Chinese bishops now able to participate in the next Synod

Vatican Insider/La Stampa

Giovanni Battista Yang Xaoting and Giuseppe Guo Jincai are the first two Catholic bishops who could participate in a general assembly of the Synod of the Catholic Church.

It was Wang Zuo'an, current "number two" of the "United Front" (according to Chinese sources to Vatican Insider) who communicated, during a meeting with the representatives of the Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics and the Episcopal Conference, the names of the two bishops who received the necessary authorization to leave the country and go to Rome during the month of October, to participate (except for surprises) in the synodal assembly on youth, faith and vocational discernment, which will begin on the next 3 October.

Wang Zuo'an has been director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) for many years.

Until now it had never happened. Never before have successors of the apostles from China had been able to participate in a meeting of the permanent institution of the Episcopal College of the Catholic Church, constituted by Paul VI in 1965. After the signing of the provisional agreement between the Holy See on the modalities to appoint to the Chinese bishops, the participation of two representatives of the Chinese episcopate in the Synod of Bishops would be another important sign that the way of the Church begins to proceed on the path of normality, progressively overcoming all the anomalies that have characterized the condition of Catholicism during the last 70 years.

Some Chinese bishops were invited without success in 1998, during the pontificate of John Paul II (Mattia Duan Yinming and Giuseppe Xu Zhixuan, bishops of Wanxian), and in 2005, during the pontificate of Benedict XVI (Antonio Li Duan of Xi'an, Aloysius Jin Luxian from Shanghai, Giuseppe Wei Jingyi Qiqihar and Lucas Li Jingfeng from Fengxiang).

Giovanni Battista Yang Xiaoting, 54, was ordained a priest of Zhouzhi in 1991. He studied in Italy from 1993 and obtained a doctorate in Sacred Scripture at Urbaniana University in 1999. From 2000 to 2002 he continued to study in the United States, where He graduated in Sociology. He was named by Pope Benedict XVI coadjutor of Yan'an in 2006, taught at the seminary in Xi'an from 2002 until he was consecrated bishop on July 15, 2010 with the pontifical mandate and with the recognition of the government. He was the first Chinese priest to obtain a PhD from a Pontifical University after the seventies of the last century. In March of this year, Bishop Yang participated in Rome at the International Conference: "Christianity in China. Impact and inculturation ", promoted by the Faculty of Missiology of the Pontifical Gregorian University, with the support of the Yuan Dao Study Center, and presented a dissertation on the charitable and social works of the Catholic Church in China.

Giuseppe Guo Jincai, 50, a native of Chengde and current Secretary General of the Conference of Chinese Bishops (a body still not recognized by the Holy See) studied at the Hebei seminary until 1992. He was ordained bishop of Chengde without a pontifical mandate in November 2010. The episcopal ordination (the first illegitimately administered from 2006) was carried out despite the vivid protests of the Holy See. Eight legitimate Chinese bishops participated in the ordination, some under pressure from government agencies.

Guo Jincai is one of the seven canonically legitimized bishops who have been received back into full communion by Pope Francis, in the framework of the dialogue that has led to the Sino-Vatican agreement on the criteria for selecting future Chinese bishops.

The diocese of Chengde was founded in 2010 according to government indications, so that ecclesiastical entities coincide with administrative ones. The Pope has just instituted the diocese of Chengde, recognized in the local diocesan system as a diocese "suffragan of Beijing, with an episcopal seat in the Cathedral Church of Jesus the Good Shepherd."