HONG KONG (UCAN): The illicitly ordained Bishop Joseph Guo Jincai of Chengde, has taken charge of what is claimed to be the biggest cathedral in northern China, which is part of a 70 million yuan (86.2 million) complex that also includes a convent and a residence.
 
Construction of the 15,000-square-metre complex was mostly paid for by the Hebei Provincial Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Hebei Catholic Administration Commission. Less than half of the amount was collected by Bishop Guo, an unnamed source said 
 

HONG KONG (UCAN): A statue St. John Wu Wenyin, a martyr, was removed from a Catholic church in Hebei province as Chinese authorities continued their clampdown on religious freedom.
 
The statue of St. John Wu Wenyin was unveiled at Dongertou Catholic Church, Yongnian parish, Handan Diocese, on May 3, but a source said that authorities asked the church to remove it after the ceremony “stirring up a commotion on the internet.”
 

HONG KONG (UCAN): The Hebei-based Faith Weekly, has been ordered not to report any news about Marian pilgrimages in May across the China. This has raised concerns that Hebei will join Henan as the targets of the Communist Party’s recent religious crackdown.
 
Webmasters in other dioceses said that they had submitted articles on local or inter-provincial pilgrimages to Faith Weekly but none had been published.
 

Hong Kong (SE): In early May, the Vatican News website began publishing a series of articles to give insights on the criteria and reasons guiding the Holy See in its contacts with the Chinese government. The first of these, a two-part commentary is written by Sergio Centofanti and Jesuit Father Bernd Hagenkord.

HONG KONG (UCAN): The recent crackdown on various Catholic and Protestant communities was the result of more than two years of organisation and preparation at provincial, city and county level through the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) increasingly powerful United Front Work Department, according to Ying Fuk-tsang, a professor and director of the divinity school at Chung Chi College, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
 

HONG KONG (UCAN): A talk given by Bishop Joseph Gan Junqiu of Guangzhou, at the ninth Fu Jen Academia Catholica International Conference was flagged for not reflecting the truth about religious repression on the mainland.
 
Bishop Gan spoke about contemporary Catholic theological education and cultural construction in China at the conference, hosted by Taiwan Fu Jen Catholic University from May 4 to 5.
 

Ying Fuk-tsang
 
From 2014 to 2016, the Chinese Communist Party conducted a systematic campaign of cross removals in Zhejiang province, the most populous Christian area of China in terms of the percentage of the population. The epicentre of Christianity there is the city of Wenzhou, known as the Jerusalem of the East.