China sends priests and Catholic students for re-education

Approximately 100 policemen surrounded a factory that served as a seminary and arrested 7 priests and 10 students, according to Asia News. The arrests took place just days before a week of prayer was scheduled to begin on May 23. One day after the arrests, Chinese authorities took the bishop of Xinxiang, 63-year-old Joseph Zhang Weizhu, into custody. The government made the arrests under new regulations that require any Catholic leaders to register with the government before conducting services. The bishop and other arrestees were operating illegally without registering with the Communist Party’s database of Catholic priests in the country. ^[1]