Bishop Fu Tieshan, the chairman of China's state-sanctioned Catholic Church, died Friday at age 76. The state-backed church, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, refuses to recognize the Vatican's authority, but many clergy and ordinary Catholics remain loyal to the pope and have been persecuted for it, AP reported. The state-owned newspaper People's Daily said Fu died in a Beijing hospital Friday night but gave no cause of death. Fu was also a vice chairman of the standing committee of the National People's Congress, China's parliament.
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