Here are a couple of articles that about this years harassment of some Catholic priests around Easter time
BEIJING, March 24 (UPI) -- Shanghai police raided the home of a Catholic bishop earlier this month, seizing bibles, rosaries and cash as part of a crackdown on illegal Easter celebrations.The Connecticut-based Cardinal Kung Foundation says Monday the home of Bishop Fan was ransacked on March 4 by police who confiscated dozens of religious texts as well as US$2,500.
The police gave no reason for the search and seizure and no arrests were made.
Foundation President Joseph Kung links the raid to an attempt to ``pre-empt any Easter celebrations in the underground Catholic church.''
Kung calls religious persecution by Chinese authorities ``atrocious'' and urges believers to show support for underground Christians by protesting the ``barbarous acts.''
Although China's constitution guarantees the right to religious expression, the government conducts regular crackdowns on illegal, underground groups which refuse to submit to state control.
Under strict guidelines set by the Religious Affairs Bureau, all churches are required to register and report the names of their members.
Officially-sanctioned congregations are also forced to pledge allegiance to the Communist Party as the highest authority of church power.
Many devout congregations buck the secular regulations, meeting secretly but under constant threat of arrest.
From Hong Kong StandardHome raid on second cleric
By Fong Tak-ho
SHANGHAI police have ransacked the home of a priest of China's underground Roman Catholic Church, seizing religious articles, a United States-based pressure group claims. Shanghai Security Bureau officers raided Father Zen Caijun's home on Saturday night, The Cardinal Kung Foundation, an American Catholic religious rights group, said.
A large amount of religious articles and cash were taken away.
A video recorder, a telephone, religious videos and other electrical goods were seized. No reason was given.
Six officers led the five-hour raid that ended on Sunday morning, the pressure group claimed.
The group last week accused Shanghai police of scouring the home of a bishop and seizing his property.
``Ransacking two homes of underground Roman Catholic priests before Easter could not be a random act of some lower-level official of the Shanghai Security Bureau,'' the group's president, Joseph Kung, said.
``It has to be a carefully planned strategy of the Chinese government to eradicate the underground Roman Catholic church in accordance with the internal communist document released by the group this January.''
The raids coincided with the Geneva United Nations Human Rights Commission and happened just after Pope John Paul II's call for a lenient religious policy in China on Good Friday.
China and the Catholic Church have been at odds since the communist revolution in 1949, since when priests and nuns alike have have been purged.