China and the Pope

[Philip]

Will China's CP be allowed by the Pope to begin vetting RC Bishops? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... ong-bishop

[Katabole]

I doubt the Communist party would allow the Pope to vett and instead do it themselves. I believe they have their own version of Chinese Catholicism with a Pope appointed by the Communist party. Over the last few years, the CP have begun tearing down crosses and demolishing a number of churches because of the increase in the number of Chinese Christians. They are trying to control Christians, as they consider Christians a threat to the state and their hold on power.

I watched a documentary on China a few weeks ago, which gave an excellent and unbiased view of China's past, present and future. One of the points that was brought up is; as the West has waned and many of its people have moved away from Christianity, China has waxed and it has a wealthy middle class that finds itself looking for spiritual truth, that neither Capitalism or Communism can give. And many of the educated Chinese who seek their understanding of Chinese history from other than government propaganda booklets, realize that atheism has no answer, as they are well aware that Mao as a professed atheist, killed over 60 million of his own people during the 20th century. Neither are they turning to Confucism, which has historically, been the prominent Chinese religion. They are turning to Christianity in hordes! There are over 100 million Christians in China and they already outnumber Communist party members. In 20 years, they are projecting that China will have over 400 million Christians, making it the largest Christian nation on Earth.

And with such huge numbers, then Chinese Christians even though they do face persecution and as history has proven, they will eventually rebel against their Communist taskmasters and remove them from power, for in a Communist society, nothing can be greater than the state, which is why every Communist government in history has made Christianity illegal.

Back in the first century, no one living within the confines of the Roman Empire (except for some wise Christians), would have ever thought that Christianity would become the only legal belief system in the Empire, a couple of hundred years from that time. But that is exactly what happened.

Jesus Christ is and will always be, greater than the state. The Chinese are realizing that. And if they are fervently praying for Christ to change China and it is His will to do so, then it will happen. And that is very good news!