Betrayed and abandoned: why China’s underground Catholics feel like Jesus on Good Friday
A Sino-Vatican deal to end a long-standing dispute over bishops’ appointments could heal divisions, but for some the price to be paid is too high
The surveillance cameras pointing at the entrance of the humble three-storey building in eastern China are not enough to stop daily masses from being held at Father Matthew’s home.
The priest, who spent decades in jail on account of his faith, has no assistants and uses a dining table in lieu of a proper altar.
A picture of Jesus wearing the crown of thorns hangs on the wall, along with other religious paintings and statues, overlooking the congregation of 40 – mainly elderly – people.
They sit on stools and kneel on mats to pray and receive communion just as they have done for the last 30 years.
But soon this will all come to an end.
Father Matthew (not his real name) is planning to retire in silence after the “unorthodox” news broke in January that two underground bishops Zhuang Jianjian and Guo Xijin, both appointed by the Vatican, had been ordered by the Roman Catholic Church to make way for two bishops supported by the Communist authorities in defiance of the Church’s own long-standing teachings.
