China arrests underground Catholic priests-group

Reuters, July 5, 2003
http://famulus.msnbc.com/

BEIJING, July 5 — Five members of the underground Roman Catholic clergy have been arrested in northern China while trying to visit a priest recently released from a labour camp, a U.S.-based religious rights group said.

Priests Kang Fuliang, Chen Guozhen, Pang Guangzhao, Joseph Yin and deacon Wang Lijun, aged 25 to 32, were arrested in Baoding city in Hebei province on July 1, the Stamford-Connecticut based Cardinal Fung Foundation said.        

They were on their way to visit Lu Genjun, an underground priest who had just been released after three years in a labour camp, the foundation said in a statement seen on Saturday.        

It gave no further details. Police in Baoding, about 100 km south of the capital Beijing, could not be reached for comment.        

It said another priest, Lu Xiaozhou, was arrested in the eastern city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province on June 16 as he was preparing to perform the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.        

Communist China officially endorses religious freedom but only recognises the authority of state-approved churches, which host about five million Catholic worshippers. It severed relations with the Vatican five decades ago.        

”The Beijing government continues to declare that its constitution guarantees human rights and religious freedom,” foundation president Joseph Kung was quoted as saying.        

”Yet these arrests of Catholic clergy continue only 70 miles from the capital of the Beijing government, which can no longer avoid its responsibility by blaming it on over-enthusiastic local officials,” Kung said.      

The Vatican estimates eight million Catholics loyal to the Holy See worship in underground churches.      

Rights groups say China uses anti-cult laws stemming from its battle against the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement to crack down on Christians and Muslims worshipping outside state-approved organisations.

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