The Vatican has issued a condemnation of Chinese authorities after a charismatic Catholic bishop was seized from his home outside Beijing and thrown into a secret detention center over the Holy Week.
Chinese Catholics will offer prayers today for the safety of Bishop Julius Jia, 68, whose orphanage cares for 100 handicapped children and those abandoned by their family because of birth defects or a gender prejudice against daughters.
The bishop's arrest last week is seen as a warning to his followers — estimated to number about 50,000 — in China, where the Roman Catholic Church operates underground as it is banned by Beijing.
"Once again, a member of the Catholic hierarchy has been deprived of his personal freedom without any judicial motives being provided," said Joaquan Navarro-Valls, director of the Vatican press office.
The bishop was taken from his home in the village of Wuqiu and subjected to a two-hour interrogation by officials from the State Security Bureau. Family members have not heard from him since, even though he had many plans for Holy Week services. Bureau officials could not be contacted to answer questions about his whereabouts.
Bishop Jia, who was consecrated in 1980, has spent a total of 20 years in prison and was released from his most recent spell in jail two years ago. Colleagues said they feared for his health because he suffers from back and knee problems.
"He was prepared for a very busy week, including celebrating Mass on Holy Thursday. I have talked to members of his close family who say they know nothing of his whereabouts since he was taken away," said Father Lawrence Lee, a Hong Kong-based Catholic priest.
"There was no reason given, but it was clearly a detention in view of Holy Week. It was an attempt to disrupt the liturgical tradition that the government refuses to recognize," he said.
Joseph Kung of the Stamford, Conn.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation, which monitors arrests in the underground church in China, said Chinese authorities appeared to be increasingly frustrated by the large number of worshippers attracted to Wuqiu.
"Bishop Jia has a strong following of volunteers helping him. They flock to his Masses and work in his orphanage," he said. "They give their time and help because of their admiration of Bishop Jia."
There are about 8 million Chinese Catholics, but they are divided between an official church controlled by Communist Party cadres and an underground movement that rejects state interference.
Though the Communist regime has struggled to quash the "foreign weed" of Roman Catholicism for more than 50 years, an estimated 5 million remain loyal to Rome.
Hundreds of ordinary members of the underground church are also held by the authorities and many more face constant harassment — frequently detained and presented with documents that declare their loyalty to the official church. The children of those who refuse to switch allegiance are denied state-funded schooling. Health care and other benefits are routinely withheld.
Last year, the Chinese leadership stepped up its efforts to force underground Catholics to join the official "Patriotic Catholic" church after breaking off preliminary talks on establishing formal relations with the Vatican. The Vatican remains one of the few states to recognize Taiwan instead of China, but claims it would switch ties if it was allowed a role in the Chinese church.
Including Bishop Jia, there are now six underground bishops in China who have "disappeared." The clergymen are almost always held in the country's network of gulag-like detention centers known as "logai" that exist outside the judicial process.
Pope John Paul II has named an anonymous Chinese bishop as a cardinal in pectore ("in my heart") in recognition of his underground followers. His name remains secret because of fears that he will be persecuted by the authorities.
The "official" bishop, Paul Jiang, lives in Shijiazhuang, a satellite city of Beijing. Bishop Jia was forced to set up his orphanage outside the city, but he still attracted a loyal following.