Please tell me it isn’t true: that the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Conference didn’t really issue a statement supporting the government’s ban on “unregistered” religious clergy.

But alas it is true. The Catholic bishops, speaking through the leaders of a conference backed by the Beijing regime, said that it serves the “national and public interest” to suppress those clergy who are not backed by the regime: a group that would include the priests and bishops of the “underground” Catholic Church, who remain steadfastly loyal to the Holy See and will not accept the authority of the government over the Church.

The “underground” bishops aren’t members of that episcopal conference, of course. They’ve resigned, at the prompting of the Vatican, to satisfy Beijing’s demands, and/or they’re living under house arrest. And Vatican officials still tell us that the secret agreement with Beijing is working well.