by Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle*
Rome – We publish the speech delivered by Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle on the occasion of the Academic Conference entitled “100 years since the Concilium Sinense: between history and present” which opened the academic year of the Pontifical Urbaniana University on Friday afternoon, October 10, in the Aula Magna of the university.
In the morning, students, teachers, and staff of the University, located on the Janiculum Hill, celebrated their Jubilee of Hope together by passing through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica and participating in the Eucharistic celebration presided over by Cardinal Tagle.
During the Academic Event, the volume “100 years since the Concilium Sinense: between history and present 1924-2024,” published by Urbaniana University Press and edited by the Missionary Dicastery, was presented.
This volume contains the contributions of the International Conference on the “Concilium Sinense,” which took place at the Urbaniana University on May 21, 2024, exactly 100 years after the Council of Shanghai.
Dear friends,
I, too, am pleased that this beautiful and important day we spent together, with the celebration of the Jubilee and the beginning of the 2025-2026 Academic Year, concludes with this academic Event.
The focus of this Event is the presentation of the volume organized to mark the 100th anniversary of the “Primum Concilium Sinense,” also known as the Council of Shanghai.
This conference took place on May 21, 2024, in this very hall. The Hall of a university founded by the Congregation “de Propaganda Fide” and therefore genetically linked to the apostolic mission, the Missio ad Gentes, and its new horizons today. We are in a missionary university, an integral part of the Missionary Dicastery.
In this hall, an International Conference was held last October 4th as part of the Jubilee of the Missionary World. It was entitled “The Missio ad Gentes Today: Towards New Horizons.” Before the important lectures, songs by Chinese students also resonated in this Hall.
Today, October 10th, we are in the midst of Missionary October, the month that ecclesial communities worldwide dedicate to mission. On Sunday, October 19th, the Church celebrates World Mission Sunday.
All this seemed like a reminder to me. A reminder to follow the common thread of the Mission, which also connects the Primum Concilium Sinense to the real life of Catholic communities in China today.
My contribution is divided into three simple points.
First Point: The “Primum Concilium Sinense” was also a “missionary Council”
As already mentioned, Archbishop Celso Costantini was the great coordinator of the Council of Shanghai on behalf of Pope Pius XI.
If one reads the entire historical documentation of the Council of Shanghai, including Costantini’s memoirs, it becomes clear that Costantini clearly recognized the true purpose of the task entrusted to him by the Pope: to open the doors to a new and not merely temporary missionary spring in China.
His opening address at the Council of Shanghai, especially the last part, is overwhelmingly powerful on this point. “We must somehow,” Costantini told the Fathers of this council, “draft the ‘MISSIONARY CODE’ so that, through uniformity of method and coordination of means, the Christian cause in China will receive a more vibrant impulse and bear more abundant fruits.”
This speech is full of missionary passion, which, in the language of the time, becomes a prophetic vision, full of enthusiasm.
Listen to this other passage, which is also impressive for its clarity regarding historical processes and the dynamics of the world. Costantini says: “But time is running out… Now is the PALINGENESIS OF CHINA. And even in this turmoil of the coming century, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ will be fulfilled: ‘Whoever does not gather with me, scatters.'”
In a previous passage, Costantini already pointed out that the conciliar canons to be drafted “must serve the universal good of the missions by looking boldly to the future and pursuing with all their strength the sole goal, namely the conversion of China to Christ.”
The operational concreteness of the Canons of the Council of Shanghai has been emphasized in several contributions collected in this volume.
Some examples:
● The Council decrees that writings and signs outside churches and religious buildings must be in Chinese and that there must be no flags or other symbols evoking other nations;
● Missionaries are reminded to wear their religious clothing and not to wear Western-style secular clothing;
● The custom of the faithful’s “prostration” before missionaries is effectively forbidden;
● It is decreed that no ecclesiastical office may be denied to native priests who prove themselves suitable, and it is ordered that suitable Chinese priests be sought for episcopal ordination.
● Catholics are forbidden to cultivate opium and are asked to create committees to eradicate the scourge of opium consumption. This is an important point, considering that the cultivation and trade of opium had been imposed by the Western powers with the tragic “Opium Wars.”
The full “operational concreteness” of the Canons of the “Concilium Sinense” can, however, only be fully grasped by considering two key factors:
First key: everything is designed to open up new spaces and remove obstacles to the mission.
If one ignores this missionary perspective, the individual indications could be perceived as a cosmetic measure, a tactical decision made out of opportunism.
And the repeated need to open all ecclesiastical offices to locals could also become merely a formula for the redistribution of ecclesiastical power within the Church.
Second key: One should always keep in mind that the Council of Shanghai is not an “isolated episode,” not a self-generated local phenomenon.
It represents perhaps the most significant implementation of what has been called the “turning point” of the “Maximum illud,” the Apostolic Exhortation published by Pope Benedict XV on November 30, 1919. It has been called “the gong strike” or the “Magna Carta” of the contemporary missionary revival.
