Rome Newsroom, Oct 22, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- As the Sino-Vatican provisional agreement was renewed Thursday, an article in a Vatican newspaper said that two Chinese bishops had been appointed under the “regulatory framework established by the agreement.”
Vatican officials have repeatedly stressed that the accord between China and the Holy See — which will not expire until Oct. 22, 2022 — is focused solely on the appointment of bishops.
While the terms of the agreement have been kept confidential, it reportedly allows the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association to choose a slate of nominees for bishop.
An article published by L’Osservatore Romano Oct. 22 said: “The main purpose of the provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops in China is to support and promote the proclamation of the Gospel in those lands, restoring the full and visible unity of the Church … The question of the appointment of bishops is of vital importance for the life of the Church, both locally and universally.”
With this in mind, what do we know about the bishops who have been affected by the Sino-Vatican agreement? Those who were newly appointed under the confidential provisions of the deal, those whose excommunications were lifted after the deal, and the bishops who stepped back from their former leadership roles.
Who was appointed?
Bishop Antonio Yao Shun of Jining, in the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia, was the first bishop consecrated in China under the terms of the Sino-Vatican agreement, on Aug. 26, 2019.
Prior to his appointment, Yao had served as the secretary and later vice director of the liturgical commission overseen by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Council of Chinese Bishops since 1998. He returned to the Diocese of Jining in 2010 to serve as victor general.
Born in Ulanqab in 1965, Yao is a native of Inner Mongolia. He both studied and taught at the national seminary in Beijing. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1991, Yao completed a degree in liturgy in the United States at St. John’s University in Minnesota from 1994 to 1998. He also spent some time pursuing biblical studies in Jerusalem.
Yao’s episcopal motto is “Misericordes sicut pater,” which means “Be merciful as the Father is.”
The New York Times has reported that the Vatican had approved Yao as the successor of Bishop John Liu Shigong in the Diocese of Jining in 2010, but the Chinese government refused to approve him, even after Bishop Liu died in 2017 at the age of 89.
But Chinese researchers have pointed out that Yao is not one to speak out critically about the Chinese government.
“The Communist Party feels comfortable with him,” said Francesco Sisci, a Beijing-based researcher on Chinese Catholicism told the Times in 2019. “They don’t want someone doing agitprop against them.”
Bishop Stephen Xu Hongwei of Hanzhong, in Shaanxi Province, was ordained a coadjutor bishop on August 28, 2019, at the age of 44.
He serves the Diocese of Hanzhong as coadjutor to 91-year-old Bishop Louis Yu Runchen. The diocese was divided between underground and state-approved Catholic communities for many years. Yu Runchen was selected by the Chinese Patriotic Association to be bishop without the approval of the Holy See in 1985, a year after the Vatican’s appointment of Bishop Bartholomew Yu Chengti. The Vatican recognized Yu only after the underground bishop died in 2009.
After his ordination in 2002, Xu studied at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome from 2004 to 2008. He undertook further studies in the Diocese of Vancouver, Canada. Upon returning to China in 2010, he was appointed pastor of West Street Cathedral in the Diocese of Hanzhong.
Xu was a member of a regional Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Consultative Political Conference — the consultative political body part of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front — in 2012 and 2017, and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
Whose excommunications were lifted?
With the signing of the provisional agreement between the Holy See and China in Sept. 2018, Pope Francis also lifted the excommunication of seven bishops who had been appointed illicitly by the state-controlled Chinese Patriotic Association.
They include Bishop Joseph Guo Jincai, 52, of Chengde in Hebei Province. Pope Francis created the Diocese of Chengde in 2019 out of the Dioceses of Jinzhou and Chifeng in 2018, so that Guo could lead his own diocese after his excommunication was lifted.
Guo participated in the Synod of Bishops in Rome in 2018 and has served three terms as a deputy to the National People’s Congress in Beijing.
As a member of China’s legislative body, Bishop Guo publicly supported an amendment to eliminate presidential term limits and enshrine “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” in the Chinese constitution in March 2018.
“My position as a national legislator will not and cannot affect my religious service, as China implements the principle of separation of church and state,” Guo told the state-sponsored newspaper Global Times at the National People’s Congress in 2018.
Bishop Vincent Zhan Silu, 61, of Mindong/Funing in Fujian Province. After underground Bishop Joseph Guo Xijin stepped aside to allow him to lead the diocese, Zhan led a delegation of 33 priests from the Diocese of Mindong to participate in a “formation course” at the Central Institute of Socialism, in collaboration with the United Front of Fujian Province, where they listened to presentations on the “sinicization of religion.”
“We must contribute to the creation of a new reality in the diocese of Mindong and in the Catholic Church of Fujian,” Zhan said after the course, according to Asia News.
“We will deepen the content of Catholic doctrine in order to foster social harmony, progress and a positive culture. To carry out the sinicization of religion with determination, we will continue to follow a path that conforms to socialist society,” Zhan said in August 2019.
