SAIQI, China (AP) — The twin-spired church in this southern Chinese village was packed with more than a thousand Catholics observing Good Friday, but the bishop who tends to the congregation was not among them. Just a day earlier, government agents had taken him away.

Bishop Guo Xijin is at the center of talks between the Vatican and the atheist Communist Party that will likely yield a deal on who appoints bishops in China. The move would be historic, uniting the country’s Catholics for the first time since Beijing and the Holy See severed relations nearly seven decades ago.

At a pre-dawn Mass on Thursday, Guo had urged congregants at the Saiqi church to be brave and keep the faith. “Full of comfort and hope, we are inspired to more bravely face struggles and offer our love to God,” he told them.

Not long after, government agents arrived and for the second time during Holy Week took Guo away for what they described as a “vacation” — a euphemistic term in China for an enforced disappearance.

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