(ZENIT News – – AsiaNews / Tianjin, 08.28.2024).- The Chinese authorities have officially recognised 94 year-old Msgr Melchior Shi Honghzen as bishop of the Tianjin diocese – a metropolis in northern China. Until now, the prelate had been considered an ‘underground’ bishop in a large diocese where there has been no ‘official’ bishop since 2005.
The gesture – which falls within the framework of the Agreement between the Holy See and Beijing on the appointment of bishops – was announced this morning by the website chinacatholic.cn, the voice of the official Catholic bodies controlled by the Beijing government, and confirmed with its own statement at noon by the Vatican Press Office.
Msgr. Melchiorre Shi Honghzhen is the prelate who, after years of detention two years ago, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli – a Vatican diplomat who has been following the Chinese dossier for many years – was able to meet during the visit to China of the Holy See delegation in view of the renewal of the agreement in October 2022. On that occasion Msgr. Celli had also presented him with a pectoral cross in the name of the pope, with a clear reaffirmation of his episcopal dignity.
A Vatican communiqué released today reads ’the Holy See learns with satisfaction that today Bishop Melchiorre Shi Hongzhen is officially recognised as the bishop of Tianjin. This measure is a positive fruit of the dialogue established over the years between the Holy See and the Chinese government’.
The recognition of Msgr. Melchiorre comes just a few months after the three new bishop appointments in January and the transfer to Hangzhou in June of one of the two Chinese bishops who participated in the work of the Synod.
And it also comes just a few weeks after decisions were made on how to renew the provisional agreement between Rome and Beijing, whose two-year term will expire at the end of October.
A native of the same city of Tianjin where he was born on 7 October 1929, ordained a priest in 1954, Msgr Melchiorre Shi Honghzhen had been consecrated coadjutor bishop in 1982 with the permission of the Holy See by Msgr Stefano Li Side, another courageous underground bishop who paid with imprisonment and confinement until his death in a mountain resort in 2019 for his defence of religious freedom in China.
Msgr Melchior Shi Honghzhen has also always refused to join the Patriotic Association and for this reason he had never been recognised as a bishop by the Beijing authorities until now.
In its report of events, the website chinacatholic.cn speaks of an ‘installation’ ceremony for the bishop of Tianjin in the presence of the bishop of Beijing, Msgr. Joseph Li Shan, ‘as president of the Patriotic Association and vice-president of the Council of Chinese Bishops’ (the collegial body not officially recognised by the Holy See, ed.) and about a hundred people.
It also hastens to report that ‘at the inauguration ceremony, Shi Hongzhen solemnly swore to abide by the National Constitution, to safeguard the unity of the homeland and social harmony, to love the country and the Church, and to always adhere to the direction of the sinicisation of Catholicism in China’.
It adds that ‘by obeying God’s commandments, carrying out his duties as a bishop well, faithfully preaching the Gospel, together with the priests and faithful of the Tianjin diocese, he contributes to the overall construction of a modern socialist country and the overall promotion of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’.
As to the real meaning to be given to these last words steeped in patriotic rhetoric, however, one fact speaks for itself: as the pictures themselves show, the ceremony did not take place in the historic St Joseph’s Church in Xikai – which is the seat of the cathedral – but in a room of a city hotel.
According to local sources, it was Msgr Melchiorre himself who wanted this location, thus emphasising the civil character of the ceremony, since canonically he was already the bishop of Tianjin.
Moreover, he would have expressed his intention to continue to live at the Zhongxin Qao Church where he currently resides. All signs that speak not of a turning point, but of continuity with what he has represented all these years for the Catholic community of Tianjin.
Finally, it is worth noting that Beijing’s recognition of Bishop Melchior Shi Honghzen finally heals a wound from the past. But the lack of communication of even an agreement on a coadjutor bishop to accompany the now 94-year-old prelate leaves open the question of who will lead the Catholic Church of Tianjin in the future.
A community that – as the Vatican note reports – today numbers ‘about 56,000 faithful, distributed in 21 parishes, served by 62 priests and a good number of nuns’.
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