Absurd anti-Catholic claim in China merits Tertullian's satirical response

The website of the Society of St Pius X has a useful news service which often picks up stories that do not feature elsewhere. Today this story caught my eye: " China: Catholics Accused of Spreading the Coronavirus ". The WeChat and Weibo messaging services have a novel conspiracy theory, that the new wave of Covid-19 is the fault of the Catholic faithful being gathered together by "foreign priests" in the Hebei province. The SSPX article quotes AsiaNews, a widely respected source from The Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, originally in Italian, which has had an English and Chinese edition since 2003. Their article " Hebei, Christians labelled ‘spreaders’. The return of Nero " has more detail. The reference to Nero recalls how he set fire to Rome and then blamed the Christians. Perhaps even more relevant is the exasperated satire of Tertullian in his Apologeticum (c.40). It fits quite well. For those who read Latin, it would be wrong to negle