Pope Francis says he dreams of visiting China one day and, especially, praying at the Shrine of Our Lady of Sheshan near Shanghai. Source: OSV News.
In an interview with Jesuit Fr Pedro Chia, director of communications for the Jesuit’s Chinese Province, the Pope said he also would want to meet with the country’s bishops and with all Chinese Catholics, who “are indeed a faithful people who have gone through so much and remained faithful”.
Vatican-Chinese relations have been difficult for decades with the country’s communist authorities being suspicious of Catholicism as a “foreign” influence on their people.
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 agreement was renewed in 2020 and again in 2022, although there have been times when the Chinese named or transferred bishops in apparent violation of the accord.
The interview, conducted in Spanish, was filmed in the library of the Apostolic Palace on May 24, the feast of Our Lady of Sheshan, also known as Our Lady Help of Christians. The Jesuit’s Chinese Province released the video on YouTube on August 9.
Asked what message he wanted to send to Chinese Catholics, Pope Francis responded, “Always a message of hope. But it seems tautological to send a message of hope to a people who are masters of waiting. The Chinese are masters of patience, masters of waiting.”
“You have ‘the virus of hope’,” he told Fr Chia. “It’s a very beautiful thing.”
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Pope sends message of hope to Chinese Catholics (By Cindy Wooden, CNS via OSV News)
