China Will Send Two Bishops to the Synod
Bishops Antonio Yao Shun and Joseph Yang Yongqiang
In what many consider to be an intensification of the rapprochement between the Holy See and China, Pope Francis has decided to add, with Beijing approval, two Chinese bishops to the list of 364 participants in the Synod on Synodality of which the next phase is scheduled to take place in October 2023.
The diplomatic barometer has stabilized between Rome and Beijing, since two bishops from mainland China have been authorized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to go to Rome in order to participate in the next meeting of the Synod.
The announcement was made by the Vatican Press Room on September 21, 2023, a date which is anything but a coincidence, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Sino-Vatican agreement, a provisional agreement whose clauses remain secret, but which are supposed to settle the question of the appointment of bishops. Which, in reality, is not really the case.
Aged 53, Bishop Joseph Yang Yongqiang was ordained a bishop with Vatican approval in 2010 and has occupied the see of Zhoucun, located in Shandong province, since August 2013. During his episcopal ordination, Bishop Yongqiang told UCA News that he saw an opportunity to intensify dialogue with the underground Church.
This year, the prelate participated in the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a body of the CCP. It was there that it was decided that the Catholic Church must integrate the thoughts of Xi Jinping and the principles of socialism.
In mid-September 2022, Bishop Yongqiang participated in a study session aimed at implementing the new measures on the management of religious activities. These are in fact new government restrictions which prohibit outdoor religious displays, and which requires preachers to evoke the “fundamental values of socialism” in their homilies.
The second Chinese bishop scheduled to participate in the synod is Bishop Antonio Yao Shun: he is the first bishop consecrated in China under the terms of the Sino-Vatican agreement, on August 26, 2019. He is the bishop of Jining in the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia.
Bishop Yao was set to succeed Bishop John Liu Shigoneg in 2010, but the Chinese government refused to approve him, even after Bishop Liu died in 2017 at the age of 89. Despite this, “the CCP feels at ease with him,” estimates Francesco Sisci, an expert on Chinese Catholicism who notes that the prelate is careful not to express any criticism whatsoever against Chinese government.
(Source : Catholic News Agency – FSSPX.Actualités)
Illustration : Bitter Winter
