“Bishop of Beijing” dies of kidney failure

Social justice news
January 2002

"Bishop of Beijing" dies of kidney failure
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"Bishop of Beijing" dies of kidney failure
Msgr. Mattia Pei Shangde, a Catholic priest imprisoned for his loyalty to the pope, died of kidney failure on December 28 at a hospital in Zhangjiakou, a city near Beijing, the Vatican said. He was 83.

Considered by some to be the unofficial bishop of Beijing, Monsignor Pei had been under house arrest since April, when the Chinese authorities seized several people for illegal religious practices at Easter.

China broke off relations with the Vatican in 1951 and has since demanded that Catholics in the country worship only in churches approved by the government-controlled China Patriotic Catholic Association, which does not recognize the authority of the pope.

Millions of China's Catholics remain loyal to Rome, as did Monsignor Pei, who spent a decade in labor camps for his beliefs.

Pei was born to a Catholic family in 1918 and was ordained a priest in 1948. After Beijing broke with the Vatican, he was sent to work in a drug factory and later sentenced to hard labor. He returned to Beijing after his release from the camps in 1980 and was anointed bishop by the underground Roman Catholic Church in 1989.

His funeral is scheduled to take place at his birthplace in Zhangjiapu, near Zhangjiakou. Chinese authorities have banned people from outside the area from attending.

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