After five years of refusal, the Chinese Government has officially recognised Tianjin Bishop Melchior Shi Hongzhen, the Vatican announced. Source: OSV News.
The Vatican called Bishop Shi’s recognition a “a positive fruit of the dialogue established over the years between the Holy See and the Chinese government”.
“The Holy See has learned with satisfaction that today, 27 August 2024, Bishop Melchior Shi Hongzhen has been officially recognised under civil law as bishop of Tianjin (Municipality of Tianjin, People’s Republic of China),” the Vatican said in a statement.
Bishop Shi, 95, was ordained coadjutor bishop of Tianjin in 1982 and, in 2019, he succeeded the late Bishop Paul Liu Shuhe as bishop of Tianjin.
But he was only recognised as a priest by the Chinese Government and was placed under house arrest for his refusal to join the government-sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Association, which acts as a liaison between registered Catholics and the Chinese government.
A Vatican delegation met with Bishop Shi in Tianjin as part of a trip to China in 2022 to negotiate the renewal of the Vatican-China agreement on the appointment of bishops, according to AsiaNews, a Catholic news agency reporting on the Church in Asia.
The Diocese of Tianjin had been without a state-recognised bishop since 2005. According to the Vatican statement, the diocese has approximately 56,000 Catholics, 21 parishes, 62 priests and “a good number of religious sisters”.
In 2018, the Vatican and the government of China signed an agreement outlining procedures for ensuring Catholic bishops are elected by the Catholic community in China and approved by the Pope before their ordinations and installations.
At the time, Pope Francis also regularised the position of several bishops who were ordained without Vatican approval.
The provisional, two-year agreement was renewed in 2020 and again in 2022, although there have been times when China named or transferred bishops in apparent violation of the accord. The agreement is due for renewal in October.
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As ‘fruit’ of dialogue, China recognises bishop, Vatican says (By Justin McLellan, OSV News)
