China detains two "underground" Catholic priests

BEIJING (Reuters) - Two Catholic priests in China's "underground" church have been detained for over a month after trying to join a pilgrimage, an overseas group said, as the government seeks to quell protest threats before the Olympics.

Zhang Jianlin and Zhang Li, priests from near Zhangjiakou city in Hebei province, next to Beijing, sought to join thousands of other Catholics on the annual pilgrimage on May 24 to the Our Lady of Sheshan shrine near Shanghai, the Connecticut-based Cardinal Kung Foundation said in an email on Monday.

"Both priests disappeared while they were in the hands of Chinese authorities," said the Foundation, which is highly critical of Chinese state restrictions on religion. "There has been no news on these two priests since their arrests."

China is preparing to host the Beijing Olympic Games that start on Aug 8. The government says citizens can practice religion in state-registered settings and has vowed Games visitors will be free to worship.

But wary authorities have also been seeking to stamp out signs of unrest, including dissent from religious believers critical of state controls.

China's 8 to 12 million Catholics are divided between a state-sanctioned church and an underground church that rejects government ties.

Members of the state-approved church also honour the Pope as a spiritual authority, but the government restricts formal contacts with Rome, which has had no diplomatic ties with Beijing since 1951.

Hebei, where the two missing priests come from, is an epicenter of the underground church. The two men were going to Sheshan, where the popular pilgrimage was this year restricted by strict police checks.

Police and government offices in Xuanhua District, Zhangjiakou, where the priests come from, refused to answer questions about them or said they had no knowledge of the case.

"Nobody would be detained unless they were suspected of violating the law," said an officer from the district public security office. She refused to give her name.

Pope Benedict, who has made improving relations with China a main goal of his pontificate, has said the Beijing Olympics would be "of great value to humanity".

He will send a Hong Kong bishop to represent the Church at the Olympics opening ceremony but no diplomatic breakthrough with China is imminent, a senior Vatican official said last week.

(Editing by David Fox)