Fifty years ago this month Chairman Mao launched the tidal wave of suffering known as the Cultural Revolution. His “May 16 Notification” declared war on the internal enemies of the Communist Party. The Chinese refer to the decade that followed as “the 10-year catastrophe”. Millions were killed as officials cracked down on the so-called Four Old Things: old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. Rarely has a culture so dramatically torn up its own roots as China did between 1966 and 1976. Religion, of course, was an “old thing” and therefore persecuted ferociously. According to the scholars Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer, “the Cultural Revolution produced the most thorough destruction of all forms of religious life in Chinese and, perhaps, human history”. For English Catholics, the all-out assault on the Church evokes the horrors of the Reformation. Paramilitaries ransacked churches, ripped out tabernacles, forced faithful to apostatise and buried priests alive. A few black-and-white photographs of the destruction exist today. One, taken outside Beijing’s South Church in 1966, shows grinning Red Guards smashing a life-sized figure of Christ crucified with sledgehammers. But the onslaught is not, on the whole, well documented. Official records from the period remain classified. Countless martyrs died in obscurity, their heroism known only to a few. The Cultural Revolution ought to grip the global Catholic imagination; yet so far it has failed to. Fifty years on, China no longer insists on conformity to “Mao Zedong Thought”, but Catholics do not enjoy full freedom. During a recent upsurge in persecution, officials demolished churches, tore down crosses and imprisoned anyone who dared to protest. Some Chinese Christians say the campaign is the worst since the Cultural Revolution. Yet the latest anti-religious drive is arguably a sign of weakness. For the first time, there are said to be more Christians than Communist Party members in China and the country has more practising Catholics than Italy. Last month Chinese clergy made a Year of Mercy pilgrimage to Rome. That would have been unthinkable 50 years ago. If recent Chinese history tells us anything, it is that the brutal repression of Christianity only makes the Church stronger, while undermining the state's legitimacy. We should mark the grim anniversary of the Cultural Revolution by learning more about the Chinese faithful, supporting them in prayer and helping them financially. Pope Francis often says that the future of the Church is in Asia. Perhaps before the century is out a Successor of Peter will come from the land of Chairman Mao.