No Stranger to Persecution

A priest-journalist recalled the late Bishop Giovanni Gao Kexian of Yantai as "a reserved and timid man" whose name is added to the "ranks of the martyred who gave their lives for Christ in China."

The bishop died "in an unknown prison in northern China," said Father Bernardo Cervellera, director of the AsiaNews agency.

On Saturday the Vatican announced the bishop's death and at the same time confirmed his episcopal consecration.

The 76-year-old prelate died last month, and his body was sent to his relatives. The Vatican noted that there had been no news of him for some time.

Bishop Gao "lived underground for most of his life," Father Cervellera said. " Only now, after his death, has his ordination by the Vatican [as bishop] been made public."

"When he was arrested in 1999, news reports said that he was either a layman or at best a priest ... to avoid him any further legal persecution by China's security apparatus," the director of AsiaNews said.

Only "three years ago was his status as bishop of Shandong [province] finally made public," explained Father Cervellera, of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions.

According to the priest, the prelate had been raised in the Catholic faith among the underground Christians living in China's largest Catholic community, Hebei province.

"Today, there are an estimated 1.5 million Catholics in this province, most of them belonging to the underground Church, guilty in the government's eyes of exercising what in theory is a constitutionally guaranteed right, namely, the right to practice their religion," Father Cervellera said.