Two priests who taught natural family planning released
Rome (AsiaNews) Two underground Chinese Catholic priests, Fr.Lu Genjun (42) and Fr. Cheng Xiaoli (40) were arrested this past May 14 in An Guo (in Hebei in northern China), the Kung Foundation reported. The two priests were released from jail 4 days later, May 18, following huge media backlash surrounding their detention.
AsiaNews sources confirmed the two priests were preparing to give lessons on natural family planning (NFP) and Catholic morality to a group of faithful.
The priests had also arranged for two physicians to come to explain NFP from a medical perspective.
However the two doctors were late and the police showed up instead, arresting the underground priests "for disturbing public order".
The meeting had not been approved by the Religious Affairs Bureau.
Currently there is no news regarding the reasons of their quick release.
Fr. Lu belongs to the Baoding clergy in Hebei, a region having the country's highest concentration of Catholics (over 1 million). He has been arrested several times and was even sentenced to 3 years of forced labor (or "reeducation through work", as Chinese officials call its) at a camp in Gaoyang (Hebei). Fr. Fu had just been freed a few months ago.
Fr. Cheng Xiaoli is an cleric from the diocese of An Guo. His diocese has been without a bishop, since 1992, when underground bishop Liu Difeng died while being held in a Cheng De prison.
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05/09/2005
