Islam - Current Day - Still Doing What They Have Always Done, Destroying Any Sign of Christianity

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Desecrated and Defecated on: Churches in Europe under Islam

03/10/2021

by Raymond Ibrahim

“Cross” made of excrement at church of Nimes, France.

 

A few days after Muslim migrants firebombed an 800-year-old Swedish church twice over the course of four days—once on Jan. 20, 2021 and another on Jan. 24—a Feb 4 report came out saying that 829 “hate crimes” against churches in Sweden have been reported between just 2012-2018, or about 138 attacks on average every year.

Thus the churches of Sweden join those of other Western European nations that have taken in sizeable Muslim migrants. In France, for example, two churches are vandalized every day.  According to a 2019 PI-News report, 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols (crucifixes, icons, statues) were registered in France in 2018.  This represents a 17 percent increase compared to the previous year (2017), when 878 attacks were registered—meaning such attacks are only going from bad to worse.

They are also getting increasingly vile.  As one example, vandals used human excrement to draw a cross on the Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in Nimes in 2019; consecrated bread was also found thrown outside among garbage. One week later, vandals desecrated and smashed crosses and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur; they mangled the arms of a crucified Christ in a mocking manner and burned altar materials.

Similar reports are coming from Germany.  After reporting how four separate churches were vandalized and/or torched over the course of four weeks in 2019, PI-News, a German news site, explained: “In this country, there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity: attacks on summit crosses,  on holy figures on the way, on churches and recently also on cemeteries.”

Although mainstream media regularly claim that the vandals—who are seldom caught to verify their identities—are “mentally ill” or part of “right wing extremist” groups, as the recent Swedish report states, PI-News offers a hint: “Crosses are broken, altars smashed, Bibles lit, baptismal fonts overturned, and the church doors smeared with Islamic expressions like ‘Allahu Akbar.’”

Similarly, another German-language report from late 2017 noted that in the Alps and in Bavaria alone, some 200 churches have been attacked and many crosses broken: “Police are currently dealing with church desecrations again and again. The perpetrators are often youthful rioters with a migration background.”

Another telling indicator is that those European regions with large Muslim migrant populations often see a concomitant rise in attacks on churches and Christian symbols.  Before Christmas, 2016, in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany, where more than a million Muslim migrants reside, some 50 public statues of Jesus and other Christian figures were beheaded and crucifixes broken.

In 2015, following the arrival of another million Muslim migrants to Dülmen, a local newspaper said “not a day goes by” without attacks on Christian statues.

France, where one of Europe’s largest Muslim populations resides—and where churches are attacked every single day—is also indicative that where Muslim numbers grow, so do attacks on churches.  A January 2017 study revealed that “Islamist extremist attacks on Christians” in France rose by 38 percent, going from 273 attacks in 2015 to 376 in 2016; the majority occurred during Christmas season and “many of the attacks took place in churches and other places of worship.”

As a typical example, in 2014 a Muslim man committed “major acts of vandalism” inside a historic Catholic church in Thonon-les-Bains.  According to the report with pictures (since removed) he “overturned and broke two altars, the candelabras and lecterns, destroyed statues, tore down a tabernacle, twisted a massive bronze cross, smashed in a sacristy door and even broke some stained-glass windows.”  He also “trampled on” the Eucharist.

For examples of Muslims being caught red handed desecrating churches in other European nations, see here, here, here, here, and here.

Should there still be any doubt concerning the true identity of those most responsible for vandalizing churches throughout Europe, one need only turn to the treatment of churches in the Muslim world itself, or even in areas that have very large Muslim populations.

Thus, Muslims in Kenya torched five separate churches between Jan. 20 and Jan. 24—the very same days Muslims twice firebombed an 800-year-old church in Sweden.  “A majority of the church members were afraid to attend services [in or near the ruins] in the aftermath of the burning of the churches, fearing that the arsonists might follow them right into their homes, risking the lives of their families,” a local source said.

As occurred when vandals in France used human excrement to draw a cross on the Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in 2019, so these Kenyan arsonists also “committed the heinous acts of scooping human feces onto the buildings,” the source added.

