detained a Roman Catholic priest after saying a secret Christmas Mass, a leading religious rights group said Wednesday, February 12.
The U.S.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation said 37-year-old Reverend Dong Yingmu was captured on his way to celebrate Christmas Mass in December, but that his imprisonment has just come to light.
Foundation President Joseph Kung, said the priest was picked up in Baoding, a city in the central province of Hubei with a reportedly large underground church, apparently in the week of December 23, although he did not know the date, news reports said.
"He had finished one secret Mass and was on his way to conduct another when the police detained him," The Associated Press (AP) news agency quoted Kung as saying by telephone from Stamford, Conn.
UNDERGROUND CHURCHES
China allows only state-monitored worship, and underground Catholics are frequently arrested and harassed, church watchers say.
Vatican officials say over 50 underground Chinese Catholic bishops or priests have been detained or live under house arrest or police surveillance.
Kung said "numerous detentions" of underground priests have been reported in Baoding, where the underground Catholic church has reportedly as many as 100,000 members.
COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT
The city’s underground Catholic bishop and auxiliary bishop have not been seen since police detained them in 1997 and 1996, respectively, according to the foundation.
The communist government ordered Catholics to break ties with the Vatican in 1951 as the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which runs government-authorized Catholic churches, doesn’t recognize papal authority.
Despite these difficulties, the ‘unofficial’ Catholic church is believed to have 12 million followers, compared with some 4 million for China’s officially sanctioned church, AP reported.
DISSIDENT DETAINED
News about the detention came shortly after 55-year old democracy activist Wang Bingzhang, a Chinese citizen with residency status in America, was sentenced Monday, February 10, to life in prison on what his friends say are false charges of spying for Taiwan between 1982 and 1990 and setting up a terrorist network.
The Government has denied it violates freedom of religion and expression of political opinions.
