VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Officials from the Chinese Communist Party have once again arrested a bishop of the underground church in the latest targeted arrest aimed at preventing him from celebrating the Holy Week liturgies.
According to AsiaNews, Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin was arrested on April 10, along with his aide Father Jiang Xu Nian. The pair were taken by officials from the National Security Bureau, and AsiaNews reports that their current location is unknown.
Shao’s latest arrest came last Thursday, meaning that he has been taken away from his underground church community for Holy Week and Easter.
This is par for the course for the bishop, whose arrests by the communist authorities are often timed so as to interfere with the liturgical celebrations of the Catholic Church’s year.
Shao has been taken away by the CCP authorities multiple times, due to his opposition to the state-approved church which does not recognize him.
The timing of his arrests has previously been described as “almost scientific,” as they “always occur on the eve of important periods in the life of the Catholic communities: Christmas, Easter, the Assumption, and now November, the month of prayer for the dead (in Chinese tradition, Qingming, the remembrance of the ancestors, is instead celebrated in spring),” commented AsiaNews in 2021.
Prior to last week, Shao’s last arrest was on March 7 when the Chinese police took him away and held him for a week for offering an “illegal” Mass in public. He was also given a fine of 200,00 Chinese yuan ($27,500 at the time) for holding a public Mass on December 27, which was to celebrate the opening of the Jubilee Year of 2025.
Shao leads the Diocese of Wenzhou as the underground bishop, meaning that he and his flock remain faithful to Rome and the Holy See rather than professing fidelity to the communist party ideals which are pushed through the state-approved church in China, known as the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
He was appointed coadjutor bishop in 2011, with a papal mandate. He was then made bishop of the diocese in 2016 following the death of Bishop Vincent Zhu Wei-Fang. Due to his status as an underground bishop, the Chinese authorities do not recognize Shao, and have thus appointed Father Ma Xianshi of the state-approved church to be in charge of the Wenzhou diocese.
Shao’s first abduction at the hands of the state took place in 2016, resulting in his not being able to attend the funeral of his predecessor.
In 2017, Shao was once more taken by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities and only released after seven months after a campaign of prayer and fasting among Chinese Catholics and the intervention of the German ambassador to China.
He has been previously arrested around eight times by CCP authorities.
Such targeting of the underground church comes against the backdrop of the Sino-Vatican deal, which was renewed for a four-year period last autumn.
It has led to a heightened increase in religious persecution since it was signed. The ink had barely dried on the deal in 2018 before AsiaNews reported that “(u)nderground Catholics bitterly suspect that the Vatican has abandoned them.”
Since then, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China has issued a number of reports outlining the continued persecution of the Church in China.
The arrangement is believed to have the Holy See recognize the state-approved church in China and allows the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to appoint bishops. The Pope apparently maintains veto power, although in practice it is the CCP that has control. It also allegedly allows for the removal of legitimate bishops to be replaced by CCP-approved bishops.
But numerous Catholic clergy and China experts have warned about the dangers of the deal and the impacts it will have. As highlighted by Hong Kong’s emeritus Cardinal Joseph Zen and AsiaNews, the deal is a “betrayal” of Chinese Catholics who have remained loyal to Rome and resisted the demands of Beijing to join the state-approved, communist-style church.
In October the Hudson Institute issued a report detailing the continued persecution and “religious repression” of 10 Catholic bishops in China – a persecution that has only “intensified since the 2018 China-Vatican agreement on the appointment of bishops.” “The Vatican wants us to forget 10 inconvenient bishops who reject the right of the CCP to tell them what to believe, think, or say,” Lord David Alton commented about the study.
Just weeks ago, China issued yet more laws governing the practice of religion which are due to take effect from May 1. They take particular aim at foreigners’ practice of religion while in China, in what appears to be an attempt to limit any outside influence and ensure the promotion of “Sinicization,” which is the state-imposed inculturation of religion to communist ideals.