Chinese government wipes out public religious references in traditionally Catholic village

The erasure of authentic Catholic expression is part of a crackdown that has intensified since the secret Vatican-China deal.

December 24, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The Chinese Communist government targeted a nationally known Catholic pilgrimage site, erasing every public trace of religious references and replacing them with Communist Party-sanctioned alternatives as part of a crackdown on Catholicism that has intensified since the Vatican’s secret deal with China.

Every public reference through words or images to God, the Blessed Mother, Heaven, and the saints has been wiped out in the traditionally Catholic village of Zhaojialing in Xiangyuan county in the Northern province of Shanxi, beginning in May, Bitter Winter reported.

The government forced Catholics to remove plaques above their doors inscribed with phrases such as “The Lord bestows great grace,” “Heavenly grace is overflowing,” and “The light of grace shines.”

These have been replaced with secular, politically acceptable phrases such as “Harmony in the family leads to prosperity in all undertakings” and “Homeland filled with happiness.” Street signs that read “The Street of Our Lady of the Fields” and “Gate of Heaven” were replaced with signs that said “The Street of Harmony” and “Gate of Roses.”

Local residents revealed that cameras were installed inside the village church. There are also reports that “the priest and churchgoers often have to gather together secretly.”

“It is not the first time that Catholic images and signs have been eliminated, including in churches of the government-controlled Patriotic Catholic Church. For example, in May this year images of saints and a stele of martyrs in a government-controlled Catholic church in Xingtai city in the central province of Hebei were covered up,” reported Bitter Winter.

This is just one of many instances of the ongoing process of “Sinicization” in China, a campaign that aims to bring religion in line with officially sanctioned interpretations of Chinese culture.

A report released by the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) in January brought attention to descriptions of “religious persecution in China over the last year of an intensity not seen since the Cultural Revolution.”

Even more explosive was the report’s observation of the rise in Catholic persecution since the 2018 China-Vatican agreement that gave the government a say in the appointment of bishops, which Cardinal Joseph Zen called an “incredible betrayal.”

“In September 2018, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed an agreement with the Holy See, paving the way for the unification of state-sanctioned and underground Catholic communities. Subsequently, local Chinese authorities subjected Catholic believers in China to increased persecution by demolishing churches, removing crosses, and continuing to detain underground clergy," the report detailed. "The Party-led Catholic national religious organizations also published a plan to ‘sinicize’ Catholicism in China.”

Among the most tragic casualties of the agreement have been the kidnapping and torture of Catholic priests for their refusal to compromise with the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

Renowned Catholic journalist Dalù, who publicized the Tiananmen Square massacre, recently revealed the methods by which one such Catholic priest, Father Liu Maochun, was tortured.

He posted a video in which he described how the Chinese Police often bang a gong close to the ears and shine bright lights into the eyes consistently for several days, a form of torture called “exhausting an eagle.”

Fr. Liu is one of a number of 20 priests in the diocese who have “refused to join the state-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association” and are thus “viewed as national security threats.” These priests are considered “illegal” and a “subversion of the state.”

We’re looking at Obama’s third term and its ugly.
Flopping Aces ^ | 11-18-20 | DrJohn
FR Posted on 11/18/2020, 11:23:24 AM by Starman417

Joe Biden is in significant cognitive decline. The media won’t ask him a single difficult question.
They stick to his favorite ice cream and favorite colors....and admiring his socks.
We’ve had suspicions as to who would be running the show but they crystallized recently.

I didn’t watch the whole thing, but the little I saw of the 60 Minutes interview with obama brought me a horrible realization. A Biden victory really is obama’s third term.
And it was frightening to hear him speak. A new policy looms- significant restrictions on free speech.
Biden signaled that he is amenable to restrictions on free speech with the appointment of an anti-free speech advocate to his transition team:

In the Post op-ed, “Why America needs a hate speech law,” Stengel argued:
[A]s a government official traveling around the world championing the virtues of free speech, I came to see how our First Amendment standard is an outlier.
…
All speech is not equal. And where truth cannot drive out lies, we must add new guardrails. I’m all for protecting “thought that we hate,” but not speech that incites hate.
As Breitbart News noted in May, Stengel, an MSNBC analyst, also defended restrictions on speech about the coronavirus:
The First Amendment doesn’t protect false speech about a virus or false speech that endangers the health of your users. And by the way, Facebook and Twitter have been taking things down, but they need to be even more vigilant about it, and Google needs to be even more vigilant about what they prioritize in their search results.
As you know, Big Tech is waging a war to control the flow on information and the mainstream media won’t report on things not flattering to the left, i.e. Antifa/BLM violence.
Then we got to hear obama weigh in and here’s where it gets really scary. First:

Scott Pelley: (06:48) President Elect Biden won in this election, more votes than anyone in history and yet the 2020 vote wasn’t a repudiation of Donald Trump, it was more like an affirmation. He received 71 million votes, 8 million more than he did in 2016. What does that tell you about our country today?

