From the Catholic World News:

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Vatican, Nov. 30 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican today issued a protest against the arrest and beating of Chinese Catholic nuns and priests.

Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the director of the Vatican press office, called attention to two separate incidents during the past week: the beating of Franciscan nuns in Xian and the violent arrest of six priests in the Zhengding diocese. While admitting that the details of the incidents were unclear, he said that the reports "provoke pain and disapproval."

The beating of nuns in Xian, in particular, "cannot but be firmly condemned," the Vatican statement said.

The arrest of priests in the Hebei province "is also a cause for concern," the Vatican statement said, pointing out that Chinese authorities had offered no explanation for the "coercive measures" used on two of the priests, who were severely beaten by the police who took them into custody.

The statement was the first public protest of China's repressive tactics issued by the Vatican since April 2-- the day of Pope John Paul's death. On that date, Navarro-Valls had condemned a series of unexplained arrests of underground Catholic priests. The protest illustrated the continued difficulties in relations between Rome and Beijing, despite recent public gestures.

The two incidents to which the Vatican statement alluded occurred on November 23 and November 18, but reports only reached the Western world this week.

On November 23, a group of 16 nuns were attacked by a mob in Xian as they sought to save a Catholic school from demolition. The AsiaNews service reports that a week after the incident, 5 nuns remain hospitalized. One may be permanently paralyzed as a result of the injuries suffered during the mob violence; another has lost sight in one eye.
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The story on the beating of the Chinese Catholic nuns is reported by ASIANEWS at:

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=4760

Amado

China blacks out coverage of assaults on Catholic nuns. ASIANEWS lists the injured.

Story here.

USCCB lodges formal protest with the Ambassador of China to the United States for the recent beating of the defenseless Chinese nuns:

Backgrounder and copy of letter here.

Amado

It takes international pressure for communist Chinese government to react to the beating of defenseless Chinese Franciscan nuns.

By ZENIT:

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Code: ZE05121405

Date: 2005-12-14

China Investigating Attack on Nuns

11 Arrested in Nov. 23 Incident After the Word Gets Out

ROME, DEC. 14, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Public security authorities in Xian, China, have opened an investigation into the beating of 16 nuns who tried to save a school from demolition. Officials have arrested 11 suspects.

Meanwhile, one of the nuns, who risks permanent paralysis as a result of the assault, is recovering from surgery, AsiaNews reported. The government has offered to pay for all medical expenses.

On Nov. 23, about 40 assailants beat 16 Franciscan missionary nuns who tried to stand in the way of the destruction of the diocese's School of the Rosary.

As a result of the attack, Sister Dong Jianian, 41, suffered a fraction to her spinal column. She is recovering from a three-hour operation.

Another nun, Sister Cheng Jing, 34, was blinded in one eye. Three other nuns were hospitalized, including Sister Zan Hongfang, 34, who was discharged from the hospital with her broken shoulder in a plaster cast.

Initially, government officials had done everything to cover up the incident, AsiaNews said. The police responded late to the sisters' call for help, and news of the attack was censored from newspapers and Web sites.

Pressure

The incident, however, garnered international attention. The U.S. bishops' conference even wrote a critical letter to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Thanks to this and to the spread of news locally -- by word-of-mouth, text messaging and e-mail -- government authorities decided to take action by opening an investigation and detaining 11 of the assailants, AsiaNews said.

According to initial reports, the group of assailants had been enlisted by the Zhaoshen Investment Company, the firm that had bought the school property from government officials and wanted to settle the matter through violence.

Before the attack against the nuns, some of the assailants said they had been "sent by the government education district," according to AsiaNews.

The school, which the Church already owned, had been confiscated during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976. The building had been empty for several years and the government, in breach of Chinese law, sold it to a construction company rather than returning it to its rightful owners.

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Amado

Oh, this is awful. God have mercy on those who were beaten and those who are doing the beating.

Thanks be to God for those (Vatican and others) who speak out against this.

It reminds me that we recently commemorated the anniversary of the deaths of the missionary sisters and lay woman who were raped and murdered in El Salvador 25 years ago.

Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke; Lay Missioner Jean Donovan and Ursuline Sister Dorthy Kazel-- martyred in El Salvador by government soldiers on December 2, 1980.

Lord, have mercy!

Porter