[detective]

“Experts estimate that there are as many as 12 million Catholics in China, split roughly evenly between the two churches.”

Who are these so called experts?

I have known people who have worshiped with Chinese Catholics and have said that Chinese Catholics are the most devout, sincere, resolute, religious people they have ever seen. They truly suffer for their faith and are very quiet and very secretive about their faith. They have their own codes for recognition of one another.

They have almost no actual churches. They worship at improvised, continually changing locations.

Most are secret Catholics and hide their identity for survival.

They estimate there are at least 30-40 million secret Catholics in China.

Many “members” of the state run church in China are really sincere Catholics but just pretend to belong to the state run church so that they can keep an eye on the Communist spies who are infiltrating their religion.

[MacMattico]

I was at an openly Catholic Church in Fujian Province in 2002. It wasn't in the best condition, but was allowed to be, but I don't know what has happened there in the last 12 years.

[MNDude]

Way more than12 million!