BEIJING (AP) — An elderly bishop in China’s underground Catholic church has been detained again by police, nine months after his release from their custody, a US-based monitoring group said on Thursday.Bishop Jia Zhiguo, 73, was taken away Tuesday by security agents in the northern city of Zhengding, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said in a statement. It was not immediately clear why Jia was detained or where he was being held, the group said.

A man who answered the telephone at the Zhengding Religious Affairs Bureau referred questions to the local government. Officials at the Zhengding government office and public security bureau said they had never heard of Jia and hung up without giving their names or any other details.

Jia was last released in September, 2006 after being held for ten months by local authorities. The reason was never made public but religious groups say Jia has been repeatedly detained over his refusal to affiliate himself with the Communist Party-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association.

“He was not even allowed to step out of the courtyard of his residence, was not allowed to administer the ‘Last Rites’ for his dying parishioners, and was not allowed any visitors,” the foundation said.

China, which broke ties with the Vatican in 1951, demands that Catholics worship only in churches approved by the state-controlled group, which does not recognise the pope’s authority.

Worship is allowed only in government-controlled churches, which recognise the pope as a spiritual leader but appoint their own priests and bishops.