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A relative unfurls a photo of Bishop Shi Enxiang on Tuesday at the family home in Shizhuang village, Hebei province. Nearly a month after his family were told he had died, aged 93, they are still awaiting official confirmation. Photo: AFP

Family awaits confirmation month after report of death of China’s underground Catholic bishop

Family of Bishop Shi Enxiang, who spent more than half a century in detention for refusing to renounce Pope's authority, told by a village official last month that he had died, aged 93

In a living room plastered with pious images, the Shi family flicked through timeworn pictures of a wizened man with tortoiseshell glasses and bright eyes, the oldest bishop of China’s underground Catholic church.

Almost a month ago, they were passed word that Bishop Shi Enxiang – who spent more than half a century in detention for refusing to renounce the authority of the Pope – had died, aged 93.

“All we want is to be able to bury him: they should give us the body out of human dignity,” said Shi Wanke, 66, the bishop’s nephew, in a calm, gravelly voice. Around him, his children nodded in agreement.

The family were first told at the end of last month that Shi Enxiang – whom they have not heard from since he disappeared during a trip to Beijing in 2001 – had died.

The village chief in Shizhuang, in the northern province of Hebei, “asked if we had received the body of my uncle”, Shi Wanke said. .

“We asked if he was alive. He said: ‘No, he’s dead. Apparently he’s dead.’ After that he came back twice to see if the body had arrived.”

Shi Enxiang, the former bishop of Yixian, in Hebei, was ordained in 1947, two years before the Communists came to power.

He spent 54 years in labour camps for refusing to disavow the Pope and cooperate with China’s state-sponsored church, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA).

Instead, he ministered in one of the hundreds of underground churches that have sprung up across China.

“He is a martyr and I hope that, one day, the life of our bishop will be recognised by the pope,” Shi Daxing, 33, a great-nephew of Shi Enxiang, said.

“We want to organise a big public ceremony for his funeral. Even if we are under pressure, we want to honour him, as a member of our family [and] as a prominent member of the church.”

The fates of Shi Enxiang and Bishop Su Zhimin, who was detained in 1997, have been a key sticking point in relations between the Vatican and Beijing.

The two have not had diplomatic ties since they were broken off by Mao Zedong in 1951, and have been embroiled in a long-running battle for control of China’s estimated 12 million Catholics.

Beijing bans adherents from recognising the Vatican’s authority, regarding the Holy See’s insistence on the right to appoint bishops as foreign interference in China’s domestic affairs.

President Xi Jinping and Pope Francis exchanged letters of congratulation on their respective elections in 2013, fuelling speculation that ties could be warming.

In December Francis ducked out of a meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, which would have been sure to rile Beijing and jeopardise quiet behind-the-scenes contacts.

However, Xi has overseen a crackdown on independent Christian groups and Shi’s fate has drawn an angry response from Hong Kong, where Cardinal Joseph Zen, the city’s emeritus bishop, led protests and sent an open letter to the Chinese authorities denouncing forced disappearances.

Calls to the Baoding municipal government, which oversees Shizhuang, went unanswered.

A woman at the CPCA’s Baoding diocese said she had “heard he’s [Shi Enxiang] died”, but declined to give details.

District officials have told the family that the village head who gave them the news was a drunkard spreading “false information”, the Shi family said.

They have long faced a wall of silence from Chinese authorities.

Shi Daxing said that after Shi Enxiang’s disappearance in 2001, “we went to the county government, but they told us they didn’t know anything and we should ask Beijing. But in Beijing, they sent us back to the county.”

Inside the family home, between the bursts of firecrackers marking the Lunar New Year and the cries of children, Shi Enxiang’s relatives were left only with scraps of memories.

“He was a simple man,” recalled a grandmother.

“The last of five siblings, he never had much. He wore only the clothes they gave him, ate practically only vegetables and never complained, even if we had forgotten to give him chopsticks to eat.”

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