The fact is, the vile desecration of churches (including with human excrement) has for centuries been a Muslim trademark—a sort of “Islam was here.” As copiously documented in Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, during their invasions of Christian nations, Muslims ritually desecrated hundreds of thousands of churches (Caliph Hakim b’amr Allah alone reportedly destroyed 30,000 churches during the early eleventh century). Think what ISIS did but on an exponential level—and not for a handful of years but for over a millennium in dozens of nations spread out over three continents.

Most recently, according to a Feb. 17, 2021 report, the ninth church to be torched in Muslim-majority Sudan recently occurred.  Before it was set aflame, local Muslims shed light as to why they attack churches: “In every city or village where Muslims live, they should not allow anything that belongs to infidels such as church buildings to be there,” one Muslim wrote on social media; another insisted that, wherever Muslims allow the existence of a church, that place becomes “disgraced.”  In short, and in the words of  the Rev. Kuwa Shamal, of the Sudanese Church of Christ, “They targeted the church because they do not want to see any sign of the cross in the area.”

As seen from what is happening to churches throughout Western Europe, at least some Muslim migrants share this sentiment, despite being minorities in and guests of the West.

War on Christianity > Another Report on China - Voice of the Martyrs

Hundreds of Crosses Removed

Source(s): ChinaAid, Bitter Winter, Christian Post

Officials and the cross that is about to be destroyed - Photo: ChinaAid www.chinaaid.org

In the early morning of July 7th, more than 100 security personnel arrived at the Aodi Christian Church and Yinchang Christian Church in Wenzhou. They came with cranes and removed the crosses from atop the church buildings. Door locks were also broken, and some church property was destroyed. When church members tried to intervene, they were physically assaulted, resulting in several injuries. The elderly among them were not exempt from mistreatment, for a senior man in his 80s was disrespectfully pushed to the ground.

The demolition orders are representative of many similar state-sanctioned operations. In the state of Anhui, crosses were removed from at least 250 government-approved churches during the first four months of 2020 alone. "All Christian symbols are ordered to be removed," declares one state employee. Similar action is being taken against symbols of other religions as well.

The ongoing crackdown against Christians in China has been described as the most intense in decades. If you have not yet watched VOMC's video interview with Bob Fu of ChinaAid, we encourage you to do so.

Please continue to lift up China's Christians in your prayers, asking God to minister His grace, healing, spiritual encouragement and renewed hope in the midst of the government-imposed restrictions and the resulting harm it has caused so many. May He also work in the lives of state authorities and members of the security forces, so that they too will become keenly aware of the Lord's presence and sovereignty. Overall, pray that the continued outreach of churches throughout the country will be mightily used to bring multitudes from all walks of life to a saving faith in Christ.

War on Christianity - Pakistan, China, India, Montenegro

Pakistan: Christian family shot by radical mob
for buying house in Muslim neighborhood

By Samuel Smith, CP Reporter| Reuters

A Christian family in Pakistan was shot last week for buying a house in a Muslim neighborhood. 

On Sunday, police in the city of Peshawar in the Khybar Pakhtunkhawa province arrested the sons of a man accused of shooting two members of the Christian family after they purchased a home in late May in the Sawati Phatak colony, Asia News reports. 

The alleged perpetrator, Salman Khan, is still at large. 

Christians are seen as the enemy of Islam

After Khan found out that his new neighbors were Christian, the Catholic press agency reports Khan told the family they had to leave the neighborhood immediately because Christians are seen as the enemy of Islam. 

What followed was days of alleged harassment against Nadeem Joseph and his family. The family was said to have been threatened with consequences if they did not leave their new home.

Khan is accused of giving the family a 24-hour ultimatum on Sunday. But Joseph refused to leave his home. He tried to call the police once he noticed that Khan and his sons had returned with weapons. 

That's when Joseph was shot in the stomach by his attackers who also shot his mother-in-law in the shoulder. 

Joseph and his mother-in-law were taken to a nearby hospital and their injuries do not appear to be life-threatening. 

Joseph recorded a video message from his hospital bed, according to International Christian Concern, a U.S.-based Christian persecution watchdog group. From there, Joseph said that at one point, he was told that his new neighborhood was "meant for Muslim residents only" and that "Christians and Jews are the opponents of Muslims."

This is not radical Islam in Pakistan; this is normal Islam in Pakistan.

Christian activist Khalid Shahzad, who is in touch with the family, told Asia News that the shooting is an example of the religious intolerance found in Pakistan. 