Bishop Paul Lei Shiyin, 56, of Leshan in Chongqing Province. Lei served as an official delegate at the government’s Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in 2018. He previously served as a vice president of the Patriotic Association.
After his excommunication was lifted, Lei was a speaker at a 2019 celebration of the Chinese Red Army’s Long March, led by Mao Zedong, in which he spoke of a meeting convened by Mao in a (requisitioned) Catholic priest’s house in Moxi in 1935 as a story of “patriotism of our country’s Catholicism,” according to the Catholic Patriotic Association website.
Bishop Joseph Huang Bingzhang, 53, of Shantou in Guangdong Province. After he was appointed by the government without papal permission in 2011, Huang became vice president of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
He served as a deputy in the most recent National People’s Congress, as well as the National People’s Congress that took place from 2008 to 2013.
Huang said in 2017 that he would work to actively promote the practice of Catholic patriotism, according to the Chinese Patriotic Association website.
Bishop Joseph Liu Xinhong, 56, of Anqing in Anhui Province. Illicitly ordained in 2006 after the government-controlled Catholic bishops’ conference combined the dioceses of Anqing, Bengbu and Wuhu to form the Anhui diocese — a restructuring that was not recognized by the Holy See, according to UCA News.
Bishop Joseph Ma Yinglin, 55, of Kunming in Yunnan Province. Ma previously served as secretary for the Council of Catholic Bishops at a time when the government-controlled “episcopal conference” was not recognized by the Holy See. In 2010, Ma was appointed president of the Chinese patriotic association’s bishops’ conference.
Bishop Joseph Yue Fusheng, 56, of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province. Yue was illicitly named bishop of Harbin in 2012 by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
Bishop Anthony Tu Shihua of Hanyang and Puqi in Hubei province. Before his death in 2017 at the age of 98, Tu expressed a desire to be reconciled with the Holy See. One of China’s first illicitly named bishops, Tu was appointed without papal mandate in 1959, and later served as rector of the National Seminary in Beijing between 1983 and 1992, and as a leader of the Patriotic Association and the Council of Chinese Bishops.
Who stepped aside?
Bishop Peter Zhuang Jianjian, 89, of Shantou in Guangdong Province was asked to retire by Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli in 2019 so that Bishop Joseph Huang Bingzhang would be recognized by the Vatican as the Bishop of Shantou.
Bishop Joseph Guo Xijin, 62, of Mindong/Funing in Fujian Province. In October this year, Guo announced that he was retiring to concentrate on prayer because he did not “want to become an obstacle to progress.” Guo was an underground bishop who previously agreed to become an auxiliary bishop so that state-appointed Bishop Zhan Silu would be recognized by the Vatican. “In any circumstance or change, you should never forget God, and neither ignore the Lord’s commandments, nor damage the integrity of faith, nor delay the salvation of the soul, which is the most important thing,” he said in a letter to his diocese Oct. 5.
Who is missing?
Bishop James Su Zhimin, 88, of Baoding in Hebei Province. The whereabouts of Bishop Su, who has spent 24 years in prison, is unknown. He was arrested by Chinese authorities in 1997. He was last seen by family at a hospital in 2003 while he was in government custody.
According to Bishop Su’s nephew, Chinese officials have reportedly asked the Vatican to appoint a new bishop of Baoding, UCA News reported on July 22. Their preferred candidate is said to be Coadjutor Bishop Francis An Shuxi, a member of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the state-sanctioned church.
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Hey, Holy Father, it’s not possible to worship God while making the liturgy devoid of all its symbolism and beauty either. Where are these council deniers, anyhow? Probably hanging out with all the other straw men you’ve created.
The Pontiff is simply an arsonist who likes to stick around and watch what he’s firebombed burn to the ground.
He’s gonna’ have to live a long time if he hopes to see the TLM gone. Just like the papal oath against modernism; practitioners simply took it underground.
Well Gary, if that is what the fire in him (the Holy Spirit) does, then why should we grumble.
This reader doesn’t have a dog in this fight, and I don’t reject Traditionis custodes, but how are we to interpret this dismissal of “those movements that try to go back a little and deny the Second Vatican Council itself.”
In the interests of dialogue, reconciliation, factual accuracy and Church unity, what is really called for is not monologue but a coming together of today’s liturgy with what the Council actually adopted in Sacrosanctum Concilium–as a unified development of Tradition with what was explicitly intended for the Novus Ordo. Not either/or. Not setting the clock “back a little,” but setting in right.
Now that at least 70 percent of Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence, or even attend Mass, what is to be done, really? Invest in doughnuts rather than candles?
Righteous, Jeff T. As for smelling Satan?, I’ve not got the nose for that. I have heard it said that Satan hates Latin, so he and Francis may have that in common.
I pray that Almighty God soon take this poor, confused soul into that big synodally synodal synod in the sky, and grant him the fullness of peace, mercy and salvation, regardless of his many human mistakes.
