China Catholic Bishop Free From Prison After 30 Years

Ignatius Kung, 85, the Vatican-appointed Roman Catholic bishop of Shanghai, has been released after serving 30 years in prison.

Kung (whose Chinese name is Gong Pinmei) was arrested in 1955 and sentenced in 1960 to life in prison for high treason, for refusing to abandon his loyalty to the Vatican and refusing to support a separate, state-controlled “patriotic” Catholic Church.

The authorities announced that he was granted parole Wednesday after he “admitted his crime and showed repentance.”

The release of Kung is the latest and most dramatic sign that the Chinese government and the Vatican are seeking reconciliation.

The Chinese church broke with the Vatican on government orders in the 1950s. Since then, China’s estimated 3 million Roman Catholics have had to choose between the government-approved “patriotic” church and a clandestine church that remains loyal to Rome.

Under Party Guidance

The patriotic churches are run by the Catholic Patriotic Assn. under the government’s Bureau of Religious Affairs. The bureau is subject to the guidance of the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party Central Committee.

Over the last six months, Chinese authorities and the Vatican have made a number of overtures. On June 13, China announced that the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in Peking, which was closed and desecrated during the Cultural Revolution, will reopen this year with the help of a government grant of $350,000.

Two weeks later, the Vatican announced that it will lend a powerful telescope from the Vatican observatory at Castel Gandolfo to a Chinese university.

Also, prominent Catholic leaders abroad have been granted special permission to visit China. Chinese authorities allowed Cardinal Jaime Sin of the Philippines to come here last October on grounds that he is partly Chinese and was visiting his ancestral home.

Compromise Efforts

There have been previous efforts at a compromise between China and the Vatican over the last five years, but none have succeeded. China has continued to view loyalty to the Pope as a criminal offense.

Last year, Bishop Joseph Fan Xueyan of Baoding, a town 75 miles southwest of Peking, was sentenced to 10 years in prison because of his contacts with the Vatican.

Fan, 77, who was imprisoned from 1958 to 1979, was found guilty of “colluding with anti-Chinese foreign forces to jeopardize the security of the motherland.” The authorities said that he had secretly ordained priests for the underground church and had received financial support from the Vatican.

Bishop Kung could not be reached for comment Thursday. The official New China News Agency said he was paroled Wednesday after a court hearing and that he has promised to “abide by the law.”

The news agency said that Kung has returned to Shanghai to visit Bishop Louis Zhang Jiashu of the “patriotic” Catholic Church there.