Fujian Expanding Control Over Underground Catholics

Bitter Winter ^ | 5/15/19 | An Xin

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New suppression measures include the ban on pilgrimages and customized “political conversion” of those refusing to join the Patriotic Catholic Association.

The National Shrine and Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Sheshan is a prominent Roman Catholic church and a renowned pilgrimage site, located on the peak of Sheshan Hill in Shanghai’s Songjiang district. After the clampdown on other pilgrimage sites, Sheshan is the only remaining functioning national destination for China’s underground Catholic pilgrims; tens of thousands go there each May – the month for devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary – despite government’s restrictions and continuous suppressions.

More than 800 kilometers away from Sheshan, a local government in Fujian Province launched an operation to prevent pilgrimages to the Basilica in 2019. According to a document obtained by Bitter Winter, in connection to the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China this year, authorities are “enhancing political sensitivity and the foresight of work,” to safeguard the social and political security and stability, and eliminate all “unstable” elements; the Underground Catholic Church considered one of them.

The document lists specific preventive measures:

* demand the National Security Brigade, Network Security Brigade, and grassroots-level police stations to strengthen the collection of leads about the movements of underground Catholics organizing groups under various names to go on pilgrimages to Sheshan Hill;

* ascertain information about foreign “anti-CCP” groups and religious organizations participating in Sheshan Hill pilgrimage activities;

* strictly control clergy and core believers within the jurisdiction, and resolutely prevent underground churches from organizing group pilgrimages to Sheshan Hill;

* intensify Internet and mobile phone surveillance, and promptly delete or block “harmful” information (i.e., unfavorable to the CCP’s ability to maintain its political stability) to eliminate “unstable elements,” and punish, in accordance with the law, individuals who spread “harmful”......

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