International Christian Concern | Feb. 19, 2019
On Feb. 12, the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) and the Ministry of Civil Affairs jointly announced that personnel of all religious venues should apply for legal person status from April 1.
A Catholic named Paul from the official church told UCA News his concerns about such legal move.
“The authorities have previously threatened the underground church to register but there was no official notice yet. Now the notice is issued, they have grounds to do that as the legal person system will be used to threaten underground priests to join the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association; otherwise, you will be defined to be illegal. It would be possible to eliminate the underground church,” he said.