The Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976, was a horrible tragedy in China. The normal operation of the nation was seriously damaged and the people"s daily lives were not se- cure. The communist Party and the government"s policies were criticized harshly. During those years, the Party and the government"s official departments and offices that dealt with re- ligious affairs were closed and religious sites either sealed or used for other purposes. Religious activities were stopped. After1978, the Party and the government tried to restore religious ac-
tivities and rebuild the churches, as well as in other areas in the nation where church buildings had previously been destroyed. The Party and the State Council issued a series of documents reaffirming religious freedom in China and disbursed a great sum of money to renovate the destroyed temples and churches in or- der for the people to have places to worship. They also rehabili- tated religious people who had been persecuted and mistreated during the Cultural Revolution. On July 16th 1980, the State Council passed a joint document "Report on the Actualization of the Religious Policy on Religious Real Estate‘, which was sub-mitted by the State Religious Affairs Bureau and the State Basic Construction committee, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance, and State Department of City Construction, in which, they requested the restoration of ownership of all the religious buildings back to the respective religion, with compensation where such return was not possible.
The reopening of the Catholic Church was rather early. In1973, when China was still in the midst of the Cultural Revolu- tion, Premier Zhou Enlai allowed to the reopening of Nantang, located at Xuanwumen, for diplomatic relations‘ purposes. This was the only church where Mass could be celebrated in China. Most of churches were allowed to be reopened after 1979. On the Feast of the Assumption in 1980, there were solemn Masses at Nantang in Beijing and Xujiahui Church in Shanghai. The Catholic Church in China Magazine reported that about 3,000
Catholics attended the Mass at Nantang, among whom over 800 went to confession and 1,200 received Holy communion. In Shanghai, though the church was still under renovation, there were more than 3,000 Catholics attending Mass. In the same year, Xikai Church in Tianjin finished its renovation before Christmas and resumed its normal religious activities, many other churches were also restored before Christmas, such as Hohhotin Inner Mongolia, Shenyang in Liaoning, Jinan in Shandong, Wuhan in Hubei and Chengdu in Sichuan. All these churches were occupied by either local government units or turned into residences during the Cultural Revolution.
In the 1990s, most of the Catholic Church"s real estate was returned with the help of the local governments and church ac- tivities resumed as before. In order to meet the increasing needs of the Catholic Church, many dioceses nationwide had to ex- pand their space. Certainly, some places received financial help from the local governments and others raised their own money to build churches. For instance, Liu He Cun in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, where the church was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, was rebuilt in 1985. The new Gothic style church cost 300,000 Yuan raised by the local Catholics. This church is54 meters long and 22 meters wide with a capacity of 4,000 worshipers. Shenzhen in Guangdong Province was a small vil- lage for fishermen before the economic reforms turned it into a modern city. There was no Catholic church there before, but Saint Anthony"s Church was under construction at the time of writing. This church covers 4,000 square meters, including offices, guesthouses, convent, rectory and an underground parting lot. The whole project cost more than 17,800,000 Yuan of which thegovernment provided a subsidy of 1,000,000 Yuan and localCatholics raised the rest.
According to an incomplete statistics, by the year 2000, there were about 5,600 churches that had either been reopened or re- built. In the last 20-odd years, one church was reopened or un- dergoing rebuilding each day on average. In Shanghai alone, 108 churches were reopened, and the number of Catholics rose from three to five million, with 70,000 baptisms annually. There are more than 60 convents with 3,000 professed and 1,000 novi- tiates. Some three million bibles and other religious books have been published.
