A group of Chinese Catholic priests and nuns locked in a property dispute with a city government returned home over the weekend but vowed not to give up their building claim, one of the priests said yesterday.

The group, which had numbered about 50, agreed last week that most of them would return to their home province of Shanxi after occupying the building in the northern port city of Tianjin for over a week, leaving 13 behind to continue talking with the Tianjin government.

But the mayor promised that if the rest of the priests, nuns and monks went home, he would deal with the dispute, one of the priests said. ?We?ve not given up our demand. But we could not give the mayor face. He said the deadlock could not go on as it would make the situation even harder to solve,? the priest said by telephone from Shanxi.

The low-rise, colonial-style building in the former Italian concession in Tianjin, southeast of Beijing, was owned by Catholics from the northwestern province of Shanxi before the 1949 Communist revolution. Then the building was seized by the government and has never been handed back despite a 1993 promise to do so, the priests say. ?We believe that if the Tianjin government has given their word, it will be solved soon. We still want them to give the building back so we can manage it,? he said, before the line was abruptly cut. He could not be reached again.

Tianjin city government officials would not immediately comment. The dispute is the latest of several arrests and confrontations that have highlighted tensions between religious forces and government control in China, even as Beijing seeks diplomatic relations with the Vatican. The priests and nuns are members of China?s official Catholic church which respects the Pope as a spiritual leader but rejects his administrative authority.

Earlier this month, some of them were beaten up when they tried to go to the building. Chinese police regularly harass members of the underground Roman Catholic Church, but generally leave services and activities of the official church alone.

Beijing has had no ties with the Vatican since 1951 and insists relations cannot be resumed unless the Holy See severs links with self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own.

Since China restored officially controlled religion in the 1980s, it has selectively returned confiscated land to Catholic churches. But in many places land remains in dispute.