ICC Note: In this extended article UCANews reports on the tracking of Catholic evangelism across China and the challenges still faced today by the Church. Catholicism and Protestantism have been growing at an explosive rate across China for more than two decades, despite the continued persecution of both groups. As recently as Nov. 16th the pastor and 23 members of a Protestant congregation in Henan Province were arrested for unknown reasons. In addition a large number of Catholic priests remain in government detention, some in secret locations. 
11/29/2013 China (UCANews) – Liu Yunxiao may have visited more Chinese churches than anyone, and there’s little doubt no one has seen more of them in his home province of Shaanxi.
A stocky man with silvery hair, 65-year-old Liu has spent the past 30 years documenting Catholicism in this central province, often in mind-numbing detail.
In his self-published book on his home diocese Zhouzhi, Liu notes the priest’s house in Fujiazhuang village has a modest kitchen of 5.4 sq ms, one of hundreds of rooms which he has measured across the province.
“I rode around this diocese eight times by bicycle,” he says. Research on Zhouzhi diocese took six years, he adds.
While many of the documents piled up in Liu’s study are for diehard historians only, some contain perhaps the most detailed and accurate data we have on the Church in central China since the Communist Party allowed religion to make a comeback in the early 1980s.
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In September 2006, government officials detained Wu Qinjing, an illicitly ordained bishop in Xian, reportedly striking him as they forced him into a vehicle. Six days later a hospital diagnosed him with a concussion. The following March, the bishop was reportedly sent to government reform through education for three days, enforced indoctrination which the Communist Party recently promised to abolish.
Bishop Wu has still not been approved by the Party-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association, which has three of its staff placed at offices within the compound of Xian Cathedral. The bishop remains unable to travel outside of Xian without the express permission of authorities, meaning he cannot reach Catholics in Zhouzhi diocese, however many there may be.
Liu’s research showed just over 55,000 in Zhouzhi in 2008, while the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) said the number was much lower when it published its latest figures a year later.
A social scientist in Xian who studies religion in Shaanxi and declined to be named says that the manner in which SARA compiles figures on the number of Catholics is not only inaccurate, it inherently encourages prejudiced behavior against the faithful – of all religions.
Local cadres are asked how many Catholics live in their area and these numbers are sent back to Beijing, passing through the various stages of county-level and provincial authority.
“Usually the numbers are too low, sometimes they are actually higher, but mostly they are lower,” says the social scientist.
With religion still viewed as an alien threat to the party and state, local Chinese cadres have an automatic predisposition to play down the numbers with higher-ups and, in turn, justify and maintain their validity.
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