Rome (Fides) - On Sunday May 7 Mgr Zhao Fengchang, aged 66, was ordained Bishop of Yanggu and apostolic administrator Linqing (Shandong). In the presence of about 1500 Catholics the candidate was ordained by Bishop Giuseppe Ma Xuesheng of Zhoucun assisted by Bishop Fang Xingyao of Linyi and Bishop Wang Dianduo of Heze. Representatives of the local authorities were also present.
Before the Ordination Mass began, the Holy See's approval was publicly announced. This was not the first time this happens: in the past Vatican approval for ordinations was sometimes made public and sometimes not, according to conditions of more or less freedom. But it was the first time that the ordaining Bishops were all in legitimate communion with the Holy See and this on the Vatican's specific request.
The ordination on May 7 was completely the opposite to that on January 6 (see Fides 14 January 2000) when:
a) barely 200 were present
b) there was no Vatican approval for the 5 candidates;
c) only one of the ordaining bishops was legitimate;
d) there were 6 illegitimate bishops among those who performed the laying on of hands
The procedure adopted for the May 7 ordination (approval announced in public; legitimate ordaining bishops; exclusion of illegitimate bishops) is a confirmation on the part of the Holy See and the Chinese Church of the need for explicit communion with Rome, to foster greater unity among all Chinese Catholic.
The new conditions for this ordination indicate a step away from the Patriotic Association (PA) whose ideal is the control of the Church and its submission to the Communist Party. In the months following the January ordination the AP was strongly criticized by the bishops and by the faithful for the gesture contrary to Rome.
The government was also displeased with the AP: the January 6 illegitimate ordinations created a wave of malcontent among Catholics and criticism of the lack of religious freedom from the international community. Official Church sources in Beijing told Fides that this is why "a number of `patriotic' ordinations, scheduled for the coming weeks, previously announced, have been cancelled" . Fides sources in Shanghai say the government's "laissez faire" attitude is due to "social and economic tension in China: Beijing wants to avoid ulterior disputes with the Catholic Church and the international community".
Another element established by the recent ordination in Shandong is the fact that the Vatican confirms the existing territorial arrangement of China's dioceses. The new bishop was in fact ordained "Bishop of Yanggu and apostolic administrator Linqing" although the Religious Affairs Bureau had put the territory under a new diocese Liaocheng.
A reorganizing of the dioceses is partly motivated by the need to make dioceses coincide with government provinces. The AP, under the pretext of making the Church more efficient, put several dioceses together and created new ones. Strangely enough, above all in Hebei and Jiangxi, the dioceses eliminated belong to bishops seen to be not very "patriotic". (Fides 10/5/2000)
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