Photo Illustration by Emil Lendof/The Daily Beast Baroness Nuala O’Loan has called for the Holy See to review what is happening to Catholics in China, citing human rights abuses, religious repression and the case of an underground Church priest she says was killed for his ministry.
Writing exclusively in this paper Ms O’Loan states: “The 2018 Agreement [between China and the Holy See] seems to have emboldened the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its attempts to control, limit, even destroy Catholicism. It does not seem to have benefited the Catholic Church in China at all, rather it has empowered the CCP. Many people have spoken of these presumably unforeseen consequences. It is time for a review by the Holy See of what is happening to Catholics in China, and of the extent to which Catholic dogma and doctrine is being replaced by CCP ideology in the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.”
Baroness O’Loan outlines the case of Fr Yu Heping who worked in the Underground Catholic Church and was found dead in a river.The government claimed he committed suicide, something the family utterly rejected, and for 10 years they could not get his body unless they signed a document saying it was suicide. Ms O’Loan writes: “Fr Yu must have known the danger he was in, but his courage in the face of such perils was absolute. I have no doubt he was killed because of his priestly ministry.”
Addressing readers of her column in The Irish Catholic Ms O’Loan asks: “How would you feel if, in order to practice your Catholic faith, you had to comply with a draconian series of laws which dictated whether there could be a church, who could be appointed as a bishop or priest, how priests were to be trained, when and where worship was allowed, who could belong to the Church, and what priests could preach and teach in the course of their ministry?
How would you feel if you went into a Catholic church and the crucifixes and images of God, of His Son – indeed all the images – had been removed or sidelined and replaced by pictures of a Communist President? If all the crosses on top of churches were removed, and Communist Party flags flew over the churches? What would your reaction be if your children could not be taught their faith in some cases even in their own homes?
This is what happens now in Communist China under the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP).”