catholic position: the Church does not deny the legitimacy of civil power, but she denies civil power the right to dictate the Church’s religious mission and internal governance in ways that violate religious freedom.
Pope Paul VI adds a theological-spiritual rationale for this stance: the Church “does not… repose her true confidence in… aid of the State… but in God,” and she “has only need and desire of just liberty” (not privilege).
Key takeaway: Catholic resistance to state control is grounded in the belief that the Church’s freedom is not optional; it is demanded by human dignity, the nature of faith, and the Church’s divinely given mission.
Across magisterial teaching and concrete pastoral guidance, the Catholic Church’s response to state-controlled ecclesiastical pressures can be summarized as follows:
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