By editor - 19 March, 2014
Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang of Shanghai.
Courtesy: Catholic World News – http://www.catholicculture.org
Chinese authorities have allowed Catholic priests to celebrate Mass for Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang of Shanghai, who died on 16 March.
After originally refusing to allow the use of Shanghai’s cathedral for the funeral of Bishop Fan — who was never recognised by the Chinese government — officials changed their minds and gave permission for a Mass to be said for the deceased prelate in the cathedral.
Masses were also said in the funeral home where hundreds of people had prayed over his remains.
In Rome, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, Secretary of the Congregation for Evangelisation, saluted Bishop Fan as “a good pastor in every sense, who sacrificed everything for his sheep.”
In his praise for the deceased prelate, reported by the AsiaNews service, Archbishop Hon remarked that years under house arrest had failed to break the Chinese bishop’s spirit.
“Bishop Fan’s external freedom was always restricted,” he said, “but not his interior freedom.”
Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang of Shanghai was a leader of China’s “underground” Catholic Church.
The 96-year-old died at home.
He had served as president of the underground Church’s episcopal conference and had been under house arrest for most of the past two decades.
Born in 1918 and baptized at age 14, Bishop Fan became a Jesuit in 1938 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1951. Four years later, the Communist regime sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
He was secretly ordained a bishop in 1985; 15 years later, Blessed John Paul II appointed him bishop of Shanghai. The government did not recognise his appointment.
Chinese government officials originally said they would only allowed a private funeral service to take place in a funeral parlour for the deceased bishop.
The government rejected a request from Catholics to hold the funeral in Shanghai’s Catholic cathedral, where the funeral of Bishop Aloysius Jin was held last year.
Bishop Jin had been recognised by the government as head of the Shanghai diocese, whereas Bishop Fan was never recognised by the Beijing regime.
Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, who was ordained in 2012 as an auxiliary for the Shanghai diocese, with the approval of both the Vatican and the government, is now under house arrest.
Bishop Ma lost the government’s approval when, at his ordination ceremony, he announced that he was leaving the government-backed Catholic Patriotic Association.
Courtesy: Catholic World News – http://www.catholicculture.org