"It would be helpful if the Secretary of State would speak out and say that the agreement does not call for priests and bishops in China to join the Patriotic Association," he said. "The only kind of pressure that the People's Republic of China responds to is external pressure. They deal with internal pressure by setting up reeducation camps and filling them with dissidents."
In China's Xinjiang region, between 800,000 to 2 million Uyghur Muslims have been detained and sent to "re-education camps," where they have been subjected to abuse and political indoctrination.
Chinese authorities in the region use high-tech surveillance with facial recognition and an app tracking its user's location to intensely monitor the Uyghur ethnoreligious minority, a technological model that the Chinese could apply to expand to other parts of the country in the future.
Christian churches throughout China have been equipped with 24-hour CCTV surveillance. Beijing's largest Protestant church was forced to close last September after its pastor refused a government order to allow face-recognition cameras to be installed on his pulpit.
Mosher told CNA that he is particularly alarmed by how China's social credit score system is being used to limit Christians educational and employment opportunities and other social benefits, including the ability to travel.
"Being a believer is a big hit to your social credit score ... If your social credit score gets too low then you can't get a passport, you can't get an exit visa, you can't buy a plane ticket," he said.
A Chinese citizen can boost their social credit score by earning points on the Chinese Communist Party's app, Study the Great Nation – the most downloaded app in China.
The app, developed by the CCP's Propaganda Department, includes news and speeches by Xi and socialist theories with daily quizzes on the information. User data is kept by the Propaganda Department.
"They are saying to the 94 million members of the Chinese Communist Party: You cannot be a believer in anything, but the party. You need to download your Study Xi Strong China app on your phone. You need to do your half an hour of homework everyday. You need to answer the questions correctly in order to stay a party member in good standing," Mosher explained.
However, Mosher says he finds hope in the fact that there may be more Christians today in China than there are members of the Chinese Communist Party. Open Doors estimates that there could be more than 97 million Christians in the country.
Mosher stressed that Catholics around the world need to remember to pray for the Chinese people.
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"The battle goes on not just in the natural, but in the supernatural all the time. It never hurts to say more prayers, and they certainly need our prayers," he said.
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.