Catholics from nearby villages pray and chant in Bobei Catholic Church in Guangdong province, China. (Yan Cong for The Washington Post)

In this occasional series, The Washington Post brings you up to speed on some of the biggest international stories. This week: 

A Catholic bishop and his rural Chinese parish worry about a deal between Beijing and the Vatican

 The bishop can’t really talk about religion right now.

His unofficial church is caught in a fight over the future of the Roman Catholic faith in China, a struggle for control between the Vatican and the Communist Party that will determine the fate of the country's estimated 10 million Catholics and shape the legacy of Pope Francis.

Bishop Zhuang Jianjian, 88, under watch and already in trouble, knows it is not safe to speak out. But he can still deliver a sermon.

For decades, the Vatican and the Communist Party have been at odds over Catholicism in China, particularly on the question of who appoints clergy — the Holy See or Beijing. Vatican-appointed bishops like Zhuang operate underground, which means they are often under surveillance and are never totally safe. The government-backed Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association chooses leaders for churches of its own.

Read the full story by Emily Ruahala in Luotianba, China.


Villagers farm on their small piece of land in Guangdong province, China. (Yan Cong for The Washington Post)

Five other important stories:

1. Britain’s expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats marks a return to Cold War ejections

Prime Minister Theresa May announced Wednesday that her government will expel 23 Russian diplomats from Britain. It will be the biggest expulsion of Russian diplomats from the country since 1985, marking a return to the large-scale diplomatic ejections that took place during the Cold War, according to Adam Taylor.

On March 14, British Prime Minister Theresa May announced her country would expel 23 Russian diplomats in retaliation for the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. (The Washington Post)

2. Perhaps tired of winning, the United States falls in world happiness rankings — again

For the second consecutive year, the United States has taken a tumble in the World Happiness Report’s annual ranking of more than 150 countries, which is published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a United Nations initiative.

The United States ranked 18th — down four spots from a year ago — marking America’s worst showing since the annual report was introduced in 2012. Finland is No. 1, edging out Norway, the 2017 World Happiness Report champion. Denmark was third, followed by Iceland and Switzerland.

Read Alex Horton's full story.

3. Student walkouts have changed history before. In South Africa, one helped end apartheid.

On June 16, 1976, more than 10,000 black high school students in Soweto, South Africa, marched out of school. They were protesting the apartheid government's mandate that they study in Afrikaans, the language of their oppressors. Defying a law that banned “liberation protests” in a country where blacks were forced to live in segregated townships, denied the right to vote and subjected to an inferior “Bantu” education, the students marched to a sports stadium, singing songs and waving signs that read, “Afrikaans must be abolished,” explains DeNeen L. Brown.

4. Why India’s modern women say it’s a ‘burden’ to be female

In interviews held in colleges, coffee shops and shopping malls in the Indian cities of New Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, sociologist Deep Narayan sought to delve into the “inner lives” of urban women. Her work revealed that India's young, educated, modern women still encounter widespread gender inequality and often internalize conservative attitudes toward women's social roles.

Women, even those who said they were feminists, often used words such as “mother,” “sacrifice” or “giving” to describe themselves, Narayan found, while men often described themselves as a “leader” or “powerful.”

The story, by Vidhi Doshi in New Delhi.


Indian women take part in a protest against rape during International Women's Day in New Delhi on March 8. (Shutterstock)

5. In China, a reporter’s dramatic eye-roll went viral. Then searches of it were censored.

The reporter's question was a softball, the sort of long-winded but unchallenging interrogation that we’ve come to expect at the endless news conferences during the annual meeting of China’s National People’s Congress. The reaction of a fellow reporter, dressed in blue: a frown, a disdainful look across to see who was speaking, a dramatic eye-roll and turn of the head.

On Tuesday, the eye-roll went viral on China’s Internet, with close-up clips widely shared on WeChat, the most popular messaging service in the country. By late afternoon, the name of the reporter in blue, identified as Liang Xiangyi of Yicai Media, a financial news service, was trending as one of the most-searched items on Sina Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. That is, until searches were blocked by censors, according to freeweibo.com, a website that monitors censored items on Chinese social media.

Read the full story.

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