Christianity’s growth in China has stalled since 2010.
That’s according to a new Pew Research Centre report measuring religion in China published today. In 2010, approximately 23.2 million adults in China self-identified as Christian. In 2018, 19.9 million adults did so, which Pew researchers say is not a “statistically significant gap.”
Among Chinese Christians, the percentages of zongjiao (Mandarin for “organized religion”) activity have also stagnated. Nearly 40 percent (38%) of Christians said they engaged in such activities once a week in 2010, but that figure dipped slightly to 35 percent in 2018.
“Some scholars have relied on a mix of fieldwork studies, claims by religious organizations, journalists’ observations and government statistics to suggest that China is experiencing a surge of religion and is perhaps even on a path to having a Christian majority by 2050,” the Pew report stated.

Cardinal Anders Arborelius, who has led the small Catholic community in Sweden since 1998, came to Washington, D.C., alongside Bishop Karin Johannesson, an assistant bishop in the Lutheran Archdiocese of Uppsala.
The two prelates, who share a devotion to Carmelite spirituality, took part in an ecumenical dialogue on the 19th-century St. Thérèse of Lisieux, held at the St. John Paul II National Shrine.
In separate NCR interviews after the event, Arborelius and Johannesson expressed hope that their collaboration might be a sign for how Christians of different denominations can work together. They also spoke about their expectations for Pope Francis’ upcoming Synod of Bishops, which will hold its first assembly in Rome next month.
“The synodal process is very exciting and an important development for the Catholic Church,” said Johannesson. Arborelius said he hoped the assembly would “help people to a more profound encounter with Christ and to follow him more faithfully and serve those in need.”
Following are NCR’s interviews with Arborelius and Johannesson, presented together and lightly edited for length and context.
Many Catholics are anticipating the first session of the Synod of Bishops in Rome this October. Cardinal, can you describe a bit what it has been like for the Swedish Catholic Church to prepare for the synod? Bishop, how has the Lutheran community in Sweden experienced the synod?
Are there items that either of you personally hope the synod might discuss?
Card. Arborelius: Evangelization in a post-Christian world is a most urgent subject. To help people to a more profound encounter with Christ and to follow him more faithfully and serve those in need.
Bp Johannesson: The synodal process is very exciting and an important development for the Catholic Church. The synod’s working document is very interesting, and I can recognize many issues that are common for all our churches. I really hope that the synod will take time to discuss how a synodal church can fulfill her mission through a renewed ecumenical commitment. We have so much in common and we have to cooperate for the mission of the church today. I also hope that the theology about “the priesthood of all believers” that is not unknown in Catholic theology but very dear for us Lutherans can be used in the synodal process.

In the latest expression of Ukrainian irritation with Pope Francis’s efforts to be even-handed with regard to Russia’s ongoing invasion, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has accused the pontiff of trafficking in “imperialist propaganda” during a recent video address to Russian youth.
The Vatican fired back , insisting that the pope “certainly did not intend to exalt imperalistic logic.”
The pope spoke to a gathering of Catholic youth in St. Petersburg on Aug. 25. When the Vatican released a transcript of his comments the next day, they focused on his call to the Russian youth to be “artisans of peace.”
There was, however, a section not included in the transcript and largely ignored in most news reports, including the Vatican’s own official media platforms. The comments were released later by the Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow and in a video from a church-run television agency.
In that section of his talk, Francis called on the youth not to “forget your identity.”
“You are heirs of the great Russia, the great Russia of the saints, of kings, the great Russia of Peter the Great, of Catherine II, that great, enlightened Russian empire, of so much culture, so much humanity,” the pope said.

At Pope Francis’s Mass in Ulaanbaatar on September 3 Sunday afternoon, which was attended by nearly 200 people from mainland China, one young Catholic from the mainland said life for the Church in his country is extremely difficult and asked that the pope help “save” them.
Speaking to Crux in broken English, the young man, named Li, said that if he had the chance to say something to Pope Francis, his message would be, “Pope, please save our Chinese (Church)!”
“Here (in Mongolia) everyone has no fear, they are not controlled. We have a Church in China, but if there’s a church you see around, it works for the government,” he said, saying there are still many Catholics in China who belong to the so-called “underground” Church, despite the pope’s efforts to heal the divide with a controversial 2018 agreement on the appointment of bishops.
Li said his family comes from Inner Mongolia, a northern region in China that borders Mongolia, and that he and his family have business in Mongolia, so it was easier for them to travel to attend the papal events.
Pope Francis is currently closing a four-day visit to Mongolia, the first a pope has ever made to the country, where Catholics number fewer than 1,500, one of the Church’s smallest flocks.

The archbishop of Berlin has released an official statement permitting priests under his jurisdiction to administer blessings to same-sex couples, emphasizing that his directive aligns with the intentions of Pope Francis.
Quoting Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia in a letter dated Aug. 21, Abp. Heiner Koch notes that “it is no longer possible to say that all who are in any so-called irregular situation are in a state of mortal sin and have lost sanctifying grace.”
“Pope Francis emphatically calls for pastoral discernment,” Koch writes. While rejecting “the legal equality of same-sex partnerships with marriage,” Francis “gives the local churches, the pastors, a lot of leeway in dealing with people in so-called ‘irregular’ situations.”
Koch also cites Amoris Laetitia §297 on inclusion: “It’s about including everyone; you have to help everyone to find their own way, to participate in ecclesial communion so that he may feel himself a recipient of an undeserved, unconditional and unrequited mercy.”
Further, the senior prelate notes that the prefect-designate of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Abp. Víctor Manuel Fernández, has expressed an “openness” to reflecting on same-sex blessings provided they are not confused with the sacrament of marriage.
“What Pope Francis says about the sacrament of the Eucharist in his 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium applies to all sacraments, including marriage, and even more so to a sacramental such as blessing: ‘It is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,’” Koch stresses.
“Blessing, therefore, does not have the meaning of ‘legitimize, approve, bless,’” the prelate insists. “As the blessed, we all remain guilty people who need the edifying grace of God for our path in life.”