Bishop Pius Jin Peixian of Liaoning died of kidney cancer in the early morning of Nov. 4 at the age of 84.The northeastern diocese has scheduled a funeral Mass on Nov. 8.
Many Church people in and outside China considered Bishop Jin a prominent leader of the China Church.
He held the title of vice president of the Bishops' Conference of the Catholic Church in China before his death.
With "trust in God and a love of the Church," says Liaoning diocese's obituary, Bishop Jin "served the spiritual needs of the people for his whole life." It described him as "a good shepherd for his flock."
Anthony Lam Sui-ki, a Hong Kong-based Church-in-China observer, said on Nov. 4 that Bishop Jin -- archbishop of Shenyang, according to the Vatican -- maintained a successful balance between his "loyalty to the pope and compliance with national identity."
Lam, senior researcher at Hong Kong diocese's Holy Spirit Study Centre, explained to UCA News that Bishop Jin strengthened his priests' sense of the universal Church. He pointed out that the retired bishop and his successor, Bishop Paul Pei Junmin, received papal approval before their respective episcopal ordinations in 1989 and 2006.
The Vatican made Shenyang an archdiocese in 1946, when it established the Chinese Catholic hierarchy. In 1981, government-sanctioned Church authorities combined Shenyang with Fushun, Jinzhou and Yingkou dioceses to make Liaoning diocese, covering all of Liaoning province. Shenyang, provincial capital of Liaoning, lies 630 kilometers northeast of Beijing.
Lam noted that Bishop Jin had provided good formation for priests, nuns and laypeople, enabling the diocese to have sufficient human resources and strong morale. As a pioneer in the China Church, he sent his priests and nuns to study overseas after religious activities revived in mainland China, beginning in the early 1980s, following the Cultural Revolution (1966-76).
He also played a successful role in making Catholicism part of the local culture of Shenyang, Lam said, noting that the bishop promoted the Gothic-style century-old Sacred Heart Cathedral as a city landmark.
However, Lam also said one limitation Bishop Jin faced was that he had not made enough contacts with the "underground" priests in the former dioceses in Liaoning, causing duplication in pastoral work in some areas.
Bishop Jin was born into a Catholic family on March 16, 1924. He entered the minor seminary in 1936 and then studied at major seminaries in Shenyang, Changchun, Beijing and Hong Kong. His priestly ordination in Shanghai in 1951 came two years after communists established the People's Republic of China. Initially, he taught in a high school in Beijing and then worked as an accounting clerk in a factory 1952-1955, before returning to preach in Fushun parish.
In 1957 a meeting of Catholics from the three northeastern provinces -- Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning -- denounced him as a "rightist." The following year he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "counter-revolutionary" crimes. In 1968, his release from prison, he was sent to a farm for "reform-through-labor." Eventually, he returned to Fushun parish in 1980. He was ordained bishop of Liaoning on May 21, 1989.
This past June 29, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, he retired and passed his episcopal responsibility to Bishop Pei, coadjutor until then.
Bishop Pei was born in 1969. Following his priestly ordination in 1992, he served first as assistant pastor of the cathedral parish. In 1993, he became one of the first Liaoning diocesan priests to go abroad for further studies. He obtained master's degrees in theology and biblical studies in the United States.
After returning to China in 1996, he served as the vice rector and dean of studies at Shenyang Seminary. He was ordained coadjutor bishop on May 7, 2006.
Liaoning diocese has more than 80 priests and 180 nuns serving 110,000 Catholics in five deaneries, or parish groupings.
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(Source: UCAN)