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Vatican City, Vatican, 13th
September 2004 (CNA) -
The Holy See’s Press
Office has released an official statement denouncing the
death of a 76 year-old Chinese bishop who had been
imprisoned since the late 1990’s and demanding that all
Catholic clerics under arrest by the Communist regime be
released.
The Director of the
Vatican’s Press Office, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said the
Holy See learned “that at the end of August 76 year-old
Bishop Giovanni Gao Kexian of Yantai (Shandong province)
died in prison. The bishop’s body was turned over
to family members by police. Bishop Gao had been
imprisoned since the late 1990’s and relatives had not
received word from him for sometime.”
Navarro-Valls also said
that “only now” has the Holy See learned that in the
first of week of August police rounded up eight priests
and two seminary students of the Baoding diocese in
Hebei province.
He also stated that Fathers
Pablo An Jianzhao and Juan Bautista Zhang Zhenquan “have
been condemned to a period of reeducation through forced
labor. The others might still be held in Quyang
(Baoding), with the exception of three who do not belong
to this diocese.”
According to reports the
Holy See received on September 6, “23 members of the
clergy of the Diocese of Baoding are being detained or
deprived of their liberty.”
“Among them are Bishop
Santiago Su Zhimin and his Auxiliary Bishop Francisco An
Shuxin, who disappeared in September of 1997 and March
of 1996 respectively, and are being detained without
trial in a secret place.”
Navarro-Valls also
denounced the arrest of the Diocesan administrator of
the Archdiocese of Fuzhou, together with two priests and
a seminarian.
"The reasons for such
repressive measures have not been made known to the Holy
See. If the received news turns out to be true, we find
ourselves once again faced with a grave violation of
freedom of religion, which is a fundamental right of
man," he said.
Lastly, the Vatican called
for “respect for this right, sanctioned by the Universal
Declaration of Human rights, and the Holy See trusts
that the persons mentioned above will have their freedom
reinstated and will be able to carry out their pastoral
commitment in service to their respective Christian
communities.”
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