c/o St. Francis Cathedral, 2, Zili Road, Yichang, Hubei, China, 443000
+86 717 623 52 61 Fax :- -
Bishop Lu's predecessor, Bishop Paul Francis Zhang Mingqian "contributed his whole to the training of priests and nuns, and in the building of churches," Bishop Lu told UCA News after Bishop Zhang, a Franciscan, died in 2005. The late prelate had also regained 80 percent of once confiscated Church properties after religions were reinstated in the late 1970s.
Born on Oct. 26, 1917 to a Catholic family in Jingmen city, Hubei, Vatican-approved Bishop Zhang joined the Franciscan minor seminary in Hankou apostolic vicariate in 1938, at the age of 21. He continued on to the major seminary and was ordained a priest in 1944. After which he returned to Yichang diocese.
In 1947, he started a clinic while serving as a parish priest in Jingmen. Under Communist rule, he was left to preach in Jingmen while working in a hospital there in 1956. Two years later, the local Church elected him the first Chinese bishop of Yichang, and Bishop Bernardine Dong Guangqing of Hankou, also a Franciscan, ordained him bishop the following year.
During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Bishop Zhang was sent for "reform-through-labor" at the First People's Hospital in Yichang. He returned to the Church in 1978, and served as the ordinary of Yichang until his death.
How to reach Yichang Bishop Paul Francis Mingqian Zhang ?