"The main offender is still at large," Shahzad was quoted as saying in an article Monday. "Law enforcement agencies must do everything possible to capture him and bring him to justice."

Open Doors USA ranks Pakistan as the fifth-worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution and notes that Christians are generally "regarded as second-class citizens."

Worse than that - they are enemies of Islam and they are considered unclean.

There are various forms of Christian persecution in Pakistan, including laws that criminalize blasphemy that are often abused by Muslims to take advantage of religious minorities. 

Christians in Pakistan have been killed by societal mob violence ever since the country's founding. Additionally, there have been several occasions in which Muslim radicals have attacked churches in Pakistan. 

In 2018, the U.S. State Department added Pakistan to its list of "countries of particular concern" that tolerate or engage in systemic and egregious violations of religious freedom. 

At the time, U.S. Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, told reporters that Pakistan is home to half of the world's blasphemy law cases. Christians and other religious minorities have languished in Pakistani prisons for years after Muslims falsely accused them of insulting Islam or its prophet, Muhammad. 

Christian couple Shagufta Kausar and her husband, Shafqat Emmanuel, have been on death row for over six years over false blasphemy charges of sending a text message insulting the Islamic prophet. Last week, their final hearing before the Lahore High Court was delayed. 

Christian mother Asia Bibi (see link immediately above) spent nearly a decade languishing in a Pakistani prison after Muslim field workers accused her of insulting their prophet. She was acquitted by Pakistan's Supreme Court in October 2018, which sparked national unrest and protests by radical Muslims. 

China removes over 250 church crosses
in first 4 months of 2020

By Samuel Smith, CP Reporter| 

Workers removed a cross from the top of a church in the Lu’an-administered Shu County in a video posted to YouTube on June 10, 2020, by Bitter Winter. | YouTube/Bitter Winter via screenshot

Crosses were removed from over 250 state-sanctioned churches in China’s Anhui province between January and April as the Communist Party’s years-long crackdown on church crosses continues, according to the Italian-based magazine Bitter Winter. 

“All Christian symbols are ordered to be removed as part of the government’s crackdown campaign,” a provincial employee from Ma’anshan city told Bitter Winter, a publication produced by the Center for Studies on New Religion which covers human rights issues in China. 

The magazine reported on Tuesday that the 250 crosses were removed from churches affiliated with the Three-Self Patriotic Movement in cities that include but are not limited to Lu’an, Ma’anshan, Huaibei and Fuyang. 

One of the churches that had its cross removed from outside its building is The Gulou Church in the center of Fuyang city, a Protestant church that dates back over a century. 

The church had its cross taken down on April 2 after over 100 congregation members tried to stop authorities from removing the cross from the church the previous day. 

One congregation member told the magazine that local officials told the church members that the cross' removal was done in accordance with a national policy requiring the removal of all religious symbols, not just Christianity. 

“We support the state and comply with its regulations,” the congregation member was quoted as saying. 

“We can have a dialogue with the government if it thinks that we have done something wrong, but they can’t persecute us this way. Officials did not show any documents, fearing that people would implicate them with anything in writing. They only conveyed verbal orders and forced us to obey them.”

In the city of Lu-an, over 183 churches had crosses removed during the first four months of 2020, reports Bitter Winter. The report states that in March, a church leader in the city was threatened with imprisonment and the closure of his church if the church’s cross was not removed. 

Odisha: 14-year-old Christian boy crushed to death with stone; body chopped into pieces

Mohammad Suffian
Bhubaneswar

A14-year-old Christian boy was allegedly crushed to death with stone by a group of people in Odisha's Malkangiri.

The incident took place at Kenduguda village in Naxal-infested Malkangiri district of Odisha.

A Naxal or Naxalite (/ˈnʌksəlaɪt/) is a member of any political organisation that claims the legacy of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), founded in Calcutta in 1969. The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is the largest existing political group in that lineage today in India. - Wikipedia

The minor's body was allegedly chopped into pieces by the accused and later they buried the body parts before fleeing from the spot.

Police sources said the killing was due to suspect of practising witchcraft.

On June 5, a missing complaint was filed in Malkangiri Police station by the victim's brother. The father of the victim had filed an FIR after his son went missing.

After receiving a complaint, Malkangiri Police SP Rishikesh Khillar said: "The police reached the spot and recovered the buried body".

