Crackdown on Catholics denied
A senior official in China’s state-sanctioned Catholic church denied it was cracking down on churches loyal to the Vatican after an unconfirmed media report that nine priests were arrested last week.
AsiaNews, a missionary news service close to the Vatican, said the priests from an underground Catholic church in northern China’s Hebei province were arrested as they gathered to pray near the city of Baoding.
The report called the arrests part of a campaign by the government-backed Catholic Patriotic Assn. to subdue the underground church.
Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the association, said he had heard of no such arrests and denied there was a campaign underway to crush the church.
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