South China Morning Post [subscriber only] is the first – so far as I can tell – news source to confirm what was already becoming obvious: Fr. Li Shan will be the government AND Vatican-approved bishop of Beijing. The key passage in the SCMP story indicates just how much relations between Rome and Beijing have…
All posts in Catholicism
New Beijing Bishop to be Ordained Friday – Confirmed
Additional details and links available via a September 15 post to Shanghai Scrap. [Update 9/19: It does, indeed, appear that the Vatican is going to take the pragmatic approach in regard to Beijing’s new bishop. That is, make positive noises, but neither confirm nor deny the Pope’s mandate. In that way, nobody is offended, and…
New Beijing Bishop to be Ordained on September 21?
[UPDATE 9/17: At 11: 51 AM, Beijing Time, Reuters confirmed that the ordination will take place on Friday. The story includes a comment from the Vice-chair of the Patriotic Association, and that’s good enough for me to label the rumors confirmed. Publicly, at least, the question of whether or not Li received the Pope’s approval…
Missing History: A Bishop for Guiyang
In May 2006, after several years of warming relations between the Vatican and Beijing, two Catholic bishops were illicitly ordained in Wuhu and Kunming. That is to say, they were ordained without the approval of the Pope, but with the approval of certain instruments of the Chinese government, including the Chinese Catholic Bishops Conference. Five…
The Pope’s China Letter: First Tangible Results?
UCAN is reporting that the Guizhou Catholic diocese will celebrate the first ordination of a Chinese bishop since the Pope’s letter to China’s Catholics was released on June 30. Father Paul Xiao Zejiang was elected the co-adjutor bishop (with right of succession when the current bishop dies or retires) in October, and the election was…
The Pope’s Letter – More Reflections and Some Links [Heyndrickx v. Zen Edition!]
Recently I’ve received inquiries from individuals wondering why there hasn’t been a more pronounced reaction to the Pope’s June 30 letter to China’s Catholics. This is understandable: the letter is the most significant attempt to reconcile the Vatican with Beijing in over fifty years, and it’s only natural to expect a deeper or more dramatic…
Mixed Signals?
On July 25, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association [CCPA] celebrated it 50th anniversary with an event at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. It was a significant occasion for the government agency charged with overseeing China’s Catholics, and it was well-attended by a coteries of high-ranking government officials. Among them was Jia Qinglin,…
First Things First, Pt. 2
Last month, Richard John Neuhaus of First Things took a slap at me for (supposedly) taking a slap at Cardinal Joseph Zen, the Archbishop of Hong Kong, in my profile of Shanghai’s Bishop Jin Luxian in the current issue of the Atlantic (Neuhaus was wrong about this, a point that I make here). In the…
Company Men
Posted on Author AdamPosted in Appreciations and Recommendations, Business and Trade, Catholicism2 Replies
Over the weekend I read most of Liam Brockey’s superb “Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724.” Brockey’s book is not only a fast-paced account of one of the greatest adventures ever undertaken by a group of organized Europeans, it is – consciously and unconsciously – one of the better accounts that…
Up From the Underground?
The Pope’s Letter to Chinese Catholics, released on June 30, received a brief flurry of media and blog coverage (at Shanghai Scrap, too!), and then receded into shadows cast by more immediate and (for some people) controversial Papal communications. Yet the lack of coverage – both in China and abroad – should not be taken…