And if you don't, they will make you stop.

As a private individual you can generally say whatever you want though. If you attract a large crowd, like a preacher, radio host, journalist etc, you might get in some shit

This is a Sunday mass in Beijing. One of six Catholic churches in Beijing. They have seven masses on Sunday: four in Chinese, one in Latin, one in English, one in Italian or Spanish. One Saturday mass in Chinese, and three daily masses each weekday: one Latin and two Chinese.

There's a twice a month German mass, and a Sunday French mass at other churches too

The Shunzhi Emperor actually attended mass there in the 17th century

Sunday masses at the church pictured have about 500 people each for English and Chinese. Most of the people at the English mass are Chinese also.

Another Catholic Church in Shanghai seats about 3,000.

That’s impressive.

So basically, your church is fine as long as you don’t criticize communism or the Chinese government?

Generally yes

As are most things there

ERCC also has a thing about ancient history, saying the ancient Chinese didn't worship God and are all going to hell

Official government version of history is that the ancient emperors and the people worshipped basically the same way as Abraham and the Jews prior to Moses

Which is basically accurate

As an example of how historical revisionism is handled there, if you say the atrocities of the 50s and 60s didn't happen, you can go to jail.

It's like you have to criticize the government in a specific instance, but you can't in others

So the church, to be more successful in China, needs to be more subtle and subversive then?

No

The Church in China should first be grateful it's not the Cultural Revolution or the Boxer Rebellion right now.

They need to acknowledge that for all its faults, the government in mainland China is the legitimate authority over China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau; there is no other.

Stirring the pot here not only pisses off the government, but also offends the sensibilities of hundreds of millions of Chinese Christians

The vast majority of the PLA are just trying to do their part and protect their people. They fight terrorism and piracy, but they also do a lot of disaster relief. All those mudslides, floods, earthquakes etc on TV, the PLA responds to all of those and saves lives. During the Tiananment incident, and this is something they don't tell you on ANY media, there were PLA units that opened fire on other soldiers, to protect civilians. And many more that simply refused to enter Beijing. Who has any right to say they are the antichrist or aren't legitimate?

Same for the police. If you Google "Chinese cops" or go to China, you will never see someone who has any authority to enforce political laws. They arrest people for murder, rape, robbery, burglary, pickpocketing, theft, fraud, drugs, etc. State Security officers are not uniformed and do not even tell their own families where they work; they're the ones who will arrest you for demonizing the party.

What right does anyone have to call them the antichrist?

Oh I wasn’t advocating calling Chinese people the antichrist.

What I meant is that the church needs to be more careful how they criticize the Chinese government. Assuming they don’t want to be thrown in jail.

No I know you aren't

They simply need to stop criticizing. These house churches are usually "My way is the only way to heaven"

Ah ok. So it’s the less doctrinally sound churches having trouble?

Yes and no. If an official church said something not politically correct they will be in trouble too. But instead of getting shut down, the priest will just lose his job most likely. You can't close a church that has 4,000 members.

Of course the church lead by a pedo commie pope would be allowed

General Kenobi!

It was all kinds of creepy

?

Wow the message disappeared

I'll retype later

Ah