Yet another Easter under arrest for Wenzhous' Bishop Shao

Again this year the bishop who refuses to join the Patriotic Association was taken away on the eve of Holy Week. Already at Christmas he was subjected to serious retaliation for having celebrated the opening of the Jubilee in the diocese of Zhejiang, where the Beijing authorities have put a priest ‘loyal’ to the Party in leadership.

Wenzhou (AsiaNews) - They've arrested him again this year. On the eve of Holy Week, in the Chinese province of Zhejiang, the arrest of Monsignor Peter Shao Zhumin, 61, underground bishop of Wenzhou, took place.

The prelate, together with his secretary Fr Jiang Xu Nian, were again taken away yesterday afternoon by the authorities of the Office for National Security and their whereabouts are unknown. This happened just over a month after the last similar episode on 7 March, when Bishop Shao was detained for a week.

The intention is always the same: to prevent the prelate from presiding over the upcoming solemn liturgical celebrations of Holy Week in Wenzhou where, in addition to Mons. Shao, numerous priests are refusing to register with the ‘official’ organisations of Chinese Catholics controlled by the Patriotic Association.

Even at Christmas the local authorities reacted harshly to the celebration with which Monsignor Shao had opened the Jubilee in the diocese of Wenzhou, in which 200 faithful took part. In recent years, plainclothes agents from the Office for Religious Affairs and the Office for National Security have often visited churches on Sundays and weekdays to investigate, prohibit unregistered priests from celebrating Mass and forbid children and teenagers from entering churches.

In 2007, Monsignor Shao was appointed by Benedict XVI as coadjutor bishop to succeed Monsignor Vincenzo Zhu Wei-Fang, who died in September 2016. Because he refused to join the Patriotic Association, the authorities consider the see to be ‘vacant’ and support Fr Ma Xianshi, a ‘patriotic’ priest, as the leader of the local Catholic community.