Chinese Bishops? WTF?

[alex_antonin]

On The Colbert Report, Steven Colbert reported that the Chinese branch of the Catholic Church elected two new bishops without approval from the Pope.

Now, think about that for a moment... and, if you don't know much about China, then listen to me and you'll learn why I'm going "WTF?" over this:

China is a communist country. Communist countries, like China, have forsaken religion. Religions are actually ILLEGAL in China. Even Falun Gong, which is not a religion by any stretch of the imagination, is getting flak from the Chinese government (which is putting it likely). So when I heard this about a Chinese branch of the Catholic Church, I was like "WHAT THE FUCK???" because I would think that China would have hunted down all the Catholics in their borders and had them executed, or whatever they do to people practicing religion over there.

And so now, I am unsure if this is a real story now or not. I'm thinking that it must be real, but I'm not sure how it can be. Anyone know anything about this?

Comments

[consortofvenus.livejournal.com]

Is the Chinese Catholic branch in Taiwan? Taiwan is Chinese but an independant nation. And it's more free.

[alex-antonin.livejournal.com]

I would think they'd have said Taiwanese, in that case. Yeah, it's the true government of China, but it has become it's own country. Famous for it's, uh... prostitutes.

[consortofvenus.livejournal.com]

I'll visit Taiwan after Amsterdam.

But I know there's debate about whether or not to consider Taiwan as part of China or not.

[alex-antonin.livejournal.com]

LOL! Well, you probably won't want to go to Taiwan for the prostitutes, mate... they arrest people for going to the kind of prostitutes I'm talking about.

[consortofvenus.livejournal.com]

Oh well. I can get close enough to that in Canada legally.

[alex-antonin.livejournal.com]

Um... I don't think so, mate. I'm talking about child prostitutes.

[consortofvenus.livejournal.com]

Ha, I got that. But I mean the AOC is 14 here :P

[alex-antonin.livejournal.com]

Really? Is that out of marriage or in it? Because I know that some states here in the USA have an AOC as low as 12, but in those cases you have to be married to the younger person for it to apply.

[consortofvenus.livejournal.com]

I think you have to be under 25 to do a 14 year old.

Hey!

[alex-antonin.livejournal.com]

Hey, a thought just occurred to me, then... my sister is of legal age in Canada.

[consortofvenus.livejournal.com]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-vatican5may05,0,4572973.story?coll=la-home-world

[alex-antonin.livejournal.com]

And here I thought communist countries were all atheist.

[(Anonymous)]

The current Chinese Communist government discourages rival religions, but does not forbid them entirely. IIRC, they have a licensing board to try to keep the preachers under the Party's thumb, ban unlicensed church meetings, and have both a nominally-Catholic approved sect sans Pope and a collection of illegal unlicensed 'house churches' that probably include more traditional Papist Catholics.

Also, it's not 'Even Falun Gong'. It's ESPECIALLY Falun Gong that the government of China hates. Why, I don't know exactly, but I suspect the FG were teaching that their own rules were higher priority than those of the Party.

They apparently were much more aggressive in suppressing religion immediately after the revolution, under Mao and his henchpeople.

[alex-antonin.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. Thanks for the information, wise stranger.