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What is the "underground Church"? In 1957, the CCP established the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, requiring Catholics to join an official body that denies the Pope's authority. Churches that refused and stayed loyal to Rome became the "underground Church." Su Zhimin refused to join the Patriotic Association from the 1950s onward, and paid for it with decades of imprisonment. (Sources: USCIRF religious-prisoners-of-conscience database; Cardinal Kung Foundation press release, October 11, 1997) Born in 1932, ordained a priest in 1981, consecrated a bishop in the early 1990s, and installed as Bishop of Baoding in 1995 — sources disagree on the exact dates of his birth and consecration, so this page uses the most conservative wording. (Sources: English Wikipedia citing Catholic-Hierarchy; Chinese Wikipedia citing AsiaNews; precise dates unverified)

Before 1997, he had already been arrested seven times. Three arrests in 1956, 1957 and 1975, all for holding to his faith — the 1957 one followed by five years in prison and then farm labor; a fourth and fifth arrest in 1982 and late 1989. (Source: Chinese Wikipedia citing AsiaNews) In January 1994, he met secretly in Beijing with U.S. Congressman Christopher Smith — who later recalled a bishop of gentleness, strength and courage, "a peace that surpassed all understanding"; days after the meeting, Su was arrested for the sixth time, released unconditionally only under U.S. pressure. (Sources: Cardinal Kung Foundation press release, October 11, 1997; chrissmith.house.gov) In March 1996, leading faithful on pilgrimage to the Marian shrine at Donglu, Hebei, he was arrested a seventh time, escaped about a month later and went into hiding. During 17 months in hiding he wrote to the National People's Congress demanding an end to religious persecution and issued a pastoral letter; the Kung Foundation published his appeal on August 12, 1996. (Sources: USCIRF; Kung Foundation press release; Hudson Institute report citing the June 15, 1996 appeal)

October 8, 1997. Midday. Xinji city, Hebei. Public security seized Su Zhimin and took him back to the Baoding public security bureau. (Sources: Cardinal Kung Foundation press release, October 11, 1997; Religious News Service; USCIRF) It was his eighth arrest. In the nearly 29 years since, word of him has been close to zero. Before disappearing, he had spent about 26 years in prisons and labor camps. (Source: USCIRF) The U.S. House hearing's formulation is starker: "approximately 40 years, without charge, without trial." (Sources: Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission; chrissmith.house.gov) Both formulations are given here; readers may judge.

The single "sighting" came on November 15, 2003. That day, relatives spotted him by chance at Baoding Central Hospital — undergoing eye surgery and heart treatment, watched by about 20 plainclothes police, never formally registered as a patient. Before the relatives could say much, police moved him away. (Sources: Cardinal Kung Foundation via WWRN; USCIRF) One account gives November 19 (source: the Hong Kong diocese's The Forgotten Shepherd via NCR) — marked unverified. It remains the only confirmed sighting of him since 1997.

The world has not forgotten him. The U.S. State Department's 2003, 2005, 2013 and 2015 International Religious Freedom Reports all mention Su Zhimin's disappearance in their China chapters. (Source: State Department reports, texts via refworld/ecoi.net) On July 30, 2020, the House Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a dedicated hearing, "Religious Freedom in China: The Case of Bishop James Su Zhimin," at which Congressman Smith demanded of Xi Jinping: where is Bishop Su — what have you done to this servant of God? (Source: chrissmith.house.gov; paraphrased) USCIRF maintains a dedicated prisoner-of-conscience page for him and still lists him as missing in its 2024 and 2025 annual reports. (Sources: USCIRF; Catholic World Report, September 30, 2025) Civil-society submissions to the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief include his case. (Source: OHCHR document) Britain's Lord David Alton devoted a July 2020 essay to his plight. (Source: davidalton.net) The 2018 provisional Vatican–China agreement, renewed twice since — each time bringing no word of Bishop Su, drawing wide criticism. (Sources: Bitter Winter, 2022; NCR, 2024) His nephew Su Tianyou said in 2020 that the Vatican should lead negotiations demanding his release. (Source: davidalton.net citing UCA News)