As per the FIR, the victim and his family including his father had adopted Christianity three years ago. Since then, a few of the villagers have been harassing them.

The victim's family members alleged that few villagers identified as Deba Madkami, Budra Muchaki, Aaita Kabasi, Rabu Madi and others picked up the minor and his two other relatives on the pretext to attend a meeting in the jungle at 11.00 pm on June 4.

The accused attacked the victim and his relatives after reaching a deserted place. While the other two boys escaped, the victim was caught off guard and fell on the ground after a tussle.

The victim failed in his attempt to escape and was killed by the accused.

The accused later chopped his body into pieces and buried his body parts.

"On the intervening night of June 4, a few villagers of a group ganged up with a handful of religious fanatics, who were not a part of their village, and attempted to kidnap Christians," Pastor Kosha Mosaki of Kalimela said.

The police detained few suspects and said the "religious goons" later accepted their crime.

However, police sources said as many as 17 villagers died in Kenduguda village for an "unknown disease" in last three months.

"At least 22 cases of Christian Persecution have been reported in Odisha, including murder, were recorded in 2019. Eight cases including the latest incident have been recorded since January 2020 till date," Father Dibya said.

"In Malkangiri district, 14 religion-based killings of Christians in a span of 2 to 3 years. These statistics rank Odisha at number 10 among the list of hostile states towards Christians in India," Father Dibya said.

"Christians in this village have been facing many threats and are being continually harassed by religious fanatics," Pastor Kosha Mosaki said. "He was earlier attacked in February this year. I have made 4 complaints at the Malkangiri police Station regarding these attacks."

Christians under attack in Christian Montenegro

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Read to the bottom for an extraordinary act of grace

and glorification of God

By Bishop Joanikije, Op-ed Contributor| 

Bishop Joanikije is Bishop of Budimlja and Nikši in Montenegro. | Courtesy of Bishop Joanikije

On May 25, a young orthodox vicar, Reverend Nikola Radovic, was brutally assaulted by a gang of masked attackers outside his church in Bar – a town on the Adriatic coast – where he had just celebrated communion with his parishioners. His assailants were as young and as locally-born as he. Yet as they set upon him they claimed he was the agent of a foreign power.

Only days before, just 60 miles from Bar, I and seven priests performed a service inside St. Basil of Ostrog Monastery, one of the holiest sites of Orthodox Christianity. It was in private, without worshipers, and with a prior announcement made that the annual public Saint Basil’s Day street procession was cancelled due to the coronavirus lockdown. Still, the faithful had gathered outside in their thousands, and I went to implore them to respect social distancing, and return home.

The arrests began in the evening. We were taken from our vicarage. They continued for several days, with police brutalizing and incarcerating hundreds of parishioners as they came out in towns and villages across the country to protest our imprisonment. Then they moved on, detaining archdeacons and a further 25 priests.

This should not be happening in Montenegro – a country in the heart of Europe that is majority Christian, a NATO member and a candidate for European Union membership. We fear the reason why it is is money.

Before Christmas, a new law perniciously named the Law on Religious Freedom came into force. Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups – and their assets – now require state registration.

There are few states in the world that genuinely practice freedom of religion yet compel faith communities to first be on an approved government register. There are even fewer that stipulate they must additionally prove the ownership of property before 1918 with the government land registry.

When some 80 percent of Montenegrins are Serbian Orthodox Christians it means that this law in practice is a law for their faith. And when other religious micro-communities have distinct and special treaties with the state that protects them from its property stipulations, it becomes a discriminatory law against the property of the Church.

Land ownership in the Balkans – with its complexities of history and long-shifting borders – should be open to contestation. But in any modern country property disputes should and are heard in courtrooms. In Montenegro, under the new law, they shall instead be decided by the government land registry itself, with no right to appeal their decision in the courts. They have been appointed auditor, judge, jury and executor of all ownership disputes for religious property.

These are holy places of Christian worship, monasteries, hostels for the homeless, and farms that feed many hundreds of families each and every day through soup kitchens. They are buildings that fund university scholarships for young Montenegrins, sanctuary for the destitute and spiritual nourishment.

Those of faith and those in need cannot afford not to have their Church unable to support them. Yet with this law, those property are under threat, and the resources that the Church uses for good is in danger of being diverted to fend off fictitious land ownership claims.

