Pope Leo XIV Sends Video Message for Centenary of First Chinese Bishops: Unity Is Communion in Diversity
Pope Leo XIV sent a video message on November 5 to the international conference “The Face of the Universal Church in China” at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome. Organized by the Dicastery for Evangelization's Section for First Evangelization together with the university, the conference marks one hundred years since the consecration of the first Chinese Catholic bishops of modern times: on October 28, 1926, six Chinese bishops who had sailed from Shanghai received episcopal ordination in Saint Peter's Basilica at the hands of Pope Pius XI.
The Pope said their consecration was of great significance not only for the Catholic Church in China but for the universal Church. He recalled that in 1919 Pope Benedict XV, in the Apostolic Letter Maximum illud, reiterated that the missionary work of the Church cannot be confused with processes of colonization or the exportation of ideas or cultural models; and that in 1924 the Council of Shanghai urged that leadership of communities and ecclesiastical circumscriptions be entrusted to native Chinese priests and bishops at the earliest opportunity — a process faithful to the very nature of the Church, whose unity is not uniformity but communion in diversity.
He quoted Benedict XVI's 2007 Letter to Chinese Catholics that the Catholic Church in China has never been deprived of the ministry of legitimate Pastors who preserved the apostolic succession intact, and Pope Francis's words that Chinese Catholics, in communion with the Bishop of Rome, bear witness to their faith with works of mercy and charity and contribute to the harmony of social coexistence.
The Pope closed by blessing the participants and praying that, in a world torn apart by conflicts and wars, the Lord may safeguard the treasure of ecclesial communion, a fruitful source of goodness and peace for all.
(Source: Vatican)
Source: Vatican
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：圣伯多禄大殿立面（梵蒂冈）——1926年首批中国主教在此受祝圣。Vyacheslav Argenberg 摄，CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Façade of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, where the first Chinese bishops were consecrated in 1926. Photo by Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
