A Chinese Catholic priest whose demotion was key to a now-stalled effort at reconciliation between
China and the Vatican is being pressured to join the official Communist Party-controlled church organization, a fellow priest and Catholic news source said.
Monsignor Vincenzo Guo Xijin was one of two legitimate bishops who remain loyal to the pope who were asked last year by the Vatican to step aside.
Local government and religious affairs department officials, along with representatives from the ruling Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, are visiting Guo regularly in an effort to persuade him to join the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the Rev. Peng Zhekang, a priest in Guo’s diocese in the eastern province of Fujian, said by phone.