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China Blows Up Hundreds of
"Illegal"
Churches
The Daily Telegraph (London) has
reported that Chinese authorities in Wenzhou have torn down or blown up more
than 200 illegal churches and temples.
 A further 239 small places of worship in the
east coast city, many of them linked to the underground Roman Catholic Church,
have been forced to close.
China's millions of underground Christians, especially
those who have defied Beijing to remain loyal to the Pope, face a bleak
Christmas as a campaign against illegal worship of all varieties coincides with
a crisis in China's relations with the wider Christian world.
"In the past week, I
have received several reports from China that bishops and priests have been
detained by police, and I am now trying to authenticate them," said Joseph
Kung, head of the American-based Cardinal Kung Foundation, which monitors the
underground Catholic Church in China.
"Probably this is the beginning of the
crackdown for the Christmas season. All these important feast days, like
Christmas and Easter, they always crack down."
The underground churches demolished were not
established church buildings, Mr. Kung said, but were often private homes where
Christians unwilling to worship in "official" churches gathered in secret for
prayers and services.
This autumn, China reacted with fury to the Pope's decision to
canonize 120 Catholic martyrs on Oct. 1, China's National Day.
Most of the martyrs
were killed in 1900 by the Boxers, fanatics whom Beijing calls patriotic
heroes. China called the new saints a collection of notorious criminals and
rapists. Christianity, especially Catholicism, has traditionally been regarded
as a foreign, "imperialist" import, in a note of fierce nationalism underlying
the atheist Communist dislike of all religion.
Frank Lu, director of the Hong Kong-based
Information Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, said last
night that the latest campaign against religion in Wenzhou, in the eastern
province of Zhejiang, had begun in August, and intensified in recent weeks.
"Wenzhou is an important centre of Chinese Catholicism," said Mr. Lu.
Wenzhou, a boom town
of shoe factories, sweatshops and dealers in pirate goods, has a long history
of Christianity because of its trading links with the outside world.
Last year, Wenzhou
police arrested three leading members of the underground Roman Catholic Church.
Those detained included an 81-year-old bishop, Lin Xili.
The places of worship
closed and demolished in Wenzhou were reported to include Buddhist and Taoist
temples as well as Catholic and Protestant churches. Officials admitted blowing
up Catholic establishments in neighboring Fujian province last summer.
The 449
centres that were targets of the latest campaign, running since mid-November,
had all failed to register with the State Administration for Religious Affairs,
officials said.
Religious worship, though protected by the constitution, must be
"patriotic", and can take place only in establishments under the control of the
Communist Party.
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