The Chinese Communist Party has appointed Shen Bin as new bishop of Shanghai without approval from the Vatican, in what is seen as a breach of a 2018 agreement on such appointments. Shen, previously the Bishop of Haimen, vowed to "carry forward the fine tradition of patriotism," referring to the forced sinicization of all religious faiths under Xi Jinping, supreme leader of the officially atheist party. A recent U.S. report said the treatment of religious groups, even those authorized by the state, has gone from “bad to worse” under Xi.
