Hebei Officials Release Catholic Bishop An Shuxin After 10 Years' Detention

Hebei provincial officials released An Shuxin, formerly the unregistered auxiliary bishop of Baoding diocese in Hebei province, on August 24 after detaining him for over 10 years, according to an August 25 report of the Cardinal Kung Foundation (CKF), a U.S. NGO that monitors religious freedom in China. Before officials released Bishop An, the government and Bishop An agreed that he would register with the government but would not be required to register with the Party-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), according to an August 26 AsiaNews report. Bishop An told the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN) that the government has recognized his status as a bishop and permits him to do his pastoral work openly but under government management, according to a September 12 UCAN report (via Catholic Online). UCAN reported that before releasing Bishop An the local government required him to concelebrate Mass with Su Changshan, the CPA-registered bishop of Baoding, in the presence of 700 Catholics, and that Bishop An's registration with the government has divided the unregistered Catholic community.

Officials detained Bishop An in 1996, according to a March 1996 CKF report, and placed him under house arrest in Xushui county in Hebei province, according to the UCAN report. Xushui county is in Bishop An's diocese of Baoding, which has been a focus of governmental repression of unregistered Catholics. Seventeen of the 41 Catholic clerics in prison, under house arrest, or under strict surveillance in February 2006 were from Baoding diocese, including Bishop Su Zhimin, who has been detained at an unknown location since 1997, according to the CKF's list of Prisoners of Religious Conscience for the Underground Catholic Church in China. Officials detaining Catholic clerics have generally disregarded the procedural requirements established by the Criminal Procedure Law for the processes of detention, arrest, trial, and sentencing. The detentions of Bishop An and Bishop Su both exceeded legal limits under China's Criminal Procedure Law.

AsiaNews sources confirmed that the Holy See suggested the compromise (of registration with the government but not with the CPA) in order to attain the release of imprisoned clerics and to overcome divisions within the Catholic Church in China. In 2005, formerly unregistered Bishop Li Jingfeng of Fengxiang diocese, Shaanxi province, was permitted to register with the government without registering with the CPA, according to a September 2005 AsiaNews report. Bishop Li had been detained in 2001.

The Communist Party established the Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), a mass organization under Party control, in the 1950s, to establish a national Catholic Church independent of the Holy See. The CPA took control of Church property while convincing some bishops to register with it. Most Catholic bishops, however, refused to register with the CPA and went "underground" to lead an unregistered Catholic community. In the ensuing decades, the government sought to persuade, and frequently to coerce, Catholics into following CPA-registered bishops. The unregistered bishops continued to refuse to accept CPA interference in religious matters. Since the mid-1980s, many CPA-registered bishops have privately sought reconciliation with the Holy See. The Holy See has received a majority of CPA-registered bishops into communion and has promoted the reconciliation of the unregistered and CPA-registered Catholic communities. At present, some analysts divide the CPA-registered bishops into those who submit to and those who resist the CPA's interference in religious matters, particularly in the selection of bishops.

For more information on Bishop An, see the CECC Political Prisoner Database. For more information on Catholics in China, see the CECC 2006 Annual Report, Section V(d).