Wenzhou priest appeals to Religious Affairs Department against 'patriotic' Fr. Ma

In the diocese where 'underground' bishop Msgr. Shao is under arrest, an 'official' priest challenges the redesigning of parishes decided by the Party-linked priest who de facto rules the local church: 'Only a bishop can do that.' The gesture after police on Aug. 11 prevented him from celebrating Mass in a church left without pastoral care.

Wenzhou (AsiaNews) - A Chinese Catholic priest registered with the official bodies has written an open letter to the heads of the Religious Affairs Department of Zhejiang Province to protest the situation in the Wenzhou diocese.

In the text-dated Aug. 16 and circulated by local Catholic circles, Fr. Jin Mengxiu denounces the raid by uniformed officers on Sunday, Aug. 11, on a church left without pastoral care under a parish redesign plan decided a few months ago by Fr. Ma Xianshi, the “patriotic” priest who actually leads this local church.

The Wenzhou diocese has been at the center of a painful situation for Chinese Catholics for years. In fact, under canon law, it has its own bishop, Msgr. Peter Shao Zumin, now 61, who was ordained coadjutor bishop with a papal mandate in 2011 and thus succeeded his predecessor Msgr. Vincent Zhu Wei-Fang upon the latter's death in September 2016.

Refusing, however, to join the “official” bodies imposed by the Beijing government on Chinese Catholics, he never obtained recognition from the authorities who consider the see “vacant” and have entrusted the de facto governance of the local Catholic community to Fr. Ma Xianshi.

This is why the “underground” bishop Msgr. Shao has been arrested repeatedly in recent years, especially coinciding with solemnities, to prevent the faithful from attending rites he presides over. His last arrest, however, was last January and-as we had reported on AsiaNews-was related precisely to his protest against this reorganization of parishes decided by Fr. Ma.

In his open letter to the Department of Religious Affairs, Fr. Jin Mengxiu does not mention Bishop Shao, but the issue he raises is exactly the same: the authority with which Fr. Ma decides on matters pertaining to parishes and clergy in the diocese.

Fr. Jin-who is a priest at rest, with no pastoral duties-argues that the redefinition of the geography of parishes by a priest who is not the bishop (which occurred after the inauguration in the Wenzhou diocese of a large new church in Longgang last year with the permission of the local authorities ed.) has created bewilderment among the faithful.

And because of this he reportedly felt it was his duty to celebrate the sacraments in the church left without priests, despite pressure to the contrary from official bodies. He defends himself by saying that his intent is only to prevent the community of believers from losing spiritual help, causing further chaos within the local church and thus compromising the harmony of society.

"Under canon law,” Fr. Jin recalls, ”only the bishop has the power to establish or suppress parishes". He notes how nothing like this has ever happened in the other dioceses of Zhejjiang province and “not even in Shanghai (which remained for so many years without a bishop ed.) before Bishop Shen Bin arrived.”

He argues that police intervention to support the enforcement of Fr. Ma's decisions does not help promote harmony between politics and religion, but on the contrary will only stir up further contradictions and conflicts. In his defense, Fr. Jin calls into question the very religious regulations of Zheiijiang Province and on Fr. Ma asks: if a priest acts by abandoning the rules of the Church that has nurtured and supported him for so long, how credible will his “patriotism” be?

The text concludes with an appeal to the provincial heads of the Department of Religious Affairs urging them to “correct errors in law enforcement” and safeguard religious and social harmony in the Wenzhou diocese.   

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• Wenzhou
• patriotic
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• Shao