So did China really ban Bibles?

[kskiska]

Source: The Guardian

Beijing denied a story about an Olympic Bible ban spread by the rightwing media but it was actually a Catholic news service that shut it down

The story had everything going for it. It was outrageous. It was emotionally laden. It involved suppression of religion by godless communists. The flurry of attention in the comments section of rightwing political and religious websites was instantaneous. The problem was that it wasn't true.

A recent editorial in the conservative New York Sun kicked off the fuss by citing a report from the Catholic News Service asserting that the Chinese government would bar athletes from bringing Bibles to the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games. Pajamas Media, home of many a rightwing blog, followed up with a report, also citing CNS, and adding the strange cavil "if true".

Actually, the report, citing an Italian sports newspaper as a source, seems to have come from the Catholic News Agency, a totally different operation with a traditional religious outlook, one that features the text of the Pope's Sunday Angelus prayer and a "saint of the day." It was never carried by the Catholic News Service.

Then the Catholic News Service did something remarkable, using its nearly-new website, CNS News Hub. It strongly and convincingly denied ever running such a story and gave the dubious credit to CNA and the Italian paper, then went on to say in detail that there was no substance to the story about a Bible ban.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2209868,00.html

[troubleinwinter]

1. I've visited China. They don't "ban bibles", have many Christian churches. They ban PROSELYTIZING.

Anyone can attend their chosen church... Catholic or whatever. Proselytizing is not permitted.

[kurth]

2. Anyone who has ever visited Shanghai or Beijing will tell you that

Chinese customs is a joke. As long as you're not carrying a busload of luggage, go to the "Nothing to Declare" gate and they just waive you through. Besides, the customs form says nothing about the Bible.