Chinese authorities have arrested the coadjutor bishop of Wenzhou, reportedly to stop him taking over the diocese after the death of Bishop Vincent Zhu Weifang.
AsiaNews, the Rome-based missionary news agency, said police took Coadjutor Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin out of the diocese in early September. Under canon law, a coadjutor takes over the diocese when the bishop retires or dies.
AsiaNews reported that Bishop Shao was taken to northwest China “on a trip”. The diocesan chancellor, Fr Paul Jian Sunian, was escorted by police to Yunnan, and another priest was held in a hotel.
The news agency said the government was opposed to Bishop Shao because, although his appointment was recognised by the Vatican, it had not received government approval.
Chinese police were expected to restrict the number of people at Bishop Zhu’s funeral this week to 400 and said mourners had to receive a permit to attend.
About 120,000 Catholics live in the Wenzhou area. For years, some practised clandestinely, while others had leaders who registered with the government.
AsiaNews reported that, in an attempt to reconcile the two communities, the Vatican had appointed Bishop Zhu, who registered with the government as bishop.
Wenzhou, in Zhejiang province, is sometimes called “China’s Jerusalem” because of numerous houses of worship.
In recent years, the local government has waged a campaign to demolish religious symbols, including church crosses. Officials claim the buildings were erected without permission.
Bishops: research will blur line between humans and rats
The US bishops’ conference has said that proposals by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to authorise federally funded research on part-human, part-animal embryos are “grossly unethical”.In a submission to the institute this week, the bishops said that such research would result in “beings who do not fully belong to either the human race or the host animal species”.
Current NIH guidelines for human stem cell research specifically prohibit introducing human pluripotent cells – those capable of giving rise to several different cell types – into non-human primate blastocysts, which are cells at an early stage of development.
NIH has proposed funding scientists researching such embryos, known as chimeras. Such research is already being carried out in Britain.
The bishops’ statement said: “The bottom line is that the federal government will begin expending taxpayer dollars on the creation and manipulation of new beings whose very existence blurs the line between humanity and animals such as mice and rats.”
By funding such research, the bishops argued, the NIH would be ignoring laws in the US that prohibit it.
Pope praises Benedictine ‘oases’
Benedictine monks and nuns possess “a unique gift and a special responsibility – that of keeping alive spiritual oases where the faithful can draw from sources of divine mercy,” Pope Francis has said.The Pope was speaking to abbots and conventual priors from 250 monasteries of Benedictine men from around the world as well as representatives of Benedictine women. They were in Rome to attend the Congress of Abbots and to elect a new abbot primate.