And Beijing's account? To repeated U.S. inquiries, China denied taking "any coercive measures" against Su Zhimin, saying he was merely "traveling as a missionary." (Source: via the State Department's 2003 and 2005 reports) In 2015, when Hebei faithful petitioned Xi Jinping for his release, authorities replied they "did not know the bishop's whereabouts." (Catholic World Report, 2016) In 2000, then-Archbishop McCarrick relayed to USCIRF that "Bishop Su had joined the Patriotic Association and been released" — widely identified as CCP disinformation. (Source: NCR, July 10, 2024) Around 2020, Beijing pressed the Vatican to recognize his assistant An Shuxin (who had joined the Patriotic Association) as Bishop of Baoding in his place — the underground church calls An a "traitor." (Sources: UCA News via Christian Post, 2020; Christianity Daily, 2020)

The 1996 appeal deserves a closer look. In hiding, Su Zhimin wrote to the National People's Congress demanding an end to religious persecution, and issued a pastoral letter. The Kung Foundation published the appeal on August 12, 1996. (Sources: Kung Foundation press release; Hudson Institute report citing the June 15, 1996 original) A wanted bishop, hiding from place to place, still writing reasoned letters to the National People's Congress — that quixotic persistence is why he has been missing for 29 years. He knew the cost; days after meeting Smith in 1994 he was arrested. He knew everything.

The 2015 petition was a collective act by Hebei's faithful. They jointly petitioned Xi Jinping for Bishop Su's release. The authorities replied they "did not know the bishop's whereabouts." (Catholic World Report, 2016) A man taken away by the state apparatus 18 years earlier, and the official line is "whereabouts unknown" — the sentence is itself evidence: either a lie, or an admission that the state machine can make a person vanish into thin air. The family also received an informal word: "still alive; could be released if Vatican–China relations improve." (Source: a single Bitter Winter 2022 article — unverified) Unverifiable, but it reveals a possibility: the bishop's freedom treated as a diplomatic chip.

The provisional Vatican–China agreement is the key to this case. On September 22, 2018, the Vatican and China signed the provisional agreement on bishop appointments, renewed in 2020, 2022 and 2024. The full text has never been published. The Vatican's logic: build dialogue first, improvements later; the critics' logic: the agreement is signed, the man is still missing, so dialogue bought no substantive concession. (Sources: Bitter Winter, 2022; NCR, 2024) The Su Zhimin case is stuck in that knot: after 2018, no renewal brought any word of him. In 2020, Beijing even pressed the Vatican to recognize An Shuxin as his replacement — asking the Vatican to bury a disappeared bishop with its own hands. (Source: UCA News via Christian Post, 2020)

Su Zhimin is not an isolated case. China has about 35 underground bishops, reportedly "every one of them in prison, disappeared, under house arrest or under surveillance." (Source: Independent Catholic News, 2007) Bishop Shi Enxiang of Yixian was arrested in 2001; officials said in 2015 he had died in prison, but never returned the body (unverified); Bishop Shao Zhumin of Wenzhou — for whom the Vatican press office issued a formal call for release in 2017 — was taken away again on January 2, 2024; Bishop Cui Tai of Xuanhua disappeared again after April 2021; Bishop Zhang Weizhu of Xinxiang was arrested in May 2021 and remains missing. (Sources: Bitter Winter, 2025; publicdispatch.org appendix) This is a whole community's ordeal; Su Zhimin is simply the one missing the longest.

The July 30, 2020 hearing was titled "Where is Bishop Su?" Congressman Smith said he had met Bishop Su in Beijing in 1994 — in a tiny apartment, the bishop celebrated Mass for the delegation, then told them he prayed for his persecutors, especially for the "cruel and misguided leadership of the Chinese Communist Party." (Source: chrissmith.house.gov; paraphrased) Days later the bishop was arrested and held for nine days. A man who prayed for those who persecuted him was persecuted for 40 years, then vanished for 29. That is the whole of the Su Zhimin case — and the underground Catholic Church in China in miniature.

