Shaanxi Provincial Officials Continue Harassment of Catholic Bishop Wu Qinjing

November 3, 2006

Officials detained Wu Qinjing, a Catholic bishop in Shaanxi province whose episcopal consecration was not approved by the government, on September 11 in Zhouzhi city, according to September 14 reports by AsiaNews and the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN). The reports say that officials struck Wu and forced him into a vehicle. The bishop was released on September 16. On September 17, Wu was admitted to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with a concussion that observers suggested may have resulted from official mistreatment while in custody, according to September 20 reports by AsiaNews and UCAN.

Officials detained Wu Qinjing, a Catholic bishop in Shaanxi province whose episcopal consecration was not approved by the government, on September 11 in Zhouzhi city, according to September 14 reports by AsiaNews and the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN). The reports say that officials struck Wu and forced him into a vehicle. The bishop was released on September 16. On September 17, Wu was admitted to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with a concussion that observers suggested may have resulted from official mistreatment while in custody, according to September 20 reports by AsiaNews and UCAN. When Chinese officials detain Catholic clerics, they generally disregard the procedural requirements of the Criminal Procedure Law for detention, arrest, trial, and sentencing, and appear to have done so in this case. Officials sometimes have beaten and injured Catholics when detaining them. In August and September, provincial officials in Hebei and Fujian provinces beat Catholic laypeople, and in 2006 officials beat Catholic priests in Hebei province, according to a June 27 AsiaNews report.

Officials have harassed Bishop Wu in the past because he accepted consecration as a bishop without the approval of the Party-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA). In October 2005, Li Duan, the CPA-registered bishop of Xi’an diocese in Shaanxi province, secretly consecrated Wu as a bishop, but with the approval of the Holy See. (Wu had been a CPA-registered priest.) Bishop Li was noted for his resistance to CPA interference in religious matters and loyalty to the Holy See, as evidenced by this 2004 Mondo e Missione interview (via www.Chiesa). Bishop Li did not reveal Wu’s episcopal status until May 22, 2006, three days before Li died, according to a May 26 South China Morning Post article (subscription required). Between May 22 and May 27, government officials told Bishop Wu that they considered his consecration illegal and that he must not act as a bishop. On May 27, CPA officials met with priests from Zhouzhi diocese, declared Bishop Wu’s consecration illegal, and urged that a diocesan management group headed by another CPA-registered priest replace Bishop Wu. The priests refused, and Bishop Wu then presided at a ceremony to mark the erection of a new cross in the Zhouzhi cathedral, according to May 29 South China Morning Post and AsiaNews reports.

In the following months, officials harassed Bishop Wu, stopping him for checks and detaining him for questioning, according to the September 14 UCAN report. During the September detention, officials forced Bishop Wu to state in writing that he would not wear a bishop's miter or vestments or appear as a bishop at major church activities. They also forced him to acknowledge that he was consecrated without having been selected by a CPA-managed election, and that he had violated the Regulation on Religious Affairs by presiding over church activities as a bishop. Article 27 of the Regulation on Religious Affairs (translation available on the Web site of China Elections and Governance) provides that, "Religious personnel who are determined qualified as such by a religious body and reported for the record to the religious affairs department of the people's government at or above the county level may engage in professional religious activities. . . . With respect to Catholic bishops, the matter shall be reported for the record by the national religious body of the Catholic Church to the religious affairs department of the State Council." The AsiaNews reports suggest that the CPA planned to select another candidate as bishop in Zhouzhi diocese. In the past the CPA and the Holy See have sometimes been able to agree on a candidate for episcopal consecration, as they did in Shanghai diocese in 2005.

During Wu's detention in September, a group of priests visited the religious affairs bureau in Xi'an, where they said that they would organize a public protest unless the government explained the reason for the detention and guaranteed the bishop's safety, according to the September 14 UCAN report.

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