By our own correspondent
21 Decembre 2015 - Due to many obvious language and historical reasons for the majority of the Salesians around the world is not easy to be familiar with the present situation of Catholic Church and Christianity in China.
First of all the recommended reading might be the 2007 Letter of Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated persons and Lay faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China . Since 2007 May 24 was chosen as the Day of prayers for Catholics in China.
Also last May 24, 2015 Pope Francis invited us: ‘May we, too, ask Mary to help Catholics in China to be ever more credible witnesses of this merciful love in the midst of their people, and to live spiritually united to the rock of Peter on which the Church is built.’
After World War II, about 4 million Chinese were members of the Roman Catholic Church. This was less than one percent of the population but numbers increased dramatically. In 1949, there existed: 20 archdioceses, 85 dioceses, 39 apostolic prefectures with 3080 missionaries and 2557 Chinese priests.
At present according the estimate-statistics there is between 2-4% of the PRC population that declares a kind of belonging to Christian Churches. According the 2013 statistics there are 12 million of Catholic believers in PRC, 6 million belonging to the registered (official) community and 6 million belonging to the non-registered (unofficial) community: 116 dioceses, 114 bishops, 3650 priests, 20 major seminaries with 983 seminarians and 10 minor seminaries (500 students), 5000 religious sisters and 40 novitiates.
The communion of prayers and support of the Catholic in China starts from our interest and knowledge. Interestingly there is an increasing volume of Catholic news agencies that report daily about the ordinary life of the faithful in the most populous country in the world. However there are some valuable sources of Catholic news regarding China Church in English accessible on the internet every day:
ASIA NEWS: run by PIME (Pontifical Institute for the Foreign Missions) of Milan, accessible on
UCAN: by The Union of Catholic Asian News is the leading independent Catholic news source in Asia.
FIDES NEWS: information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927 accessible on
CHINA ZENTRUM: information about the Christianity and Catholic Church in China, run by the SVD center in St. Agustin (Bonn, Germany)
Religions and Christianity in Today’s China: quarterly online magazine and recent September 2015 issue is available on the BOSCOLINK.
TRIPOD: by The Holy Spirit Study Center, and current news are available on the HSSC website (Hong Kong)
The Year of Mercy can be a good opportunity to keep the Catholic Church in China in our hearts!
Opening of the Year of Mercy in Hebei province.