The witness list at the July 30, 2020 hearing shows the case's weight: USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel, Religious Freedom Institute president Tom Farr, Hudson Institute Center for Religious Freedom director Nina Shea. (Source: Religion Unplugged, July 30, 2020) Turkel testified to being "saddened" by reports that Bishop Su might have died in custody. A Uyghur human rights advocate testifying for a Catholic bishop — persecution doesn't discriminate by religion, and neither does solidarity. The hearing's official page still carries the video. (Source: chrissmith.house.gov)

Hong Kong's diocese also spoke up for Bishop Su in 2015; Cardinal Joseph Zen led a petition march. (Source: NCR) But after the 2018 Vatican–China agreement, voices from Hong Kong's diocese grew harder to raise. USCIRF's 2025 annual report still lists Su Zhimin as missing. (Source: via Catholic World Report, September 30, 2025) The Hudson Institute's 2024 Ten Persecuted Catholic Bishops in China puts him first — missing the longest. (Source: hudson.org) Nearly 29 years: a bishop who disappeared at 65 would be 94 now, if still alive. Time itself is the sentence.

The January 1994 secret meeting took place in a small Beijing apartment. Smith's delegation came; the bishop celebrated Mass for them. Smith later recalled the bishop telling them he prayed for his persecutors, especially for the "cruel and misguided leadership of the Chinese Communist Party." (Source: chrissmith.house.gov; paraphrased) Before the delegation had even left China, the bishop was arrested and held for nine days. A man who prayed for his persecutors, seized by the persecutors — that was China in 1994.

The November 15, 2003 hospital "sighting" was full of tells: about 20 plainclothes guards, no formal admission record, the relatives barely glimpsed him before he was moved away. (Sources: Kung Foundation via WWRN; USCIRF) It proved two things: first, he was alive — at least in 2003; second, he was under tight secret detention, hospitalized under a false name with no registration. No one has seen him since. Twenty-two years.

Beijing says he is merely "traveling as a missionary." (Source: via the State Department report) A "traveling missionary" who needs 20 plainclothes guards day and night? Who must be hospitalized without registration? Who goes 29 years without contacting family? Every official explanation proves the opposite of what it claims. When Hebei faithful petitioned in 2015, authorities said they "did not know his whereabouts" — from "traveling as a missionary" to "whereabouts unknown," the official story can't even agree with itself.

Since 2016, reports of his death have surfaced repeatedly, never confirmed — marked unverified. (Source: UCA News, 2020) As of October 2026, he remains missing — 94 years old if still alive. He is the longest-known case of enforced disappearance among sitting Catholic bishops worldwide. A footnote: Bishop Jia Zhiguo of Zhengding, another underground prelate repeatedly seized and held under house arrest, died of illness on October 29, 2025, at 90 (some sources say 91). (Sources: Agenzia Fides; catholicnewsworld, November 2025) China has about 35 underground bishops, reportedly "every one of them in prison, disappeared, under house arrest or under surveillance." (Source: Independent Catholic News, 2007) Su Zhimin has been missing the longest — no public developments to report.

Wind the clock back to the man before Su Zhimin. His predecessor as Bishop of Baoding, Peter Joseph Fan Xueyan (born 1907), was consecrated bishop in 1951, sentenced to ten years in 1958 for refusing to join the Patriotic Association and insisting on loyalty to the Pope, then sent to labor reform until 1976 after his release, and arrested again from 1977 to 1980. It was Fan Xueyan who secretly ordained Su Zhimin a priest in 1981. Fan died under the authorities' control on April 13, 1992. Su Zhimin became auxiliary bishop of Baoding in 1988, was consecrated a bishop by Bishop Peter Liu Guandong on May 2, 1993, and took office as Bishop of Baoding in 1995. (Sources: Chinese Wikipedia citing AsiaNews; English Wikipedia citing Catholic-Hierarchy; the exact dates of consecration and installation differ across sources and are flagged on this page) The Baoding diocese is a stronghold of Hebei Catholicism with roughly 100,000 faithful. (Source: Chinese Wikipedia, Baoding diocese entry) Hebei's underground church is among the largest in China — the backdrop to decades of repeated crackdowns on Baoding's underground community.

Su Zhimin's auxiliary bishop, An Shuxin, took the other road. An was taken away by the authorities in 1996, the same period as Su, held under house arrest for about ten years, and after his release in 2006 joined the Patriotic Association. On August 7, 2010, An Shuxin was installed as the officially recognized Bishop of Baoding. (Sources: Chinese Wikipedia's list of Baoding bishops; underground faithful's criticism via UCA News in Christianity Daily) Underground Catholics call him a "traitor" and refuse to recognize him — one diocese, two bishops: one disappeared, one installed by the state. Around 2020, Beijing pressed the Vatican to recognize An as Su's "replacement" — in effect asking Rome to write an obituary in advance for a disappeared man. The Vatican did not accept.

