Chinese priests in property dispute

A group of Chinese Catholic priests and nuns locked in a property dispute with a city government went home over the weekend, but another group of nuns remain holed up in a historic chapel demanding that its ownership be returned to the Church.

Nuns belonging to the Sisters of Charity have occupied the abandoned chapel in the northern port city of Tianjin since August, demanding the building be returned to their hands, one of the nuns, who gave her surname as Liu, said yesterday. It is the second land dispute in Tianjin between the city government and the Catholic Church, highlighting the tensions between religion and government control in China, even as Beijing courts diplomatic ties with the Vatican.

The priests and nuns are all members of China's official Catholic Church, which respects the Pope as a spiritual leader but rejects his administrative authority.

Sr Liu said the chapel has "historic significance" for her order. In 1870, the building, an adjoining orphanage and nunnery, as well as other Tianjin churches were burned down in anti-Western riots, and 10 nuns were killed.

In 1903 the chapel was rebuilt and it remained in Church hands until after the Communist takeover in 1949. In later decades the chapel disappeared behind new buildings and the nuns, who regrouped in 1980, assumed it was destroyed.

But in 2003 the demolition of a handkerchief factory revealed the chapel had survived, and the nuns have since been demanding its return, Sr Liu said.