TAIPEI (UCAN) -- Priests and laypeople who attended a memorial Mass for an Italian Jesuit who worked in Taiwan and Hong Kong lauded his concern for the Church in China and his service to children and students.

About 100 laypeople joined the Jesuits in Taiwan to commemorate Italian Father Francesco Belfiori at a special Nov. 23 Mass held at Sacred Heart Church, part of Jesuit-run Tien Educational Center in Taipei.

Father Belfiori died in Italy on Nov. 11, surrounded by his confreres, after battling illness for several years. He was 82.

He first came to Taiwan in 1954, seven years after professing his first vows. He was ordained a priest in 1958 in the Philippines and returned to Taiwan in 1960. From 1980, Father Belfiori served in Hong Kong. He returned to Italy in 2002.

Before he left for Hong Kong, he assisted for one year at the Taipei-based Apostolic Nunciature of China.

The late Jesuit is counted among Church persons from outside China who dedicated themselves to restoring contact between the universal Church and the mainland Church after the Cultural Revolution (1966-76).

In 1991, when the Jesuits established a new Chinese province for their apostolates in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, he was appointed to the China Jesuit Service, which also serves Chinese overseas.

It offers academic exchange programs, pastoral services and the China News Analysis, a Hong Kong-based English newsletter first issued in 1953. Originally a weekly, the fortnightly publication provided analysis on Chinese affairs from the 1950s to 1990s, a time when news from the mainland was scarce.

One of Father Belfiori's confreres, Italian Father Gino Picca, who presided at the Nov. 23 liturgy, told the congregation the Mass was held to "show the (Jesuit) Chinese province's gratefulness to and remembrance of the late priest."

Father Picca said Father Belfiori always encouraged everyone he knew, and often read at night to learn about developments in the Chinese world and discern how the Church should respond.

The priest added that Father Belfiori's service to the "Church in Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China (are) worthy of our thanks and praise to God."

After the Mass, a Father Chi from Hebei province, who came to Taiwan in the 1940s, told UCA News Father Belfiori often gave him spiritual books and money to take to priests and laypeople in northern China on visits home.

Another priest, a Father Chu who was born in Shanghai and who also came to Taiwan in the 1940s, added that Father Belfiori not only attended to the needs of his confreres on the mainland but also helped their relatives.

Among those who attended the Mass were elderly parishioners of Our Lady of Assumption Parish in Hukou township, Hsinchu diocese, about 50 kilometers southwest of Taipei. Father Belfiori served at the parish from 1965 to 1972.

The parishioners told UCA News they remember their former parish priest as "a generous gentleman" with a "loving heart." They noted too how he had given good faith formation to many young people and changed their lives for the better.

He even took children and youths of the parish camping to broaden their experiences, the parishioners recalled.

They recounted how the priest helped indigenous children with disabilities in Chienshih and Wufeng townships, also under Hsinchu diocese. He had visited each family to identify children whom he could sponsor for vocational training.

One parishioner recalled that when those children from the rural areas arrived in the cities, they were amazed to see motorized vehicles on the streets and called them "small mobile houses."

One Catholic told UCA News that when Father Belfiori was serving in Tainan diocese, southern Taiwan, he spent the money his brother had given him for the purchase of a car on renovating a students' center. His generosity moved many people to become Catholics.

The priest also established the Xavier Cultural Center in neighboring Kaohsiung diocese, which used to hold academic activities for university students and scholars. It is now an English-learning center.

A Taiwanese laywoman who migrated to the United States told UCA News Father Belfiori had visited that country and distributed hong bao, red envelopes containing money given as Lunar New Year gifts, to poor workers there from mainland China. He had received the money from U.S. Chinese Catholics.

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(Accompanying photos available at here)