By Catholic News Service
HONG KONG — Authorities in northern China have arrested a Vatican-appointed Catholic bishop, his seven priests and 10 seminarians in what is seen as part of a renewed crackdown on the underground Catholic Church in the communist country.
Ucanews.com reported police arrested 63-year-old Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu of Xinxiang May 21, a day after they detained the priests and seminarians for allegedly violating the country’s new regulations on religious affairs.
Chinese authorities have not recognized Xinxiang Diocese ever since the Vatican erected it in 1946 during the civil war leading to the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949.
Bishop Zhang, appointed by the Vatican, was ordained secretly in 1991. His appointment by the Vatican was not approved by the state-aligned Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, ucanews.com reported.
China implemented a new set of rules for religious clergy that took effect this May. It asks all clergy to register with the state in order to serve Catholics while asking Catholics to elect their bishops democratically.
In 2018, China and the Vatican signed a two-year provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops; the Vatican said the aim was to unify the Catholic Church. The agreement was renewed in 2020.
At the time the agreement was signed, Pope Francis regularized the situation of seven bishops who had been ordained without Vatican approval. No mention was made of the situation of so-called underground bishops, those who refused to register with the Chinese government.
After the provisional agreement was signed in 2018, Anthony Lam Sui-ki, a senior researcher at the Holy Spirit Study Centre of Hong Kong, suggested a transition period was needed for Catholics from underground communities so that they can adapt to the new environment.
Lam, who said he did not know details of the agreement, pointed out that now-retired Pope Benedict XVI once described the underground church community in China as an unusual phenomenon, and now Pope Francis would ask underground communities “to surface” after a proper arrangement is made by the Chinese government.
