Beijing, China - Seven priests of China's underground Roman Catholic Church have been detained for attending an unauthorized retreat following the election of the new pope, a U.S.-based monitoring group said Thursday.
The priests were detained early Wednesday at the retreat led by Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo in China's northern city of Jinzhou, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said in a statement.
China allows worship only in state-supervised churches that reject Vatican authority over their operations. Leaders of the underground church, which remains loyal to the pope and has several million followers, are routinely arrested and harassed.
The government said it hoped for better relations with the Vatican following the death of Pope John Paul II but demanded that church leaders break relations with rival Taiwan and avoid interference in China's affairs -- a possible reference to the appointment of priests and bishops.
"It is quite obvious that the desire expressed by the Chinese government to improve its relationship with the Vatican is less than sincere," the president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation, Joseph Kung, said in the statement.
The government had warned Jia not to conduct any religious activities as John Paul lay on his deathbed and while the new Pope Benedict XVI was being installed, the foundation said. It said he was under police surveillance for most of the past month.
Religious groups say 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.
The priests detained Wednesday were identified as Wang Dingshan, Li Qiang, Liu Wenyuan, Zhang Qingcai, Li Suchuan, Pei Zhenping and Yin Zhengsong.