China pakt ondergrondse Kerk aan
geplaatst: donderdag, 2 april 2009, 15.30 uur

China pakt de ondergrondse katholieken de laatste dagen keihard aan. De vervolging hangt samen met gesprekken ten Vaticane die tot meer eenheid moeten leiden met de gelovigen van de Chinees Patriottische Vereniging, de ‘officiële’, staatsgecontroleerde Kerk.

Volgens AsiaNews worden in de provincie Hebei, waar de grootste concentratie katholieke woont, zelfs eenvoudige kerkgangers vervolgd. Enkele dagen geleden is de 55-jarige priester Paul Ma uit Dung Lü, samen met enkele kerkgangers opgepakt omdat hij de Heilige Mis opdroeg. Voor zijn gezondheid wordt gevreesd vanwege het zwakke hart van de priester.

De politie is extra alert omdat rond deze tijd mgr. Joseph Fan Xueyan wordt herdacht, de bisschop van Baoding die in 1992 door de politie werd vermoord. Gelovigen bezoeken sindsdien op zijn sterfdag zijn graf en organiseren gebedsbijeenkomsten rond de als martelaar vereerde bisschop.

Na tientallen jaren concentratiekamp werd mgr. Fan begin 1992 opnieuw gearresteerd. Op 13 april meldde de politie zijn dood door hem in een plastic zak voor de deur van familieleden af te leveren. Zijn lichaam vertoonde sporen van marteling.

Van twee andere ondergrondse bisschoppen, die in 1996 en 2001 werden gearresteerd, ontbreekt ieder spoor. Het gaat om mgr. James Su Zhimin (75) en mgr. Cosma Shi Enxiang (86). Bisschop Su werd in 2003 in een ziekenhuis gezien waar hij werd behandeld voor hart- en oogproblemen en is sindsdien spoorloos verdwenen. Mgr. Shi, gewijd in 1982, werd in 2001 gearresteerd na al eerder dertig jaar in gevangenissen te hebben doorgebracht. Sindsdien ontbreekt ieder spoor.

Volgens bronnen zouden enkele tientallen andere bisschoppen en priesters van de ondergrondse Kerk in gevangenissen verblijven of dwangarbeid doen. De bisschoppen zouden vooral in isolatie worden gehouden.

Ook de clerici van de Chinees Patriottische Vereniging staan onder zware druk, omdat velen niets liever willen dan aansluiting bij Rome. De meeste officiële bisschoppen zouden heimelijk in communio met de paus verkeren. De afgelopen maanden zijn verschillende door de regering goedgekeurde bisschoppen gedwongen op ‘cursus’ gestuurd over de religieuze politiek van de communistische partij.

Sommige bisschoppen, zoals die van Beijing, zijn gedwongen de Chinees Patriottische Vereniging openlijk te prijzen en de “Vaticaanse bemoeienis” af te keuren.

Sinds paus Benedictus XVI in 2007 een brief schreef aan de Chinese katholieken vindt op allerlei niveaus verzoening en heimelijke samenwerking plaats.

De nieuwe golf van vervolging heeft als doel dit proces van verzoening in de kiem te smoren. (KN)

http://www.kerknet.be/actua/nieuws_detail.php?nieuwsID=85004

CHINA ARRESTEERT OPNIEUW KATHOLIEKE BISSCHOP

Bron: KerkNetBRUSSEL (KerkNet/Asianews/Kipa-Apic) – Mgr. Julius Jia Zhigou, de ondergrondse bisschop van Zhending, is op 30 maart in de Chinese provincie Hebei aangehouden en naar een onbekende bestemming overgebracht. De arrestatie vond plaats vlak voor het Chinaoverleg van het Vaticaan en kort nadat deze bisschop zich verzoende met de patriottische bisschop Jang Taoran van Shijiazhuang. Die laatste stemde er recent op vraag van het Vaticaan mee in om hulpbisschop te worden van de enkel door Rome erkende bisschop Jia Zhigou, die al verschillende jaren onder huisarrest staat. De arrestatie van Zhigou wordt daarom als waarschuwing aan het Vaticaan beschouwd. Volgens verschillende bronnen loopt in de provincie Hebei, een regio met een groot aantal christenen, een campagne tegen ondergrondse Kerken. Daarbij werd pas ook de 55-jarige Paul Ma, een priester met hartproblemen uit Dung Li, aangehouden. Asianews meldt dat er ook nog steeds geen nieuws is over de katholieke bisschoppen James Su Zhimin (75) en mgr. Cosma Shi Enxiang (86), die respectievelijk in 1996 en in april 2001 werden aangehouden en daarna naar een onbekende bestemming overgebracht.

