The Vatican on Wednesday strongly condemned the beating of Franciscan nuns and the detention of six Roman Catholic priests in separate incidents in China this month.
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said reports of the brutal beating of 16 Franciscan nuns in the diocese of Xian in Shaanxi province and the arrests of six priests in Zhengding in northern China were reasons for "serious concern."
"The violence used at Xian against innocent nuns cannot but be firmly condemned. The detention of six priests in Zhengding, and previously of priests in other localities, is a reason for serious concern," Navarro-Valls said in a statement.
"As on previous occasions, the reasons for such coercive measures are not known," he added.
The Catholic Asia News agency said 16 nuns of the Franciscan Sacred Heart Missionaries had been brutally beaten by thugs as they were attempting to prevent the demolition of a Catholic school that city authorities in Xian had sold to a developer.
The nuns had been taking part in a sit-in at the empty building when they were attacked on November 23, the agency said. It said the nuns had been hospitalised and one was in a serious condition.
A US-based religious group said Tuesday that police arrested six priests from China's underground Catholic church and severely beaten two of them in Zhengding, in northern China's Hebei province.
The Connecticut-based Cardinal King Foundation said the priests were arrested on November 18.
Navarro-Valls expressed "pain and censure" of the Holy See at the reports, which he said the church was not in a position to verify.
Zhengding is an area with approximately 100,000 underground Catholics — people who belong to the unofficial Catholic Church in China rather than the government-approved "Patriotic Church."
China's communist rulers strictly control all religious activities and insist that Christians can legally worship only at state-sanctioned churches, with police often arresting those who defy them.