“When the liturgical life is a bit like a banner of division, there is the stench of the devil in there, the deceiver,”
It does seem that way. For the first three decades of worship in the old form, the change introduced by Vatican 2 came like a breath of fresh air. The liturgy of the Word was richer and more meaningful since it was done in a language I understood. I accepted the change because I went along with the decision of the Church. After all, I belonged to the Church having been baptized into it. I believe this the way our Lord wants it to be.
Malware Alert!
Regarding the liturgy, you refer to the “decision of the Church.” Notwithstanding that much cleaning-up has been done in recent decades, the earlier experimental masses (in both senses of the term) still linger as a bad taste associated with the Novus Ordo.
You, who in a recent post proudly imply that others fall short of your lofty personal standard of actually reading the works of Pope Francis, are invited to take a another or new look at what Vatican II actually decided and authorized in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy:https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html
And as for your reported “millions”—certainly true–who admire the subtleties of Pope Francis’ writings (and his contrary signaling?), what are these compared to the 1,300 millions of Catholics in the world today and all those who have come before, the real Tradition-—what G.K. Chesterton calls the more inclusive (!) “democracy of the dead”?
Make no self-referential mistake, Pope Francis is the pope of all of us, but we also agree with him that his actions are far from perfect. These would be tough times for any pope, but unfortunately his successes include progress on his goal of “making a mess of things.”
Your own headcount of sympathetic followers on these pages could improve if you refrained from branding others—surely less pristine than yourself—as “trads and protestants.” Show some self respect.
I say “trads and Protestants” because they form the bulk of the people that oppose Pope Francis. Of course, there are others who think like them but who do not associate with them. I suppose I could add “and a few others”. But I will not change my ways because those groups are harming the Church and, sadly, quite a few souls.
“…others who think like them [only]? “I will not change my ways.” How “bigoted” and how very “rigid” can one be? How very “traditional”!
Brother Mal,
My less sarcastic remark is to recommend the 19th century St. John Henry Cardinal Newman (regarded as the “grandfather of the Second Vatican Council”) who, in his “Development of Christian Doctrine,” explains that in moving “forward” it is necessary to NOT burn our bridges (the real Tradition). The “others” whom you now recognize simply notice some fires and that’s where the one-sided (!) dialogue is focused.
Newman offers seven criteria:
(1) One and the same TYPE [doctrine/ natural law v. a disconnected degree of pastoral “accompaniment”?],
(2) The same PRINCIPLES [sound philosophy v. neo-Hegelianism?],
(3) The same ORGANIZATION [the Barque of Peter v. Fratellli tuti’s all religions equivalently (?) “the will of God”?];
(4) If its beginnings ANTICIPATE its subsequent phases [Catechism/Veritatis Splendor v. signaling the normalization of homosexual activity, etc.?], and
(5) Its later phenomena PROTECT and subserve its earlier [VS/Familiarus Consortio v. the fanciful social-science of Marx, and Batzing and Hollerich?];
(6) If it has a power of assimilation and REVIVAL [Evangelization v. Amazonia/Germania?], and
(7) A vigorous ACTION from first to last…” [energized witnessing while/because also fully and steadfastly engaging new challenges v. double-speak?].
That’s great, as long as you never travel and have to listen to Mass in another language. Then it is no different than the Latin Mass. I have traveled to several countries, and any Mass in other than English or French is just as “non-understandable” as Latin. At least in my youth, most people had a missal with English translations so one could follow along, even without understanding the priest.
This is too much even from this Pope.
What do they call those who attribute actions to others that they themselves are doing???
The word you are looking for is projection
Pot and kettle maybe?
“Indeed, such closed-minded people use liturgical frameworks to defend their views.”
Were more true words ever spoken by the man?
Problems with worship go all the way back to the Church at Corinth. St. Paul had to give them correction to keep the faith pure in the face of pagan idol worship. St. Paul’s comments about women covering their heads and the eating of meat offered to idols was in response to the pagan worship practices of the time. The general sequence for pagan worship was for there to be a sacrifice to a pagan god. The meat from the pagan sacrifice was served in attached dining halls or sold in meat markets. The people in the dining halls got drunk and engaged in sexual orgies. In the pagan temples women who wore their hair down meant that they were sexually available. Proper women wore their hair up.
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St. Paul wrote:
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Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” “Knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If any one imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But if one loves God, one is known by him.
4 Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
7 However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through being hitherto accustomed to idols, eat food as really offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 Only take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if any one sees you, a man of knowledge, at table in an idol’s temple, might he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? 11 And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. 12 Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food is a cause of my brother’s falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall.
(1 Corinthians 8:1-13 RSVCE)
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CWR has had articles about open, uncorrected liturgical abuses. Many modernist Catholics are all too puffed up with worldly knowledge, very much like the Church at Corinth.
Pope Francis neglected to add that he is the one who made the liturgy a battleground, not those who love the Mass of Ages. Popes John Paul and Benedict pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence and mutual enrichment, which he disregarded out of irrational hatred and a will to flex his power.
I agree completely. His Holiness absolutely should stop gratuitously making the Liturgy a battleground and deliberately being divisive. It is tragic.
For Mahatma Gandhi, following Christ was much more than liturgy. He would often say, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It is just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ”