The eighth National Assembly
of Catholic Representatives has elected the new leaders of
government-controlled organisations.
The unlawfully nominated bishop
Joseph Ma Yinglin (pictured) of Kunming is the new president of
the government-sanctioned Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in
China (BCCCC), whilst Bishop Fang Xinyao of Linyi (Shandong) is the new
head of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA).
The assembly, the conference and the association are all irreconcilable
with the Catholic faith.
Bishop Fang Xinyao of Linyi, unlawfully appointed Zhan Silu of
Mindong, Fang Jianping of Tangshan, Li Shan of Beijing, Pei Junmin of
Liaoning and Yang Xiaoting of Yan’an are the BCCCC’s new vice
presidents.
Guo Jincai, who was unlawfully appointed bishop of Chengde,
becomes the new BCCCC secretary general, a post formerly held by Bishop
Ma.
The CCPA collective vice presidency includes bishops Ma
Yinglin, Guo Jincai, Shen Bin of Haimen, Meng Qinglu of Hohhot; Fathers
Lei Shiyin of Leshan, Huang Bingzhang of Shantou, Yue Fusheng of Harbin
as well as Sister Wu Lin of Hubei province and layperson Shu Nanwu of
Nanchang.
Former CCPA vice-president Anthony Liu Bainian becomes honorary
president of both the BCCCC and the CCPA, together with the elderly Mgr
Jin Luxian di Shanghai.
Bishops Tu Shihua of Huangshi, Liu Jinghe of Tangshan, Li
Mingshu of Qingdao and Yu Runchen of Hanzhong, and laypeople Yu Jiadi of
Anhui, Lu Guocun of Guangdong, Zhou Xiaowu of Shanghai, Liu Deshen of
Chongqing are named advisers to the CCPA and the BCCCC.
Two members of the new leadership are bishops ordained this year with a papal mandate; one was ordained unlawfully.
In his closing address, Ma Yinglin said that the new leadership
of the CCPA and the BCCCC would unite China’s Catholics behind the
principles of autonomy, self-management and democracy to lead the
Church, marching together with the universal Church to be God’s
witnesses. “Catholics,” he said, “can write a new chapter in the
patriotic work of the China Church.”
Speaking to AsiaNews about a new leadership full of
unlawfully ordained bishops, some Catholics expressed serious concerns
that with unlawfully ordained prelates now acting as president, a
vice-president and a secretary general, additional unlawful ordinations
will take place in the future.
A priest noted that whilst the Church has always been under the
control of the CCPA, the latest events—unlawful ordinations, assembly
and new leadership—suggest that the government might be deliberately
trying to cause chaos within the Church.
If this is the case, the situation might make the Episcopal
nomination process in communion with the Holy Father that more difficult
for the Vatican, a source told AsiaNews.
Another priest said the Church seems to have gone back to the
old days when government exercised tight controls over its activities.
He also said that he wondered why the government did not dare allow
those bishops in communion with the pope to head the Bishops’
Conference.
SIC: AN/INT'L