A new Bishop Most Rev Tadeu Wang Yuesheng, president of the Patriotic Association in the province of Henan, was ordained Bishop of the diocese of Zhengzhou, as announced by the Vatican.

Article (01/27/2024 13:30, Gaudium Press) On January 25th, the feast of the conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle, the Chinese priest Father Tadeu Wang Yuesheng, 57 years old, was ordained Bishop of Zhengzhou, the capital of the province of Henan.

This is the second ordination following the signing of the provisional agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China. The last one took place in September 2021 when Bp., Francis Cui Qingqi was appointed Bishop of Wuhan.

Bp., Yuesheng, 57 years old, is the president of the Patriotic Association in the province of Henan. He had long served as the administrator of the diocese and now takes over the diocese that had been vacant since the exile of the last Bishop, the Italian Faustino Tissot, exiled by the communists in 1953.

On December 16, 2023, Reverend Father Tadeu Wang Yuesheng was appointed Bishop of Zhengzhou by Pope Francis. Bp., Joseph Shen Bin, Bishop of Shanghai, presided over the ordination of the new bishop, as stipulated by the agreement on the ordination of bishops signed by the Holy See and the Chinese government.

According to the Holy See Press Office, the new Bishop was born in Zhumadian (Henan) on February 27, 1966. He studied philosophy and theology at the South Central Seminary (1987-1993). Bp., Tadeu was ordained a priest on October 17, 1993, and served as a parish priest in Zhengzhou. Since December 2011, he has been the parish priest in the Huiji District of Zhengzhou.

This is the first episcopal ordination jointly approved by China and the Vatican since the renewal of the agreement in October 2022. Until then, the Chinese government had made decisions unilaterally, without the consent of the Holy See regarding the governance of certain dioceses. In April 2023, for example, Beijing designated Bp., Shen Bin to take over the diocese of Shanghai, a appointment that was accepted and ratified by the Vatican three months later. (FM)

Compiled by Christopher Hurst