Barack Obama: (07:13) A, it tells us that we’re very divided and as I said, it’s not just the politicians now, the voters are divided. It has now become a contest where issues, facts, policies per se, don’t matter as much as identity and wanting to beat the other guy. That’s taken priority. I do think the current media environment adds to that greatly.

This democracy doesn’t work if we don’t have an informed citizenry. This democracy doesn’t work if we don’t have a responsible elected officials at other levels who are willing to call the president when he’s not doing something right. Call him on it.

And then the shoe drops
Scott Pelley: (08:30) How do we overcome where we are today?
Barack Obama: (08:33) There’s no American figure that I admire any more than Abraham Lincoln, but he did end up with a civil war on his hands. I think we’d like to avoid that. I do think that a new president can set a new tone. That’s not going to solve all the gridlock in Washington. I think we’re going to have to work with the media and with the tech companies to find ways to inform the public better about the issues and to bolster the standards that ensure we can separate truth from fiction. I think that we have to work at a local level.

That’s what we need- Big Tech to control the flow of information. Zuckerberg and Osama Bin Dorsey dictating what the “truth” really is.

We already know how this would work. All conservative speech would be hate speech and censored. Aided by Big Tech the “government” would allow you to know only what suited its needs and desires. Josh Hawley proved that yesterday:
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...

Obama: It was You.”
Mike Gallagher, talk radio personality, compiled and wrote the following essay.
The Coach’s Team | 8/5/18 | FR Posted by Oldpuppymax

It was you who spoke these words at an Islamic dinner -”I am one of you.”
It was you who on ABC News referenced “My Muslim faith.”
It was you who gave $100 million US tax dollars to re-build foreign mosques.
It was you who wrote that in the event of a conflict-”I will stand with the Muslims.”
It was you who assured the Egyptian Foreign Minister that, “I am a Muslim.”
It was you who bowed in submission before the Saudi King.

It was you who sat for 20 years in a Liberation Theology Church condemning Christianity and professing Marxism.

It was you who exempted Muslims from penalties under Obamacare that US citizens have to pay.

It was you who omitted - “endowed by our Creator “ from your recitation of The Declaration Of Independence.

It was you who mocked the Bible and Christ’s Sermon On The Mount while repeatedly referring to the ‘HOLY’ Qur’an.

It was you who traveled the Islamic world denigrating the United States Of America.
It was you who threw support behind the building of the Ground Zero Victory mosque overlooking the crater of the World Trade Center.

It was you who refused to attend the National Prayer Breakfast.

It was you who hastened to host an Islamic prayer breakfast at the White House.

It was you who ordered Georgetown and Notre Dame to shroud all vestiges of Jesus Christ BEFORE you agreed to speak.

It was you who NEVER requested mosques you visited to adjust their decor.
It was you who appointed anti-Christian fanatics to your Czar Corps.
It was you who appointed rabid Islamists to Homeland Security.
It was you who said that NASA’s “foremost mission” was an outreach to Muslim communities.
It was you an Illinois Senator who was the ONLY one to speak in favor of infanticide.

It was you, the first President not to give a Christmas Greeting from the White House.
It was you who hung photos of Chairman Mao on the White House tree.

It was you who curtailed the military tribunals of all Islamic terrorists.
It was you who refused to condemn the Ft. Hood killer as an Islamic terrorist.
It is you who has refused to speak-out concerning the horrific executions of women throughout the Muslim culture.
It was you who submitted Arizona to the UN for investigation of hypothetical human-rights abuses.
It was you who when queried in India refused to acknowledge the true extent of radical global Jihadists.
It was you who profusely praised Islam in a country that is 82% Hindu—victims of numerous Islamic terrorists assaults.
It was you who funneled $900 Million in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Hamas.
It was you who ordered the US Postal Service to honor the MUSLIM holiday with a commemorative stamp.
It was you who directed our UK Embassy to conduct outreach to help “empower” British Muslims.
It was you who funded mandatory Arabic language and culture studies in US grammar schools across our country.
It is you who follows the Muslim custom of not wearing any form of jewelry during Ramadan.

It is you who left for Hawaii over the Christmas season to avoid criticism for NOT participating in White House religious events.
It was you who was uncharacteristically quick to join the chorus of the Muslim Brotherhood to depose Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak.

It was you who remained muted in your non-response to the Brotherhood led slaughter of Egyptian Christians.

It was you who appointed Iranian Valerie Jarrett, a member of the Muslim Sisterhood.

It was you who said this country is not a Christian nation.

It was you who armed ISIS when the troops pulled out.
It was you who said the cost was too high to bring back arms and ammo.

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