Security forces in China have detained a bishop in the country's non-government-controlled Roman Catholic church, a U.S.-based monitoring group said Friday.
Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo was in a church in Wuqiu, a village near his home in the northern city of Zhengding, when he was taken away by government agents Wednesday, according to a statement from the Connecticut-based Cardinal Kung Foundation.
The report said Jia is believed to be in detention in Shijiazhuang, a nearby city.
Religious monitoring groups have said that Jia has been repeatedly detained over his refusal to accept government demands to affiliate himself with the Communist Party-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association, which rejects Vatican authority over issues such as the naming of bishops.
Jia's Zhengding diocese, about 240 kilometers (150 miles) southwest of Beijing, lies in Hebei province, a traditional stronghold of Catholic sentiment in northern China. A number of priests in the province have been detained, some for years.
China cut off ties with the Vatican shortly after the 1949 Communist takeover of power, and relations between them remain strained. China says it has about 4 million Catholics, but monitoring groups say the real figure may be double that.
Jia, 69, was ordained a bishop in 1980 and has been imprisoned for a total of about 20 years, according to religious monitoring groups.