'Strict surveillance' at funeral of 'underground' Chinese bishop

September 06, 2010

Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, is reporting that the September 1 funeral of an underground Chinese bishop was “obliged to be held in a private manner and under strict surveillance of security forces.”

Archbishop John Yang Shudao, the retired archbishop of the southeastern Chinese city of Fuzhou, was ordained a priest in 1947 and a bishop in 1987. “He almost always lived under house arrest or under strict control,” Fides noted. “Faithful across the world unite themselves to their brethren in Fuzhou to pay tribute to a bishop who, in heroic witness to the Gospel and out of fidelity to his faith, spent a third of his life in prison.”

 

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Further information:

• Bishop's death mourned (Fides)
• 'Underground' Chinese bishop dies; funeral will test government control (CWN, 8/30)