At the institutional level, the pressure was never confined to individual cases. On February 1, 2018, the revised Regulations on Religious Affairs took effect, exposing unregistered religious venues and clergy not recognized by the state to administrative penalties; the Measures for the Management of Religious Clergy, effective 2021, expressly require religious clergy to "support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party." For an underground priest to preach legally, he must first register and join the Patriotic Association system — the very thing Su Zhimin refused for forty years from the 1950s on. The price of refusal is on this page: eight arrests, some 26 to 40 cumulative years in prison and labor camps, and finally an open-ended disappearance. In August 2004, Hebei authorities seized ten underground clergy at once. (Source: Catholic Culture, August 17, 2004) After Su Zhimin vanished, the arrests never stopped; only the names changed, batch after batch.

On October 22, 2024, the provisional Vatican–China agreement was renewed a third time, this time for four years. The Vatican stated the agreement concerns only bishop appointments, not diplomatic relations. (Sources: Vatican News and multiple media reports) Once again, the renewal brought no word of Su Zhimin. His family has never been allowed to visit him, never even been told where he is held or whether he is alive. His nephew Su Tianyou has spoken out for years, urging the Vatican to make the bishop's release a condition in negotiations. A family has waited nearly 29 years for one man; all it has received is silence.

Zoom out to the whole country, and Su Zhimin's fate is the shared script of a generation of underground bishops. In the early 1950s the CCP pushed the "Three-Self" movement, demanding the Catholic Church sever all ties with Rome; in 1955, Shanghai's Bishop Ignatius Kung Pin-mei was arrested for refusing to comply and in 1960 was sentenced to life imprisonment as a "counterrevolutionary" — the Cardinal Kung Foundation, which preserves many key details of this case, was founded in his memory. After the Patriotic Association was established in 1957, bishops, priests and faithful who refused to join were imprisoned in batches. Hebei was both a disaster zone and the region of most durable resistance: Shi Enxiang of Yixian, Cui Tai of Xuanhua, Shao Zhumin of Wenzhou (Zhejiang), Zhang Weizhu of Xinxiang — different names, the same path: refuse to register, and rotate between prison, house arrest and disappearance.

Recent cases run this line into the present. Bishop Cui Tai of Xuanhua was repeatedly seized and detained from 2007, disappeared again after April 2021, and has not been reliably heard of since. Bishop Zhang Weizhu of Xinxiang was arrested on May 20, 2021 together with ten priests and seminarians; the priests and seminarians were gradually released, but Zhang Weizhu himself remains missing. Bishop Shao Zhumin of Wenzhou has been taken away for "tours" or detention at least seven times since 2016; the Vatican press office issued a statement specifically for him in 2017, and he was seized again on January 2, 2024. (Sources: Bitter Winter reports; UCA News; Vatican press office statement, 2017) These bishops share one trait: appointed by the Vatican and unrecognized by Beijing, their dioceses are "taken over" by others on official maps while they themselves do not exist in law.

The Donglu pilgrimage shrine is another window. The Our Lady of China church in Donglu village, Baoding diocese, is a nationally known pilgrimage site; every May, the Marian month, crowds of faithful make the pilgrimage. It was on a pilgrimage to Donglu in 1996 that Su Zhimin was arrested. In the years since, the Donglu pilgrimage has repeatedly been road-blocked, capped or effectively banned by the authorities in the name of "stability," with the faithful forced to come in scattered groups. (Sources: UCA News; Bitter Winter, various years) A century-old popular pilgrimage tradition must negotiate roadblocks and checkpoints every year — this is what the "Sinicization of religion" looks like on the ground: not headline church demolitions, but every pilgrimage, every Mass and every priestly appointment having to pass the gate of power first.

The Su Zhimin case also exposes a structural blank in Chinese law: China has never signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and its criminal code contains no offense of "enforced disappearance." A man is taken away openly by public security, yet his family can start no legal process at all — they cannot file a missing-person report, because it was the police who took him; they cannot arrange a lawyer's visit, because the authorities deny the detention exists; they cannot obtain information, because the official reply is "whereabouts unknown." In 29 years, all Su Tianyou and the family could do was petition, speak to foreign media, and be mentioned at other people's hearings. The "whereabouts unknown" that Hebei's faithful received in reply to their 2015 petition was not one official's evasion but the system's standard output: when the state decides to disappear a person, the law leaves the family no door at all.

