Chinese Officials Stress Sinicization During Shanghai Church Visit

UCANews ^ | 5/10/23

[marshmallow]

New Shanghai bishop, who leads state-initiated organizations, was installed without a papal mandate

Regional officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) visited Shanghai diocese on May 8 to study the local Church’s progress on the implementation of socialist policies, a month after China installed a new bishop there without Vatican approval.

Shanghai’s newly installed Bishop Joseph Shen Bin welcomed three officials of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in the diocese. They also jointly unveiled a studio the diocese built, a report on the Shanghai diocesan website said.

The three-member team included the conference’s vice chair, Qian Feng, its director for the regional working committee, Yu Xiufen, and Xu Mei, the conference's deputy director of the Ethnic and Religious Committee.

Shen briefed the officials on the current situation of Shanghai diocese and efforts to implement the CCP's sinicization policy, the report said.

Sinicization is a political ideology promoted by the CCP that aims to impose strict rules on societies and institutions based on the core values of socialism, autonomy, and supporting the leadership of the party, across ethnic and religious communities in China.

Shen was appointed bishop of Haimen, with both government recognition and a papal mandate in 2010. The state-controlled Church appointed him bishop of Shanghai on April 4, apparently violating the Vatican-China agreement of 2018 on the appointment of bishops.

Shen is reportedly the head of the state-run Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China, which the Vatican does not recognize. In 2017 he was also the vice president of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, the state-initiated organization administering the Church in China.