A "shepherd who gives his life for his sheep", said Osservatore Romano (OR), the Vatican newspaper, describing the life of Mgr. Leo Yao Liang, underground bishop of Xiwanzi, who died on December 30 last. The news will bring comfort to the faithful of the late bishop, who braving polar temperatures (-30 ° C) and the police obstacles, attended his funeral last January 6.
Today's edition of the Vatican newspaper devotes a lengthy obituary to the figure of the (coadjutor) bishop, who died aged 86 after spending 30 years in hard labour for refusing to join the movement for Catholic Church independence from the Pope. "
The OR also recalls that immediately after his ordination, Mgr. Yao was prevented from exercising his ministry, "forced to earn a living from growing vegetables and selling firewood."
"Ordained Bishop February 19, 2002 – the article continues - in July 2006 he was again arrested by police following the consecration of a new church in Guyuan County, and spent another thirty months in prison. Once freed, but always under close supervision, he was able to commit himself to the affairs of the diocese despite many difficulties. Every week more than a thousand faithful attended his Sunday Mass celebrations"
The Vatican newspaper also emphasizes that "after the death of Bishop Yao, civil authorities have banned the Catholic community from honouring him with the title 'bishop', requiring them to use the term “underground pastor”.
The obituary recalls that in 2009, 6 other bishops died. For them, the article concludes with the words of the Book of Wisdom: ‘But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace. For if before men, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality; Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself ‘ (3, 1-6).
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