Bishop Augustine Cui Tai (崔泰) is a Catholic bishop of the underground Church in Xuanhua, Hebei province, who has spent much of the last two decades in detention, house arrest, or forced disappearance for refusing to join the government-run Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. He has not been seen since he was taken into police custody in April 2021, according to a 2024 Hudson Institute report and 2025 Catholic media coverage of his case.
Cui Tai was born in 1950 and ordained a priest in October 1990, according to Hong Kong’s 天亞社 (Union of Catholic Asian News). In 2013 Pope Benedict XVI appointed him coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Xuanhua. Because he would not enroll in the state-run Patriotic Association, Chinese authorities repeatedly detained him: Catholic agencies document an April 2018 detention for “indoctrination” (he was allowed to return to his diocese that January 2019), a fresh detention on March 29, 2019 alongside his vicar general, Father Zhang Jianlin, and another removal on June 19, 2020 — when the then 70-year-old bishop, who suffers from serious stomach illness, was sent by his family to a designated detention location. Earlier, a 2020 report by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) recorded that he had already endured repeated house arrests and a spell in a re-education camp.
Since the spring of 2021 he has been forcibly disappeared. ChinaAid reported in February 2023 that he had been illegally detained without any legal procedure for nearly 16 years. Human Rights Watch’s reporting on Catholics in China describes Bishop Cui Tai as arrested and held under house arrest, barred from exercising his ministry by the government-recognized bishop. In September 2025, Pope Leo XIV suppressed the Dioceses of Xuanhua and Xiwanzi and erected the new Diocese of Zhangjiakou; the Vatican said the 75-year-old Bishop Cui Tai was now retired and that the Chinese government recognized his status as a bishop. No release has been confirmed, and his current whereabouts remain unknown.
Chinese-language sources differ on the written form of his name: Human Rights Watch’s Chinese report writes 崔泰, while 天亞社’s Chinese reporting writes 崔太. English-language coverage consistently uses “Cui Tai.” This profile uses 崔泰 with the variant noted.
Sources: Salt+Light / 鹽+光傳媒 citing 天亞社 (June 22, 2020); Catholic World Report / CNA (March 29, 2019); CSW 2020 China report; ChinaAid (February 27, 2023); Human Rights Watch (World Report 2025; EU-China submission; Chinese-language report on Catholics in China); The Good Newsroom / CNS via the Vatican Press Office (September 2025). See the Media Profile & Archive for the full source chronology, the name-form discrepancy, and evidentiary limits.
View the Augustine Cui Tai Media Profile & Archive for full source detail, detention chronology, and provenance.
Media Profile & Archive: Augustine Cui Tai (崔泰) — Media Profile & Archive