The Italian Franciscan priest, Father Gabriele
Maria Allegra, who translated the entire Bible into Chinese for the
first time, will be beatified in the Cathedral in Acireale, Sicily, on
September 29.
The beatification of the man known as “the Saint Jerome of China” will take place ten years after Pope John Paul II first recognized a miracle through his intercession in 2002.
The ceremony should have taken place on October 2002, but the Holy See decided to postpone it because at that time relations were particularly tense with China following the canonization of the Chinese martyrs in the year 2000. Moreover, the Vatican was also concerned about further possible negative reactions from the Chinese authorities who had criticized the Franciscan for some allegedly anti-Communist writings.
On 15 August, however, the Holy See announced, through the Sicilian Province of the Franciscans, that the authorization had been given for his beatification to take place, but in Sicily, the land of his birth, not in Hong Kong. This decision appears to have been taken out of a desire not to ruffle Chinese sensibilities.
Father Joseph Ha, who heads the Order of Friars Minor in Hong Kong, told the UCA News that the announcement came as “a surprise to many of us.” When asked if Italy has been chosen as the venue for the ceremony in order to avoid provoking the Beijing government, he said it was “a good guess, very reasonable.”
In actual fact, Father Allegra will be the first person from the Hong Kong diocese and from the Franciscan province of Taiwan-Hong Kong to be so honored by the Church, UCA News, which first broke the news, reported.
Born “Giovanni Stefano Allegra” in San Giovanni la Punta, in the province of Catania, Sicily, in 1907, the future blessed friar entered the Franciscan minor seminary in Acireale in 1918, and the order’s novitiate in Bronte in 1923. Three years later he was sent to Rome to study at the Franciscan’s International College.
In 1928, Allegra felt inspired to devote his entire life to the translation of the Bible into Chinese. That inspiration came while he was attending the 600th anniversary celebrations for another Franciscan, Giovanni di Monte Corvino, the man who first attempted to translate the bible into Chinese.
Allegra spent most of the next 40 years of his life on that arduous task.
Thus, after being ordained priest in 1930, he set sail for China. He arrived in Hunan, southern China, in July 1931 and there started studying Chinese and with the help of professors prepared a first draft translation around 1937.
Due to fatigue, he had to return to Italy for 3 years, but there continued his biblical studies.
He tried to return to Hunan in 1940 but could not do so due to the Sino-Japanese war and so had to go to Beijing. On that journey he lost his original draft translation and had to start all over again once he arrived in the Chinese capital.
There, in 1945, he established the Franciscan Biblical Study Centre (Studium Biblicum Franciscanum), but when the Communists came to power in 1949 he and his team had to move to Hong Kong, where he lived for most of the rest of his life.
On Christmas Day, 1968, Father Allegra, he achieved his life’s ambition when the first one-volume Bible was published in Chinese. Known as the “Studium Biblicum” version, that is still the main Chinese text today and is considered to be the most faithful to the original manuscript.
Then in 1975, the Chinese biblical dictionary was published. While most of his life had been devoted to biblical scholarship and this all important translation, Allegra nevertheless found time also to help the poor, the sick, victims of war and lepers.
This great Franciscan died in Hong Kong the following year, 1976. It came as no surprise, however, when eight years later, in 1984, the local bishop (later cardinal), John Baptist Wu, opened the cause for his beatification. John Paul II declared Father Allegra “Venerable” in 1994, and next month he will become “Blessed”.