Commemoration abroad has not stopped. The Cardinal Kung Foundation has continued for years to publish materials and appeals on the Su Zhimin case; the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China's annual reports and political-prisoner database have long carried his name; after the 2020 hearing, Congressman Smith's office continued to track the case. Baoding's local faithful commemorate in their own way — Donglu pilgrimages and prayers for the disappeared bishop have never ceased, only grown quieter. As of October 2026, Su Zhimin has been missing for 29 years, the longest known case of enforced disappearance of a sitting Catholic bishop in the world — and every day this record lengthens is a field test of the words "religious freedom."

The content of that 1996 appeal still reads concretely today. As quoted in the Hudson Institute's report, Su Zhimin — then in hiding — asked the authorities to implement the religious freedom guaranteed in the constitution, stop persecuting the underground church, release imprisoned religious personnel, and allow the Church to operate according to its own traditions. (Source: Hudson Institute report, citing the June 15, 1996 appeal) Not a line of it touched on political subversion; the whole letter says, in effect, "act according to your own constitution" — and the price its author paid was 29 years of disappearance. The letter later became a standard citation in human-rights reports and the text most often invoked when the world asks about this case.

• 1956 / 1957 / 1975 — Three arrests for holding to his faith; the 1957 one followed by five years in prison and farm labor (Chinese Wikipedia citing AsiaNews).
• 1981 — Ordained a priest (English Wikipedia citing Catholic-Hierarchy).
• 1982 / late 1989 — Fourth and fifth arrests (Chinese Wikipedia citing AsiaNews).
• January 1994 — Secret Beijing meeting with U.S. Congressman Christopher Smith; arrested a sixth time days later, released unconditionally under U.S. pressure (Kung Foundation press release, Oct 11, 1997; chrissmith.house.gov).
• 1995 — Installed as Bishop of Baoding (exact date unverified).
• March 1996 — Seventh arrest en route to the Donglu pilgrimage; escapes about a month later and goes into hiding (USCIRF).
• June–August 1996 — Writes to the National People's Congress and issues a pastoral letter from hiding, calling for an end to religious persecution (Kung Foundation press release; Hudson Institute report).
• October 8, 1997 (midday) — Re-arrested (eighth time) in Xinji, Hebei, taken back to Baoding; missing ever since (Kung Foundation press release, Oct 11, 1997; RNS; USCIRF).
• November 15, 2003 — Spotted by chance by relatives at Baoding Central Hospital (eye surgery + heart treatment, plainclothes guards), then moved away; one account says Nov 19 (unverified) (Kung Foundation via WWRN; USCIRF).
• 2015 — Hebei faithful petition Xi Jinping for his release; authorities say they "do not know the bishop's whereabouts" (Catholic World Report, 2016).
• 2018 / 2020 / 2022 / 2024 — Provisional Vatican–China agreement signed and renewed; no word of Bishop Su (Bitter Winter; NCR).
• July 30, 2020 — House Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing, "Where is Bishop Su?"; death rumors unconfirmed (chrissmith.house.gov; UCA News).
• 2024–2026 — Hudson Institute's Ten Persecuted Catholic Bishops in China and USCIRF annual reports still list him as missing.
• October 29, 2025 — Bishop Jia Zhiguo of Zhengding dies of illness (Agenzia Fides; catholicnewsworld).
• 1951 / April 13, 1992 — Su's predecessor Fan Xueyan is consecrated bishop (1951) and dies (1992); Su is secretly ordained a priest by Fan in 1981 (Chinese Wikipedia citing AsiaNews).
• August 7, 2010 — An Shuxin is installed as the officially recognized Bishop of Baoding; the underground church refuses to recognize him (Chinese Wikipedia, Baoding diocese).
• February 1, 2018 / 2021 — The revised Regulations on Religious Affairs and then the Measures for the Management of Religious Clergy take effect; the unregistered face penalties (public regulatory texts).
• October 22, 2024 — The provisional Vatican–China agreement is renewed a third time (four-year term); still no word of Bishop Su (Vatican News).