Hundreds of protests were held by Christians nationwide between January and March 2020 across Montenegro after the law passed requiring Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups – and their assets – to have state registration. Here, thousands gather before the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, Podgorica, early March 2020. | Courtesy of Bishop Joanikije

Many faithful Christians in Montenegro fear this will occur. That is why, before the coronavirus lockdown, they came out onto the streets across the country to protest this wrongful law. Sixty thousand alone marched in the capital Podgorica – some ten percent of the entire population – gathered in a single mass demonstration, calling for its recall.

The government has reacted by claiming the Church is a foreign influence in the country, its priests and leaders not of Montenegro. Because we are called the Serbian Orthodox Church this can unfortunately be made to sound credible in the parliaments of Europe and the corridors of the US Congress. Yet we have had the same name across the Balkans for eight hundred years.

No one would suggest that the Roman Catholic Church is Roman, nor its priests and parishioners anything but local to the many countries where Catholicism is practiced. It is no different with our Church: our vicars, monks and worshipers are as equally loyal to their country of citizenship as they are subjects to their faith.

Reverend Radovic realized this, and his reaction to his brutal assault before his own church was the act of a man of God. When the culprits were found, he asked for charges not to be brought. He begged instead for forgiveness from his assailants, and for them to show the same grace through a donation to his parish. When they could not afford to do so, he gave them the donation himself – and they duly gave it to the church.

We wish only for peace and to continue to serve the people. We have no interest in politics. We believe that government should have no interest in religion. As in Luke 23:34 we forgive them, for they do not know what they do. And we pray that they turn back, and recall this unnecessary law.

How China Uses Intimidation, Negotiation to Bring Christians Under Its Control

War on Christianity - in China. It must be bad for CBC to report on it.

Crackdowns on Protestants, deals with the Vatican

part of realities for the religious

Saša Petricic · CBC News

Protestant Christians gather for prayer at Holy Love house church in Beijing. They have had to change their

schedule and their meeting places to avoid China’s crackdown on 'illegal gatherings.' (Saša Petricic/CBC)

The officials at the gate were expecting us — a dozen guards with armbands marked "local safety committee". The door has always been open on our other visits. This time, they seemed determined not to let a CBC reporter into the Beijing apartment building.

"For security reasons, no foreigner," said the man in charge. "No cameras. It's closed," he said.

That is, until our host arrived to argue with the guards.

"Why are you wearing the local committee badge?" Pastor Xu Yonghai asked the guard. "You're with the national security agency." The order to stop us from seeing him came from higher up, he suggested.

Fastest-growing Christian movement in the world

The pastor escorted us up to his apartment. With a cross on one wall and a row of Bibles on a bookshelf, his one-room home doubles as a church once a week.

Pastor Xu Yonghai, centre, leads a weekly sermon in his small apartment, which doubles as the Holy Love church in Beijing. (Saša Petricic/CBC)

There are thousands of these so-called house churches in China, a way for the fastest-growing Christian movement in the world to remain low-key and try to avoid a clampdown from government officials.

China's constitution guarantees religious freedom, but since President Xi Jinping took office six years ago the government has tightened restrictions on churches it cannot control. Religion is seen as a challenge to the Communist Party's power, especially now that Christians likely outnumber the party's 82 million members.

A recent poll determined there were about 31 million Christians in China. However, those are only the ones who were willing to admit it. The real number may well be several times that. So it is understandable that the government is concerned. It is the nature of Communism to be paranoid. Most Communist countries have believed that Christianity is a western plot to overthrow communism.

"The political pressure on us is growing," Xu said, over tea at his kitchen table. "The room for free belief has shrunk."

Like the pastor, many of his 30 or so parishioners at the Holy Love house church consider themselves dissidents, fiercely opposed to the government's attempts to restrict religious movements in China. And like the pastor, most of them have served time in jail for their protests.

He's convinced his phone is tapped and worse is yet to come.

"Just like you were obstructed today, police have stopped our people from attending the service," Xu said. "We had to move our meetings from Fridays to another day, and we frequently change locations."

Violent and aggressive raids

Religious groups have long played this kind of cat and mouse with Chinese authorities, but in recent weeks Beijing has asserted control. 

Protestants have seen churches closed and their crosses torn down under new laws. 

Catholics have seen a controversial agreement between China and the Vatican, with Beijing apparently formalizing its power over church leaders.

