Vatican City, Sep 12, 2004 / 22:00 pm
The Holy See’s Press Office has released an official statement denouncing the death of a 76 year-old Chinese bishop who had been imprisoned since the late 1990’s and demanding that all Catholic clerics under arrest by the Communist regime be released.
The Director of the Vatican’s Press Office, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said the Holy See learned “that at the end of August 76 year-old Bishop Giovanni Gao Kexian of Yantai (Shandong province) died in prison. The bishop’s body was turned over to family members by police. Bishop Gao had been imprisoned since the late 1990’s and relatives had not received word from him for sometime.”
Navarro-Valls also said that “only now” has the Holy See learned that in the first of week of August police rounded up eight priests and two seminary students of the Baoding diocese in Hebei province.
He also stated that Fathers Pablo An Jianzhao and Juan Bautista Zhang Zhenquan “have been condemned to a period of reeducation through forced labor. The others might still be held in Quyang (Baoding), with the exception of three who do not belong to this diocese.”