ROME — The pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) reported Friday that at least ten priests of the underground Catholic Church have been arrested in Baoding, China, since the beginning of 2022.

Four of these priests were arrested between April 29 and 30, “raising fears of more arrests among the members of the clergy,” ACN noted.

The report cites a May 3 essay by Wang Zhicheng in AsiaNews, which asserted that the controversial Vatican agreement with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the naming of bishops “has not stopped the persecution against the underground community.”

The priests’ detention, called guanzhi, involves forced participation in political reeducation sessions “with the aim of coercing them to join the official Church,” Wang wrote, which in turn “entails joining and submitting to the Chinese Communist Party.”

Chinese law permits guanzhi for up to three years without any charges being filed, Wang noted, but the faithful fear a worse fate for the ten priests since clerics kidnapped in the past “were later found dying or dead.”

The Catholic community of Baoding is one of the oldest in China. Its bishop, James Su Zhimin, has spent a total of 40 years in prison and has not been seen since 2003, ACN declared in its 2021 Religious Freedom Report.

Police hang around outside an underground Catholic community just outside the city of Baoding in northern Hebei province, a stronghold of China’s underground church, on April 6, 2005. A reporter and a photographer were briefly detained in the part of China known for its underground Catholic community, reflecting official worries following Pope John Paul II’s death. (PETER PARKS/AFP via Getty Images)

The disappearance — and possible death — of Bishop Su Zhimin was the subject of a 2020 hearing by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress, led by co-chair Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ).

“Today I again join many, including the bishop’s relatives, and ask President Xi Jinping: Where is Bishop Su?” Smith said.

“What have you done in secret to this extraordinary man of God?” Smith asked. “And why does a powerful dictatorship fear peaceful men and women of faith and virtue?”

Diplomatic relations ended between China and the Holy See in 1951, following China’s expulsion of all foreign missionaries. Chinese Catholics then split between the state-controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association and the underground Church faithful to Rome.