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Chinese authorities are increasing pressure on underground Catholic communities to join the state-controlled official church while tightening surveillance and travel restrictions on all of China's estimated 12 million Catholics, a rights group said Wednesday.
The detailed report from Human Rights Watch said the heightened pressure was part of a decade-old campaign to ensure that religious denominations and independent churches are loyal to the officially atheist Communist Party.
China’s Catholics have been divided between an official, state-controlled church that didn’t recognize papal authority and an underground church that remained loyal to Rome through decades of persecution.
Pope Francis, in 2018, sought to ease Vatica...
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