ROME — Catholic League president Bill Donohue has decried the global growth in Christian persecution, while singling out China and Nicaragua in particular for their aggressive assault on the Catholic Church.
Communist and Muslim-run nations are the “worst offenders,” Dr. Donohue observed in Tuesday’s essay, but as examples of totalitarianism, “what is currently happening in China and Nicaragua commands our immediate attention.”
China’s persecution is particularly insidious, Donohue notes, because it pays lip service to religious freedom while enforcing strict ideological conformity with the platform of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Just this month, China launched a “Smart Religion” app that requires the faithful to register with the government every time they wish to attend services and surveillance is “ubiquitous,” Donohue adds.
President Xi Jinping has instituted a policy of “Sinicization,” mandating assimilation under the communist party’s rule and all preaching and prayers are monitored to ensure their allegiance to Maoist socialism.
In his essay, Donohue goes on to note China’s decision to target the 91-year-old former bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen, to flex its political muscle by charging Zen with “colluding with foreign powers.” Similarly, Jimmy Lai, a Christian businessman, was sentenced to jail time last year for “challenging the increasingly tyrannical rule,” Donohue writes.
Meanwhile in Nicaragua, communist dictator Daniel Ortega has been ramping up his repression of the Catholic Church, arresting priests, banning the papal nuncio, exiling missionaries, and shuttering Catholic universities and radio stations.
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Particularly egregious was the arrest and conviction of Matagalpa Bishop Rolando Álvarez on charges of treason and undermining the regime. Last month, Álvarez was sentenced to 26 years in prison and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship.
“Religion and the family stand in the way of totalitarian rule, and that is why they must be crushed,” Donohue contends. “China and Nicaragua are nervous about Christianity, and Catholicism, in particular, because they divert allegiance of the people away from the government.”
FILE – Monsignor Rolando Alvarez, bishop of Matagalpa, attends a press conference regarding the Roman Catholic Church’s agreeing to act as “mediator and witness” in a national dialogue between members of civil society and the government in Managua, Nicaragua, May 3, 2018. Earlier this month Nicaragua shuttered seven radio stations belonging to the Catholic Church and launched an investigation into Alvarez, accusing him of inciting violent actors “to carry out acts of hate against the population.” (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)
Donohue concludes by arguing that such totalitarian oppression deserves “the strongest possible rebuke from every nation-state,” including the Vatican.
While Pope Francis eventually took a hard stance against Nicaragua, comparing its dictatorship with that of Stalin and Hitler, he has taken a much softer stance against China, to the consternation and deep disappointment of the faithful.