by Katie Scanlon
Chinese officials have told Christians living in poverty to replace religious images in their homes with portraits of Chinese President Xi Jinping or lose government assistance, according to the
South China Morning Post.
The report says Communist Party officials told Christians in Yugan county, a rural, impoverished area in southeast China, to remove religious artifacts from their living rooms and hang portraits of Xi in their place.
The order comes as part of a program described as
an anti-poverty effort that also seeks to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party.”
The report notes that the order “hearkens back to the era of the personality cult” surrounding the late Communist dictator Mao Zedong, whose portraits were once universally displayed in Chinese homes.
Qi Yan, chairman of the Huangjinbu people’s Congress and the person responsible for the township’s poverty-relief efforts, said said the campaign has been in effect since March and villagers have used it “voluntarily.”
“Many poor households have plunged into poverty because of illness in the family. Some resorted to believing in Jesus to cure their illnesses,” Qi said. “But we tried to tell them that getting ill is a physical thing and that the people who can really help them are the Communist Party and General Secretary Xi.”
“Many rural people are ignorant. They think God is their savior,” he continued. “After our cadres’ work, they’ll realize their mistakes and think: we should no longer rely on Jesus, but on the party for help.”
He said officials have distributed more than 1,000 portraits of Xi, all of which have been hung in residents’ homes.
Qi said religious artifacts may still be hung in other areas of the home.
“We only asked them to take down [religious] posters in the center of the home,” he said. “They can still hang them in other rooms, we won’t interfere with that. What we require is for them not to forget about the party’s kindness at the center of their living rooms.”
BIZARRE! is the first reaction I had to the story...But it led Fr. Lucie-Smith to wonder aloud as follows:
Why is the Vatican still negotiating
with China’s sinister Orwellian state?
by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith
posted Friday, 17 Nov 2017
Xi Jinping, in having crosses replaced with portraits of himself, is possibly more egotistical than the Sun King ever was.
It seems clear that Mr Xi, the leader of Communist China, is now the most important such leader since Chairman Mao, the Great Helmsman himself. The signs are hard to read for us Westerners, but we have been told that Mr Xi’s “thought” has now been incorporated into the constitution of the Chinese Communist party, which puts him up there with Mao, Marx and Engels.
What does this mean in practical terms? It means that Xi is firmly ensconced in power, and will perhaps not be resigning after an agreed fixed term as previously thought. Xi is there for the long haul.
In the past, Chinese leaders were unveiled after each party congress – quite literally, they stood on a stage and a curtain was drawn back. This has happened again, but tellingly without a new leader-in-waiting. In other words, Xi is a fixture, for the moment.
At this point we should perhaps recall what has happened to all authoritarian rulers of the past who saw themselves as enduring. The Thousand Year Reich barely made it past its 13th birthday, etc, etc. The People’s Republic of China was proclaimed on October 1, 1949. It has been going for less than 70 years, and may have a few years left in it under the current regime, but it will not be eternal. After all, not even Mugabe went on forever.
All this has ramifications from the religious point of view. As this magazine has reported, Mr Xi’s officials have been paying poor Christians in rural China to remove their crosses and replace them with portraits of Mr Xi.
This reminds us that Mr Xi is a totalitarian, who can brook no rivals, and who cannot tolerate the thought that people might worship someone who is not Mr Xi. He is possibly more egotistical that the Sun King himself ever was. [I can easily think of someone who is more egotistical than the two of them put together and compounded with interest!]
It is a reminder, if one were necessary (which it should not be), that Communism with Chinese characteristics is simply not reconcilable with Christianity, or indeed any religious belief. Let us not forget the Chinese government’s persecution of the Falun Gong movement and its Muslim population too. But we do not really need to be reminded of this, because Cardinal Zen, who knows this better than anyone, has told us repeatedly that it is so.
We should be grateful that Mr Xi is having crosses removed and replaced with pictures of himself. It is also good to know that his officials tell us that Christians have “recognised their mistakes and decided not to entrust to Jesus but to the (Communist) Party”.
In addition we have the news that hotlines have been set up so children can denounce their own parents for anti-state activities.
All of this should banish the temptation to wishful thinking and reminds us that China is Orwellian in its approach to religion, personal freedom and the cult of the state and the great leader.
Given that this is so, why on earth is the Vatican still negotiating with them? [WHY INDEED? For the ultimate prize of a papal [ego] trip to Beijing? Which can only mean at this point that the ego at Casa Santa Marta capitulates somehow to the ego in Tienanmen.]