Tomorrow at 9am, in the Cathedral of Shenyang (Liaoning, north-east China), there will be another episcopal ordination: Fr Paul Pei Junmin will be consecrated as coadjutor bishop of Shenyang by the ordinary bishop, Mgr Jin Peixian. The very important fact is that this new ordination takes place with the approval of the Holy See. “Fr Pei Junmin received the approval of the Holy Father,” a Vatican source told AsiaNews. “And he is an excellent candidate from all points of view.” Fr Pei Junmin met Benedict XVI on 3 August 2005. Together with another 22 Chinese priests on a trip to Europe, he managed to attend an audience with the pontiff, who greeted him with “particular affection”. Interviewed by AsiaNews on that occasion, Fr Paul had said: “The meeting with the pope was a surprise! None of us would ever have imagined it; we did not even know we would come to Rome. But it was a marvelous thing: the Church of Rome is the mother Church of all churches, including the Chinese one. We wanted to show that the Church in China is united to the Holy See.”
The ordination of Fr Pei comes a few days after the illicit ordinations in Kunming and Wuhu that took place without the pope’s permission. They have been branded by a Vatican statement as “a grave violation of religious freedom” and a “serious wound to the unity of the Church”, incurring “severe canonical sanctions”.
Again, a subtle game of chess is being played out. I cannot help but wonder if the two sides are playing by the same rules (actually, I don’t wonder at all – I am sure they are not) and also whether the Holy See really grasps the reality of playing Chinese chess, or that it is fundamentally different from the diplomatic game they are used to playing.
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