were detained by China’s feared security forces in a "mass arrest" a day earlier. The US-based Cardinal Kung Foundation, a Catholic Human rights group, said the priests of the Diocese of Zhengding were arrested Wednesday morning, April 27, in Wuqiu Village of Jinzhou city.
"These seven priests had traveled from their parishes for a religious retreat conducted by Bishop Jia Zhiguo who had just been released from [round-the-clock} surveillance" from "approximately March 30 to April 25 when Pope John Paul II was dying and the new Pope Benedict XVI was elected," the group said.
It identified the arrested priests as Wang Dingshan, 50, Li Qiang, 31, Liu Wenyuan, 35, from Gaocheng, Zhang Qingcai, 45, from Wuji County, Li Suchuan, 40, from Zhaoxian, Pei Zhenping, 43, from Luancheng and Yin Zhengsong, 32, from Dingzhou.
Chinese officials have not commented on the case. "It defies logic," said Joseph Kung, the President of the Cardinal Kung Foundation in a statement to BosNewsLife. "How could the Chinese government on one hand proclaim to Pope Benedict XVI and the world their willingness to improve the relationship between China and the Vatican, and on the other hand keep arresting the Pope’s priests? It is quite obvious that the desire expressed by the Chinese government to improve its relationship with the Vatican is less than sincere.”
News of the latest arrest came shortly after the organization claimed that another priest, Zhao KeXun, 75, was arrested last month as he traveled home after celebrating Mass in a private home in a nearby village. A Catholic laywoman traveling with the priest was reportedly also detained, but later released.
MORE PRIESTS DETAINED
33 priests in the 7 dioceses in the same province, Hebei, are known to be incarcerated on various charges, human rights watchers say. "This is an indisputable evidence of the Chinese government’s systematic effort in an attempt to crush and eradicate the Roman Catholic Church in China even as the Chinese government keeps contradicting itself by stating that its constitution guarantees religious freedom for its citizen," Joseph Kung added.
The Communist Chinese government requires Christians to worship only in state-controlled associations, including the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which eschews any connections to the Vatican or the Pope. However human rights groups say that many Catholics worship in illegal, "underground churches", following only bishops appointed by the Pope.
However church sources admit that many priests, laypeople and even bishops, are members of the official government sanctioned church in public, and of the underground Church, in secret.
NO ISOLATED INCIDENTS
Open Doors, another Christian group investigating the plight of persecuted Christians, suggested that the arrests of priests are not isolated incidents and that Christians of different backgrounds suffer. "Local Christians have reported intimidation, harassment and detention of believers. Several mass arrests took place in which hundreds of unregistered Christians were detained. A Christian woman was beaten to death in custody for handing out Christian tracts," in 2004 it said.
Analysts have linked a crackdown to concern among Communist authorities about the spread of Christianity in China. "China’s government increased control of religious activities, further restricting them," in 2004, said Open Doors. "Three internal directives were issued, aimed at the suppression of conversion of Communist Party members, the growth of religion and religious organizations across the country and the increase of religious activity on university campuses. The government wants Marxist atheism research propaganda and education to be further strengthened," it added.
The organization admitted that "the Christian church of China may not have as many martyrs as Colombia, face as many restrictions as their sisters in Sudan, or fight as many extremist mobs as their brothers in Indonesia." However it stressed that "the 60 [to] 80 million Christians in China remain the world’s largest single persecuted community today."
(With Stefan J. Bos, BosNewsLife Research and reports from China and United States)
