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Rev. Joseph Meng Ziwen, a Roman Catholic clergyman in China since the 1930s who secretly served as a bishop to underground congregations while working as a priest in the Communist Party-sanctioned church, has died at 103.
Meng died Jan. 7 in the southern city of Nanning, where he was a priest for the state-backed Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
Meng secretly served from 1984 to 2003 as bishop to underground churches, which operate outside the state-sanctioned system, according to the Holy Spirit Study Center in Hong Kong.
Tens of millions of Chinese worship in underground churches that remain loyal to the Vatican in defiance of a 1951 order by the ruling party for China’s Catholics to sever ties with Rome.
