China to Ban Catholics from Olympics?

[snopes]

Comment: "China to ban Catholics from Olympics" is a headline seen all
over the Web these days. For example, see:
http://cafetheology.org/2007/06/01/c...from-olympics/

The story goes that China's Ministry of Public Security included
"Catholics" on a list of those to be barred from attending the Olympics.

To me, something smells fishy about this.

I suspect that the Chinese Government will rigorously prevent native members of any likely protest group from attending the games or gathering publicly to 'embarass' the State. That would likely include members of any organized underground religion. I will bet they do not try to prevent foreign Catholics from attending or participating since doing so would create exactly the sort of international bad press that the internal ban would be designed to avoid.

Much as I hate to point this out because I do believe China is a disgrace on the human rights front, Atlanta did some similar window dressing by rounding up the homeless and basically interning them for the duration of the Olympics. I remember reading some, very embarassing for the promoters, reports when the press learned that special shelter areas had been set up and the police had rounded up vagrants and relocated them. Does anyone else recall this?

I wonder if they will let us even visit.

Note, I will find out very soon as I am in the process of getting a visa for China. There was no question on the visa application, "Are you a known Catholic or Catholic sympathizer?"

I'll keep folks posted.

My earlier post was slightly inaccurate. I can find no reference to internment of the homeless. There are many articles discussing police sweeps and attempts to force the homeless to leave, but apparently the Atlanta authorities left the homeless to find there own new locations and just concentrated on forcing them out of the game's area.

not an unbiased source but quoting an article in the Salt Lake City Paper

[Illuminatus]

Originally Posted by Penguin

Much as I hate to point this out because I do believe China is a disgrace on the human rights front, Atlanta did some similar window dressing by rounding up the homeless and basically interning them for the duration of the Olympics. I remember reading some, very embarassing for the promoters, reports when the press learned that special shelter areas had been set up and the police had rounded up vagrants and relocated them. Does anyone else recall this?

My mother once told me that they set up a 'volutary' tent city to house the homeless during the '84 LA Olympics. I was 3 at the time, so I didn't notice anything.

[ichabodius]

There was no question on the visa application, "Are you a known Catholic or Catholic sympathizer?"

Don't you have to answer that question to get a drivers license in Alabama?

[Algae]

Detroit threw a "party" for the homeless during Super Bowl XL. Mitch Albom was kind of appalled by this idea, since he felt that it just showed people they were only worthy of being thought about when the city wanted to hide them, so he founded a charity to help house the homeless the entire winter. It's since been successful enough to help house the homeless as well as provide community resources all year long.