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| Cardinal Thomas Tien, SVD, Archbishop of Peking, consecrating Bishop Peter Wang Muduo of Xuanhua in 1948 (source: Whitworth University) |
On this day 100 years ago, Pope Pius XI published an encyclical on the missions that in many respects would usher in a new missionary era for the Church. Throughout this anniversary, I plan to post a number of articles shedding light on different aspects of this significant papal document. One of the chief purposes of the encyclical Rerum ecclesiæ gestarum was to further the formation of a hierarchy of native Catholic bishops in mission territories. The lack of such bishops had already been lamented by Pope Benedict the XV in the apostolic letter Maximum Illud, published in 1919. After recalling the sorrow of his immediate predecessor in Rerum ecclesiæ, Pius XI points out how in the earliest days of the Church, “the clergy placed in charge of the faithful in each new community by the Apostles were not men brought in from the outside but were chosen from the natives of that locality”. He goes on to address the European missionary bishops: “From the fact that the Roman Pontiff has entrusted to you and to your assistants the task of preaching the Christian religion to pagan nations, you ought not to conclude that the role of the native clergy is merely one of assisting the missionaries in minor matters, of merely following up and completing their work. What, We ask, is the true object of these holy missions if it be not this, that the Church of Christ be founded and established in these boundless regions?“ This last observation is noteworthy since it constitutes a genuine doctrinal development of missionary ecclesiology and would be reflected by Pius’ XI actions throughout his pontificate. It points to the plantatio ecclesiæ as the final goal of missionary work.
That the native
clergy had not produced any bishops–at least not in recent centuries–was
especially conspicuous in the Church’s largest mission territory, China. The
only Chinese bishop in history had been Luo Wenzao, who served as the Vicar
Apostolic of Nanjing from 1685 until his death in 1691. The Celestial Empire
had experienced a growth of nationalism following the country’s forced opening
towards Western powers in the middle of the 19th century, a trend
that continued well into the Republican era starting in 1912. Nationalist
propaganda often depicted the Church as something foreign; Chinese Catholics
did not remain immune to these claims.
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| Pius XI consecrating six Chinese bishops in St. Peter in 1926 (colorization courtesy of Michael Baker) |
The
consecration of six Chinese bishops at the hands of the Pope in St. Peter’s on
28 October 1926 was a clear signal that Pius XI paid attention to increased
nationalist sentiment and to the justified desire for a Chinese church led by a
Chinese clergy.[1] In
the wake of these consecrations, ecclesiastical territories were created in
China to be administered by Chinese prelates, as was the case of the Apostolic
Vicariate of Jining, created in 1929 with Msgr. Evariste Chang as its head.
Msgr. Chang was consecrated in Rome by the Prefect of the Congregation de
Propaganda Fide, Cardinal van Rossum, while others received the
plenitude of the priesthood from European bishops in their native China.
History was written once again in 1931 when Simon Zhu Kaimin became the first
Chinese bishop to consecrate[2]
another Chinese bishop in Boniface Yang Fujie, auxiliary of Canton.
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| Bishop Melchior Su Dezhen of Anguo (seated, not visible) consecrating his successor Jean-Baptiste Wang |
Especially
noteworthy among the prelates appointed by Pius XI are the future cardinals
Thomas Tien and Paul Yu Pin, created by Pius XII and Paul VI,
respectively. Thomas Tien was the first Chinese cardinal and the first cardinal
of the Society of the Divine Word, which he joined after having begun his
ministry as a diocesan priest. Pius XI appointed him Apostolic Prefect of Yangku,
while Pius XII made him Vicar Apostolic, then Bishop of Tsingtao, and
finally Archbishop of Peking and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. Invested
with the highest honors, he remained a pious and simple missionary with great
fervor. After he was driven from mainland China in 1951, Cardinal Tien played a
pivotal role in the considerable growth of the Church in Taiwan during the
1950s and 1960s. Like Tien, Paul Yu Pin hailed from northern China and
would go on to become the archbishop of one of China’s historical capitals in
Nanjing. He was both ordained a priest and consecrated a bishop during the
reign of Pius XI. Yu Pin also had to flee mainland China for Taiwan,
where he consecrated the future Archbishop of Taipei Matthew Kia Yen-Wen, who
in turn consecrated Paul Shan Kuo-Hsi, S.J., later Bishop of Kaohsiung in
Taiwan and cardinal. Both Tien and Yu Pin left a deep pastoral and
educational imprint on Taiwan’s church.
It was largely
thanks to the groundwork laid by Pius XI that Pius XII could officially
establish the Chinese Catholic hierarchy in April of 1946 with the Bull Quotidie
Nos, which formed 20 ecclesiastical provinces attached to the same number of archdioceses,
three of which were headed by Chinese bishops. Most of the 79 dioceses that had
formerly been Apostolic Vicariates were led by Chinese prelates.
The overwhelming
majority of the bishops and prelates named by Pius XI who lived to suffer
persecution under the new Communist rulers in the 1950s stood firmly with the Holy
See, judging from what research into this turbulent era of Chinese history permits. Many
were forced into exile in Taiwan, the United States, and Europe. The two last
surviving bishops out of the six consecrated by Pius XI in 1926, Simon Zhu
Kaimin and Joseph Hu Ruoshan, died in China in the early 1960s. Both had been
persecuted by the government, the latter dying while imprisoned. A notable
exception to this general loyalty among the Pian Chinese bishops was Francis Xavier
Zhao Zhensheng, Bishop of Xianxian. Initially persecuted by the Communists,
Zhao Zhensheng later gave in to the Communist push for an “independent” church,
participating in the founding conference of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic
Association in 1957. In 1958 he illicitly consecrated a total of seven Chinese
bishops, all of whom would exercise their ministry independently of the Holy
See and therefore illegitimately. Tragic irony marked his last years, as he was
persecuted during the Cultural Revolution’s purges aiming to abolish all
religions. Bishop Zhao Zhensheng died between 1968 and 1970 in Communist
internment. The Chinese government publicly rehabilitated him in 1981. Through
his episcopal lineage, the state-controlled church in China remains connected to
Pius XI and his genuine concern that the Universal Church in China be governed
by Chinese bishops in full communion with the Holy See.
The establishment
of a native episcopate in China by Pius XI was both symbolic and impactful. It
showed that Rome did not regard non-European Catholics as second-class citizens,
good enough to be baptized, but never equipped to lead their local churches. The
Chinese episcopate proved its worth during the turmoil of wars and persecution.
The farsighted policy of Pius XI prepared China’s Church to be governed
throughout decades without the help of foreign missionaries. Let us hope and
pray that one day, China’s Church may proclaim the Gospel freely under the
leadership of Chinese bishops in union with Rome, showing that Catholicism in
China can be both genuinely Chinese and Roman at the same time.
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