Video message from the pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization at the International Conference “Primum Concilium Sinense (Shanghai Council): History and Significance” organized in Macao by Saint Joseph University, for the hundred years of the great ecclesial event
Vatican News
“In the Council of Shanghai, also thanks to the work of Celso Costantini, the communion between the Holy See and the Church in China was manifested in its fruitful fruits, fruits of good for all the Chinese people”. Thus Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tiagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization in a video message sent to the participants of the International Conference “The First Chinese Council (Shanghai Council): History and Significance” organized from June 26 to 29 in Macao by Saint Joseph University, on the occasion of the centenary of the first and so far only Council of the Catholic Church in China (1924-2024).
Experience of synodality
In the video – relaunched by the Agency Fides – the cardinal quotes the words of Pope Francis in the video message that opened the conference on the 100 years of the Concilium Sinense organized in Rome on 21 May at the Pontifical Urbaniana University. Tagle himself was one of the participants, together with the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, and the Bishop of Shanghai, Giuseppe Shen Bin. Pope Francis said in the video message that the Fathers of the Concilium Sinense “lived an authentically synodal experience and took important decisions together. The Holy Spirit brought them together, made harmony grow between them, led them on paths that many they would not have imagined among themselves, even overcoming perplexities and resistance”.
The Blossoming of a Fully Chinese Church
“The Council of Shanghai represents a realization of synodality, which is also proposed with such force to us in our time, thanks to the magisterium of Pope Francis”, adds Cardinal Tagle in his message. “The Fathers who participated experienced that synodality is not a secondary dimension, but a constitutive and indispensable one of the life of the Church”.
Furthermore, the Council “laid the foundations for the flourishing of a fully Chinese Catholic Church, led by Chinese bishops. And this intent was not guided by human tactics or calculations, but by the mystery of the Church in its pilgrimage throughout the world”, underlines the cardinal, defining the Concilium Sinense “a turning point in the path of the Catholic Church in China”, which still maintains a strong relevance today.
