Tears and hymns as crosses toppled in China's Christian heartland

About a dozen Catholics wept and sang hymns outside their church as a man climbed to the top of the building and sliced off its steel cross with a cutting torch. It toppled with a thud.

“Aren’t you ashamed of what you have done?” a teary woman yelled at the more than 100 security guards, who along with police and government workers kept the parishioners of Lower Dafei Catholic Church from protecting the symbol of their faith. The guards, who stood with shields and batons in the sun for nearly two hours, looked indifferent.

“Doesn’t the government give us the right to religious freedom? Why are they taking down our symbol without any explanation?” another parishioner said hours earlier, as government workers arrived to build the scaffolding to reach the cross.

“We have violated no law. We do not oppose the government,” said the parishioner, who gave his name only as Chen for fear of reprisal from authorities. “We’ve been good, law-abiding citizens.”

Authorities in Zhejiang province are believed to be under a two-month deadline to remove crosses from the spires, vaults, roofs and wall arches of the 4,000 or so churches that dot the landscape of in this economically thriving region.

In a rare move, even the mainland’s semi-official Christian associations – which are supposed to ensure the ruling Communist Party’s control over Protestant and Catholic groups – have denounced the campaign as unconstitutional and humiliating. They have warned that it could risk turning the faithful into enemies of the party.

The campaign is believed to be the will of President and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, whose administration has launched the most severe crackdown in decades on social forces that might challenge the monopoly of the party’s rule.