Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – Shanghai, May 15, 1924: the first Council of the Catholic Church in China opens in Saint Ignatius Cathedral. It is the assembly of a Church still entirely led by foreign bishops and missionaries, while also in China the time has come to show that faith in Christ "is not alien to any nation", and that becoming a Christian does not mean "putting yourself under the power of another country and evading the law of one's own". (Benedict XV, Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud)
The Council of Shanghai announced a Catholic Church with a Chinese face, freed from the ties of the colonial mentality which had also penetrated ecclesial dynamics. A Church with Chinese bishops at the head of communities, in communion with the Bishop of Rome.
Today, the Catholic Church in China continues her pilgrimage, in the great mystery of the history of salvation. By adapting to the context in which she lives, she also seeks to fruitfully cultivate and grow the ties of ecclesial communion with other local Churches. The future is open.
(Agenzia Fides, 21/5//2024)
Video by Teresa Tseng Kuang Yi for Fides Agency. The text is taken from the memoirs of Cardinal Celso Costantini. The images are taken from the Chinese archive of the Columbian mission Audio visuals.
