With 10 Catholic bishops in China in detention, “disappeared” or forced from their positions, the government-installed bishop of Shanghai at a conference this month spoke only on President Xi Jinping’s “Sinicization” of religion, without mentioning hoped-for pastoral plans.
Shen Bin, installed as bishop of Shanghai by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on April 4, 2023 – more than three months before Pope Francis officially “appointed” him to the post – did not mention the prior month’s Vatican Synod or the resulting papal documents, Catholics at the Nov. 4-6 conference on Sinicization told human rights magazine Bitter Winter.
“On the contrary, he focused on ‘Sinicization,’ which as it is now clear does not mean adapting religion to Chinese customs but to the CCP’s ideology,” Bitter Winter reported. “An optimist could object that Bishop Shen Bin did not explicitly tell Shanghai Catholics ‘not’ to listen to the pope’s teachings, which oppose the CCP’s ideas on key matters such as abortion and the role of religion in society. But for a bishop ignoring the pope and his documents in such solemn events is tantamount to rejecting them.”
The conference encouraged clergy to study and disseminate to church members documents of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CCP Central Committee and Xi’s dictates on Sinicization of religion, which include putting his ideology at the center of all activities and preaching, according to Bitter Winter.
At the conference, Shen Bin also spoke on the need for stricter cooperation with the United Front Work Department, which controls and supervises “official” religion in China.
When the CCP appointed Shen Bin on April 4, 2023, the Vatican reported that the Holy See had learned of it – from media reports – only on the morning it happened. On July 15, 2023, the Vatican then announced the pope had appointed Shen Bin as bishop of Shanghai.
“The Vatican stated it had ‘rectified a canonical irregularity’ for ‘the greater good of the diocese,” Bitter Winter reported.
According to a 2018 Vatican-China agreement, bishops are selected by the CCP but should be officially appointed by the Vatican.
“However, Shen Bin was installed as bishop of Shanghai without Vatican appointment,” Bitter Winter reported.
Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, wrote in the National Review in October that the government installation of Shen Bin violated the 2018 agreement. She noted that he had replaced Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, who has been detained at a seminary since 2012.
Ma Daqin in turn had replaced Joseph Xing Wenzhi, who had served as bishop for six years before he went missing in 2011.
“Last year, in a tacit acknowledgment that he is being persecuted, the Vatican ‘expressed hope’ for a ‘just and wise solution’ to his case,” Shea stated.
Repression against the Catholic Church has intensified since the 2018 agreement, she wrote.
“At least 10 Chinese Catholic bishops, all Vatican-approved, are currently in indefinite detention, have disappeared or been forced out of their episcopal posts, or are under open-ended investigation by security police,” Shea stated. “To evade Western sanctions, the Chinese Communist Party uses less bloody and more hidden methods of coercion against these bishops than the show trials and physical torture of the Mao era.”
The bishop of Baoding, Hebei Province, James Su Zhimin, has been in secret detention for 27 years after he led a procession to a Marian shrine, she stated, adding, “The CCP had previously imprisoned and severely tortured him.”
The bishop of Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, Peter Shao Zhumin, has been in secret detention since his arrest in January, Shea stated, noting that he has been similarly held without due process six times since 2018. In Xuanhua Diocese, Bishop Augustine Cui Tai was arrested in April 2021 and placed in secret, indefinite detention for the fourth time since the agreement was signed, Shea stated.
“This continues a cruel 30-year pattern against him,” she wrote.
Authorities placed Zhengding Diocese Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo under house arrest in 2018, Shea stated.
“In 2020, police transferred him from the house to a hotel, where his diocese believes he remains,” she wrote. “Police recently dismantled the orphanage he ran for 30 years. There, in defiance of state ‘Sinicization’ laws, he allowed children to pray.”
The bishop has spent much of the past 30 years in detention, she added.
In Xinxiang, police in May 2021 closed the seminary of Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu and placed him in indefinite detention at an unknown location, she wrote.
“He was arrested soon after having cancer surgery,” she added.
Officials have detained Bishop Melchior Shi Hongzhen of Tianjin in his parish church compound for 15 years; in August, the Vatican reported that China would “officially recognize” the 95-year-old bishop, declaring the move “a positive fruit of the dialogue,” according to Shea.
“It’s a bitter fruit, considering his advanced age,” Shea wrote. “The gesture aims to influence public opinion. It is on par with Beijing’s cynical practice of releasing prisoners of conscience once they are on their deathbeds.”
As a precondition for the 2018 agreement, China forced Pope Francis to demote Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin of the Mindong Diocese and replace him with a government-appointed bishop who had been excommunicated, Shea wrote.
“Then-auxiliary bishop, Guo faced restrictions in his pastoral ministry and was evicted from his home, forcing him to sleep on the street in wintertime,” she stated. “Later, the government cut off his utilities and arrested and tortured some of his priests. In 2020, he resigned. His whereabouts are unknown.”
Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, a long-time critic of the regime, is being investigated under a national security law for “colluding with foreign forces,” for which he could be sentenced to life in prison, Shea wrote.
“All nine of the mainland bishops are primarily persecuted for being conscientious objectors from the Catholic Patriotic Association, a Mao-era group founded to control Chinese Catholics,” she wrote. “The Vatican does not recognize the group as legitimate. To join, clergy must pledge ‘independence’ from the Holy See.”
China in 2018 put the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association under control of the CCP’s United Front Work Department and began forcing mainland bishops into it, she wrote, adding, “The China-Vatican agreement makes no accommodation for bishops to opt out.”
“Few outside China know of these 10 persecuted bishops,” She wrote. “Yet they are an essential part of the faithful leadership needed to ensure that the 400-year-old Chinese Catholic Church continues in communion with Rome and follows Catholic teaching. They stand as a testament to the reality that China represses the Catholic Church along with all its other religions.”
