After five years of refusal, the Chinese government has officially recognized Bishop Melchior Shi Hongzhen as bishop of Tianjin, the Vatican said, in what it called "a positive fruit of the dialogue established over the years between the Holy See and the Chinese government."
"The Holy See has learned with satisfaction that today, 27 August 2024, Bishop Melchior Shi Hongzhen has been officially recognized under civil law as bishop of Tianjin (Municipality of Tianjin, People's Republic of China)," the Vatican said in a statement.
Bishop Shi, 95, was ordained coadjutor bishop of Tianjin in 1982 and, in 2019, he succeeded the late Bishop Paul Liu Shuhe as bishop of Tianjin. But he was only recognized as a priest by the Chinese government and was placed under house arrest for his refusal to join the government-sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Association, which acts as a liaison between registered Catholics and the Chinese government.
A Vatican delegation met with Bishop Shi in Tianjin as part of a trip to China in 2022 to negotiate the renewal of the Vatican-China agreement on the appointment of bishops, according to AsiaNews, a Catholic news agency reporting on the church in Asia.
The Diocese of Tianjin had been without a state-recognized bishop since 2005. According to the Vatican statement, the diocese has approximately 56,000 Catholics, 21 parishes, 62 priests and "a good number of religious sisters."
In 2018, the Vatican and the government of China signed an agreement outlining procedures for ensuring Catholic bishops are elected by the Catholic community in China and approved by the pope before their ordinations and installations. At the time, Pope Francis also regularized the position of several bishops who were ordained without Vatican approval. The provisional, two-year agreement was renewed in 2020 and again in 2022, although there have been times when China named or transferred bishops in apparent violation of the accord.
Bishop Shi's recognition follows what appears to be a détente in China-Vatican relations since those violations, marked also by the participation of two Chinese bishops in the Synod of Bishops in Rome last October and the ordinations of three bishops in accordance with the agreement in January. The move of the Chinese government to recognize Bishop Shi occurred shortly before the provisional Vatican-China agreement on bishops is set for renewal in October.
"The Vatican Party is committed to continuing a respectful and constructive dialogue with the Chinese Party for a productive implementation of the Accord and further development of bilateral relations, with a view to fostering the mission of the Catholic Church and the good of the Chinese people," the Vatican said in a statement when it announced the renewal of the agreement in 2022.
