China raises pressure on underground Catholics to join official church, Human Rights Watch finds

NEW YORK — 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 Vatican-China tensions with a deal giving the state-controlled church a say in naming bishops — a task traditionally exclusive to the pope.

Despite that deal, “Catholics in China face escalating repression that violates their religious freedoms,” said Yalkun Uluyol, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Pope Leo XIV should urgently review the agreement and press Beijing to end the persecution and intimidation of underground churches, clergy, and worshippers.”

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, didn’t immediately respond Wednesday when asked to comment on the report.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a query by The