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Remembering Bishop 'Louis' Jin Luxian of Shanghai

Bishop Jin was constantly planning for the future, with vision and courage, writes Father Jeroom Heyndrickx
Remembering Bishop 'Louis' Jin Luxian of Shanghai

Bishop Louis Jin Luxian of Shanghai spent 18 of his 96 years in a communist prison. (Photo supplied by Father Jeroom  Heyndrickx)

Published: July 01, 2016 08:41 AM GMT
Updated: July 01, 2016 09:07 AM GMT

This photo above was taken during one of my last conversations with Bishop Aloysius 'Louis' Jin Luxian. I knew him for 28 years and considered him a remarkable bishop and dear friend.

The Jesuits called him Jin Louis. He was Bishop of Shanghai, and he loved both China and the Catholic Church. On 27 April 2013 he died from pancreatic cancer. Being 96-years-old, Jin lived through perhaps the most turbulent century in Chinese history. He interpreted the signs of the times for the Chinese Catholic Church and developed the Shanghai Diocese into a model for the whole church in China. He confronted opposition with vision and courage.

Born in Shanghai in 1916, Jin Louis lost his whole Catholic family — his parents and sister — at a young age. By 18 Jin stood alone in life. Four years later, he entered the Jesuits. He was devout and patriotic — in a context that often viewed these as incompatible. In 1945 he was ordained, and soon after sent to study in Europe.

In his youth, Jin had experienced the confusing period that saw China's liberation from the corrupt Qing dynasty, Nationalist Party rule, and the communist ascendancy. Despite misgivings about communism, in 1949 the patriotic Jin did see Mao's victory partly as liberation from foreign imperialism and internal corruption.

Jin foresaw difficult times lay ahead for the Chinese Catholic Church. All foreign missionaries would be expelled, and many Chinese priests and seminarians had fled. Though he had the option to remain abroad, Jin decided to return to home in 1951, to serve the church.

His Jesuit superiors appointed him Rector of Sheshan Seminary, Jesuit Vice-Superior in Shanghai and Visitor for China. In the absence of foreign Jesuits, he exercised special delegated faculties. Facing a merciless regime that regarded religion as "opium," Jin was called upon to protect the church and faith while avoiding confrontation with civil authority. But the communist regime itself was steering toward confrontation with the church.

On Sept. 8 and 9, 1955, police arrested hundreds of Catholics, among them Jin. In 1960 he was condemned to 18 years imprisonment for alleged counterrevolutionary activities. In 1973 he was allowed to leave prison but remained in custody in Baoding. While in the labor camp, he was required to work as a translator, leading later to accusations of collaboration. In prison he lived and worked alongside Mgr. Melchior Zhang, the underground Bishop of Hebei, who spoke very respectfully about Jin and their friendship. (Mgr. Zhang undertook the same work but received no similar accusations.)

Jin was released in 1982, four years after Deng Xiao Ping had reintroduced constitutional religious freedom. Jin was reappointed rector of the reopened Sheshan Seminary. Three years later he was ordained auxiliary Bishop of Shanghai without papal appointment. In 1989, also without Rome's approval, he became Bishop of Shanghai. The de jure bishop of Shanghai, approved by Rome but not by the government, was Bishop Fan Zhong Liang. Some took Jin's ordination as bishop as evidence that he was an instrument of the communists. He found such accusations a heavy burden.

After their imprisonment all Chinese bishops were faced with an enormous task, for which the universal church showed little appreciation. The 1957 establishment of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA) and the ordination of the first illegal bishops (1958) had caused a crisis that divided the Church.

The CPA's intention to make the Chinese church independent from Rome was totally unacceptable for the church community in China. However, the CPA was a fact and received support and power from the authorities. Faced with the task of rebuilding the church in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, church leaders had to make controversial choices. Either they could refuse formal collaboration with the CPA and be subjected to persecution and destruction, or they could assure the continued existence of China's church by becoming bishops without appointment by Rome.

Most of us in the universal church knew little about the complexities of this situation. We accepted a dichotomy between faithful martyrs and unfaithful accommodators. We did not understand the true intentions of those who accommodated in order to make the best of a hopeless situation. Perhaps some schismatic Catholics were unfaithful during this time, but we do not know, and like Lord Jesus with the adulterous woman, we best not condemn. What we know is that all suffered — both the heroic underground church, and those official bishops and priests who sought the church's survival, but in doing so were subject to daily civil control.

In 1985, after his episcopal ordination, Bishop Jin invited me to Shanghai to teach about Vatican II at Sheshan Seminary. This was a first since Mao. No one from outside China had been invited to teach in a Chinese seminary.

When I arrived in December that year, it became apparent that the auxiliary bishop had invited me to teach without civil permission, which was secured only after I arrived.

At Sheshan I taught more than one hundred students. I remember their inquisitive faces listening to a foreigner teach about Vatican II for the first time. There were no bishops or priests from China at the Council; in those days Chinese Catholics were targeted by the Cultural Revolution and didn't even dare to mention the Vatican.

My visit was part a well-prepared plan. In 1989 Bishop Jin secured permission to invite foreign professors to Sheshan Seminary on a regular basis. Other seminaries followed.

He was constantly planning for the future, with vision and courage. He pioneered the reconstruction of the church under Chinese communism. The only way to make the church flourish in Shanghai was to accommodate civil authority — without ever abandoning the identity of a Catholic Bishop.

Bishop Jin spoke courageous words more openly than any other bishop in China. In 1989 foreign priests and agencies gave the gift of a printing press to Shanghai Diocese. It was a controversial present, seen by some as a gift to the government and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. The Vatican almost opposed it and I was called upon to mediate.

When the printing press finally arrived in Shanghai, Bishop Jin spoke at the opening, in the presence of authorities: "Some people claim that this printing press will be used to serve non-Church agencies. Let me be clear: this printing press is property of the Shanghai Diocese directed by the bishop. It will print books, which will be used by all Catholics in China."

Everybody understood that he was referring to the underground church community. Few of the attending officials showed up for dinner following the ceremony.

The reconstruction and Vatican II renewal of the Chinese Catholic Church is part of Bishop Jin's legacy. He rebuilt the Sheshan Seminary and, in his old days, it was a great consolation that he had formed 400 priests, including 12 bishops. He was the first to obtain permission to send Chinese seminarians and priests abroad for study.

He introduced Vatican II's liturgical reform to China, overcoming government resistance. On Sept. 20 1989 in Shanghai's Cathedral, the Eucharist was celebrated in Chinese for the first time. What Rome had once refused Matteo Ricci and his confreres now became the rule in China, thanks to the wisdom and diplomacy of Bishop Jin.

 Missionhurst Father Jeroom Heyndrickx is the founder of the Taiwan Pastoral Institute and founding director of the Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation at Leuven Catholic University in Belgium. The foundation is devoted to the promotion of a relationship of cooperation with China.

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