In China's southern Christian heartland, dozens of house churches have been raided, sometimes "violently and aggressively", said Pastor Zhang Chunlei from Guizhou province.

He said police removed crosses and other religious material from his church in the city of Guiyang and told him the gatherings are illegal.

"We never accepted that law," said Zhang. "To attend the prayer session is a right bestowed onto us by God."

"The authorities are very powerful," he said. "We cannot confront them, but we will find other ways to pray."

Protestant churches in southern China have had crosses removed over the past two months. On the left, a man

yells in protest at crews removing a cross from a church in Xingyang, Henan province, in September.

On the right, a cross being removed from a church in Zhejiang province, in October. (Names withheld by request)

One of the country's largest unofficial churches, Beijing's Zion Protestant church, was recently ordered shut after city authorities said it didn't have permission for "mass gatherings" or to distribute "illegal promotional material."

Cranes removing crosses

The Zion church had for years operated with relative freedom, hosting hundreds of worshippers every weekend in a large, specially renovated hall in north Beijing. But in April, it rejected official demands that it install surveillance cameras inside. The order to close came soon after.

"I fear that there is no way for us to resolve this issue with the authorities," Zion's pastor, Jin Mingri, said.

His followers received a notice from the local religious affairs bureau. Believers, it said, "must respect the rules and regulations and attend events in legally registered places of religious activity."

Even government-sanctioned churches have been ordered to reduce their visible presence. Cranes have shown up at many to remove the large red crosses from rooftops, as parishioners pray, sing hymns and watch.

In one video circulated on China's internet, a man is shown yelling at workers dismantling a cross in Xingyang, Henan province, in September. "Religious people are not bad people," he shouted. "Why are you treating us like this? You will be punished."

Cutting deals with the Vatican

Beijing has taken a different approach with the country's 10 to 12 million Catholics: negotiations with the Vatican.

Last month it came to terms with the Holy See, ending a 67-year dispute over who has the final say in choosing Chinese bishops. Since 1951, Beijing has insisted it has to approve them, while the church maintained the ultimate decision is up to the pope.

Pope Francis declared the agreement a "new phase" in his relationship with the Communist leadership, "which helps to heal the wounds of the past and maintain the full communion of all Chinese Catholics."

For decades the split forced the country's Catholics to choose between worship in state-sanctioned churches — under Beijing's control — or going to underground services with clergy loyal to the Vatican.

Pope Francis, pictured in April greeting Chinese Catholics at the Vatican, hopes a new agreement with Beijing

will 'heal the wounds of the past.' (Gregorio Borgia, File/Associated Press)

Details of the new agreement have not been made public, but observers in Rome say it will likely allow Beijing to vet a pool of potential candidates for bishops, leaving the Pope to choose among them.

'The churches will still be torn down'

Pope Francis has asked Chinese Catholics to support the Vatican's co-operation with Beijing, but given the Communist Party's opposition to religion — and its history of persecuting church leaders and followers who don't toe the line — the deal has been controversial.

The head of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong, Bishop Michael Yeung, called the agreement a betrayal that won't protect religious rights.

The deal "could not stop the suppression," he said. "The churches will still be torn down.… The young folks will not be allowed to go to church."

He worries priests who run afoul of the government will continue to be punished. "There will still be times when they are made to disappear," Yeung said.

On a recent Sunday at Beijing's Church of the Saviour, the service went ahead as usual. The choir sang, people prayed. The ornate church in the city's north end looks a lot like historic Catholic cathedrals the world over, but this one is run under the supervision of Chinese authorities.

And the talk on this Sunday was about potential changes for China's Catholics. Many parishioners didn't want their names used or their views published. A few did.

St. Joseph’s Wangfujing Catholic Church in central Beijing is one of several government-authorized Catholic churches in China, where the authorities have been negotiating with the Vatican for more control over religion. (Saša Petricic/CBC)

"I really don't want the church to have too much contact with politics," said university student Liu Haotian, but he said he hopes the deal will guarantee the rights of Catholics to pray.

Han Yu, a 37-year-old travel company manager, was hesitant. "For us Catholics, there will be some loss, regrets and even some feelings of helplessness," she said. But in the long term in China, "there may be more people who will be able to become Christians."

Those numbers of followers are growing quickly. But so is Beijing's determination to control which religious leaders they follow.