http://new.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14864&size=A

Persecution in China as Vatican meeting on China opens
by Bernardo Cervellera

An underground priest is arrested in Hebei for celebrating Mass. Controls are tightened ahead of the anniversary of the death of Mgr Joseph Fan Xueyan, killed under torture in 1992. Like him many underground bishops and priests have disappeared or ended up in camps. Official bishops are also under pressure to submit to the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. The Commission for the Catholic Church in China begins a meeting today in the vatican.

Rome (AsiaNews) – The Commission for the Catholic Church in China began its second meeting today in the Vatican. In the meantime in China believers and members of the underground Church are subjected to ever more repression with several bishops and priests under arrest and tighter controls on state-controlled Churches
Sources told AsiaNews that the squeeze is on underground communities in Hebei province near Beijing (home to the highest concentration of Catholics in the country), including on people who meet just to celebrate Mass.

In fact a few days ago, 55-year-old Fr Paul Ma, a priest in Dung Lü, was arrested for celebrating the Eucharist with a few underground parishioners.
Members of his congregation are concerned about his fate because he has heart condition and is not likely to get treatment whilst in detention.
Controls and arrests are up because of the coming anniversary of the death of Mgr Joseph Fan Xueyan, bishop of Baoding, who was killed by police in 1992. The faithful traditionally visit his grave and organise prayers in memory of the martyr.

After decades in concentration camps, Bishop Fan was seized by police in early 1992. On 13 April of that year police reported him dead, his body showing torture marks, left at night stuffed in a plastic bag on the front door of relatives.

Sources told AsiaNews that two other bishops from the underground Church have been missing for a number of years lost somewhere in police custody with nothing known about their fate.
The first one is Mgr James Su Zhimin (diocese of Baoding, Hebei), 75, who was arrested in 1996. Nothing was known about him until November 2003 when he was spotted in a police-controlled hospital in Baoding, undergoing treatment for heart and eye problems, only to vanish a few days later.

The second clergyman is Mgr Cosma Shi Enxiang (diocese of Yixian, Hebei), 86, who was arrested on 13 April 2001, never to be heard of again. Ordained in 1982 Monsignor Shi had spent 30 years in prison. Arrested in December 1990 and released in 1993, he was forced to live in isolation until his latest arrest.
According to the aforementioned sources, tens of underground priests are also languishing in prison and forced labour camps. Tens of other underground bishops are being held in isolation as well.
The official Church is also not free from repression, tight controls and hardships. In recent months government-approved bishops have been forced to undergo weeks, sometimes months, of political sessions that focus on the importance of the Communist Party’s religious policy.

Some bishops, like that of Beijing, have been forced to publicly praise the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) and criticise “Vatican interference” in the internal affairs of China.
Of late pressures have increased because almost all official bishops are secretly in communion with the Holy See and many are working with their underground counterpart, much to the annoyance of the authorities who are not pleased with the reconciliation between the underground and official Church by a “foreign power,” i.e. the Pope.
Since Benedict XVI released a Letter to Chinese Catholics in June 2007 acts of reconciliation between the two branches of the Church in China have occurred, with the effect of marginalising the CPCA, the Communist party agency that controls the Church.

The wave of harassment underway is thus meant to break this new found unity.
For the purpose the CPCA has organised nation-wide meetings ahead of the election of its new chairman as well as that of the Council of Chinese Bishops (a body like a normal Catholic Bishops’ Conference but without the Vatican seal of approval).

