Difficulties for believers have increased as the new 2018 Regulations on Religious Affairs limit many religious activities to registered sites and introduce further restrictions.(1) On 21st March 2018 oversight of religious affairs was transferred from the State Administration of Religious Affairs to the United Front Work Department, an agency of the Chinese Communist Party.(2) There are fears that China’s new “social credit system” – designed to reward good citizenship and punish bad – will be used to discriminate against Christians.(3) Education is used as a tool of social conditioning: in some regions pupils were reportedly required to sign a statement saying they will “promote atheism, and oppose belief in God”.(4) In other areas problems continue. Christian clergy are still subject to arbitrary arrest(5) and building regulations are increasingly used as a pretext for church demolitions. Despite the September 2018 agreement between the Vatican and China, the Catholic Church’s status continues to be complex: two underground bishops were formally replaced by bishops from the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association; and even after the agreement, state agents destroyed Marian shrines in Shanxi and Guizhou.(6)
PHILIPPINES
The killing of 22 Sunday Massgoers and the maiming
