Dominic Tang Yiming; Archbishop of Canton

Dominic Tang Yiming, 87, archbishop of Canton who was imprisoned in China for 22 years. Although he was never formally charged, Tang was arrested in 1958 on charges of “counterrevolutionary activity”--principally his refusal to renounce his allegiance to the Vatican. He was released in 1980 because he had cancer. A year later, Pope John Paul II named Tang archbishop in exile, the Vatican’s first appointment of a Roman Catholic bishop to China in 26 years. China, which officially recognizes a separate Catholic Church of China, rejected the appointment and accused the Pope of trying to “subvert and sabotage” the Communist state. Tang lived in exile in Hong Kong until early this year, when he moved to San Francisco. Tang had taken the Christian name Dominic in 1941 when he was ordained a Jesuit priest. On June 27 in Stamford, Conn., of pneumonia.