Both positions are vacant. CPCA chairman Michael Fu Tieshan, who was elected in 1998, passed away in 2007. Mgr Joseph Liu Yuanren, patriotic bishop of Nanking who was elected chairman of the Council of Bishops in 2004, has been dead since 2005.
In the making for several months, a National Congress of Catholic Representatives is supposed to fill the two vacant positions. If it has not taken place yet it is because many official bishops do not want to participate.

Cardinal Zen, in a message to Chinese bishops released last December, asked them to boycott the meeting, to honour their communion with the Pope, who in his 2007 Letter said that Catholic doctrine and CPCA ideals and policies are “irreconcilable”.
The commission that meets today in the Vatican till Thursday includes some 30 people, superiors and members of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See and of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples as well as representatives of the Chinese episcopate like Card Joseph Zen of Hong Kong, his coadjutor Mgr John Tong Hon, Mgr Jose Lai Hung-seng of Macao, Mgr John Hung Shan-chuan of Taipei and Mgr Bosco Lin Chi-nan of Tainan (Taiwan).
The meeting, which was announced in the Osservatore Romano, will also include discussions “on important and current religious questions.”

http://new.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14870&size=A

Police arrest underground Zhengding bishop Jia Zhiguo
by Bernardo Cervellera

He was taken from his home by 5 police officers. For weeks, he had been under surveillance 24 hours a day, to prevent him from meeting with the official bishop, with whom he had reconciled on instructions from the Vatican. A blow to the Holy See's strategy of unifying the Chinese Church, while the meeting of the Plenary Commission on the Church in China continues at the Vatican. Bishop Jia Zhiguo was also taunted by the police.

Rome (AsiaNews) - Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo, the underground bishop of Zhengding (Hebei), was arrested yesterday by police and taken away to an undisclosed location. The arrest took place in conjunction with the meeting at the Vatican of the Plenary Commission on the Church in China.

Yesterday afternoon at four o'clock (local time), 5 police officers and two vehicles appeared outside the bishop's home and took him to an undisclosed location. Bishop Jia, 74, suffers from various disturbances because of past imprisonments and his age, and the faithful of the diocese are concerned that this new arrest could endanger his life.
For years, Jia has endured arrest and isolation by the police, who have kept him away from his community for months. During these periods, the police have tried to indoctrinate him on the religious policies of the Party, and to force him to join the Patriotic Association (PA).

This time, the motives are even more serious, and strike at the heart of the Vatican's attempts to reconcile the official and underground Church in Hebei, the region with the highest concentration of Catholics.
Months ago, Jang Taoran, the bishop of Shijiazhuang (Hebei), the diocese of the official Church in the area, reconciled with the Holy See, and agreed - at instructions from the Vatican - to work with Bishop Jia Zhiguo, becoming his auxiliary bishop. Bishop Jia would become, instead, the ordinary bishop of the diocese, while remaining in the underground Church and without the recognition of the government.
The two bishops have met frequently, and have begun to construct a common pastoral plan. But as soon as the Patriotic Association became aware of these signs of reconciliation, it required the bishops to stop meeting together, and put them under police surveillance 24 hours a day. According to some local sources, the police told Bishop Jia Zhiguo that "this unity [editor's note: between the two bishops] is bad because it is desired by a foreign power like the Vatican. If there must be unity, it must come through the government and the PA." When Bishop Jia resisted joining the PA, the police began to laugh at the bishop, saying that the government will put another bishop in his place, and that for him "it is time to retire, since he is sick."

The meeting of the Vatican Commission on the Church in China, which will continue until tomorrow, was intended to address the issues involved in the implementation of the pope's letter to Chinese Catholics, which was published in June of 2007. In it, Benedict XVI had urged the official Church and the underground Church to foster reconciliation, and had called the ideals and the structure of the Patriotic Association "incompatible" with the Catholic faith, because it intends to create a national Church independent from the Holy See.