Historical studies have shown that this document has a “Chinese origin.” The reports and letters sent to Propaganda Fide in Rome by missionaries working in China, such as the Lazarist Vincent Lebbe, played a crucial role in its inspiration and drafting.
These messages sent to Rome documented how nationalist interests, cultivated by the clergy and religious working in China, made the Church appear as a colonial reality subject to the interests of foreign powers.
I would also like to emphasize the great openness and courageous willingness of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide at that time to embrace the perceptions and critical perspective of the most far-sighted missionaries.
Before leaving for China, Archbishop Costantini went to the Palace of Propaganda Fide to meet with Cardinal Prefect Willem Van Rossum and ask for his advice on the work he would have to do after arriving at his destination. Van Rossum gave him three goals: to resolve tensions between foreign clergy and Chinese priests; to gradually transfer the leadership of the Church to local leaders, and to emancipate himself from the French “protectorate.” Another significant fact is that Costantini chose not to establish the residence of the Apostolic Delegation in the privileged area of the Western embassies. He wanted to emphasize the special nature of the presence of the Pope’s Representative: not political like the powers of this world, but pastoral, close to the Chinese people and the Church in China, so that the latter might feel the communion of the universal Church, of which they are an active part.
Celso Costantini also returned to Rome after completing his mission in China and worked as Secretary of “Propaganda Fide.”
He was thus the predecessor of our Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu… But it is also a somewhat humorous way of saying that we feel dizzy when we look up and think about the great history of “Propaganda Fide,” a history that precedes us and will continue after us, and to which we all belong in some way. Including you students studying at the Urbaniana.
Second Point: The Chinese Council as a moment of “Purification” of missionary work and intention
The Council of Shanghai is a missionary Council. But those whom the Council calls upon to change their perspective, their paradigms, and their practice are all missionary bishops. Therefore, the Council of Shanghai can also be seen as a moment of “purification” of missionary work.
All historical studies have documented that “Maximum illud” was received coldly or even provoked hostile reactions in many missionary circles in China.
When Costantini arrived in China in 1922, he too immediately sensed that the Apostolic Letter “Maximum Illud” was received with suspicion and indifference. He questioned the Apostolic Vicar of Hong Kong, Domenico Pozzoni, on this point, who replied that some had interpreted the Apostolic Letter “almost as a reproach” to the missionaries working in these countries.
On this point, Costantini has very harsh words on this point in his diary.
In his opinion, there is a malignant plant that must be eradicated, which he describes in his diary as the “territorial feudalism” of the various missionary institutes, confined within the ecclesiastical circumscriptions entrusted to them, which seem to be separated from each other like islands, and in which native priests are, in many cases, kept in a state of inferiority.
As Gianni Valente mentions in his contribution, the Concilium Sinense was virtually ignored by the missionary press of the time. The most important journals limited themselves to publishing an article from “L’Osservatore Romano.” Roughly the same treatment was also given to “Maximum Illud.”
Trapped in their role and convinced that they were acting “for the good of the Church,” many were unable to recognize the danger that any generous missionary mobilization in China could be thwarted by portraying Christianity as an “imported product” or as a religious manifestation of the strategies of the Western powers.
It must be acknowledged that at that time there was certainly a negative influence of the colonial powers.
But in this “sickness” of missionary activism, perceived at the time by the most sensitive missionaries and also by the Holy See, there is also something even more relevant and radical from a spiritual point of view.
It also reveals a certain self-centeredness, a certain self-referentiality, a temptation that can still characterize many activities carried out under the name of the Church’s mission.
Third Point: The Church in China in a “State of Mission”
When Catholic communities in China are discussed today, attention is usually focused on issues of episcopal appointments, local incidents, relations between the Chinese political authorities and the Holy See, or problems related to the state’s religious policy.
This selective attention, characterized by misleading stereotypes, generally ignores the real life and ordinary daily routine of Catholic communities in China. It ignores the vast and dense network of prayers, liturgies, processions, catechesis, and pastoral and charitable initiatives, often directly inspired by the Magisterium of the Successor of Peter. A reality of intense and vibrant faith, which many also find new ways to express and flourish the missionary vocation of the ecclesial community, in accordance with the original missionary intention of the “Conlium” of Shanghai.
I had already said in my speech at the May 2024 meeting that I thought Celso Costantini and the Synod Fathers of the Council of Shanghai would be happy to see the Catholic Church in China, now completely indigenous, realize many of the desires and hopes of the Council of Shanghai, within the limits and conditions in which it operates.
Looking back, one can recall that in 2008, when Benedict XVI proclaimed the Special Year dedicated to Saint Paul, communities and dioceses in China launched an impressive series of initiatives dedicated to the Apostle of the Gentiles. During this Special Year, which received little attention elsewhere, courses in missiology and conferences on the missionary vocation that concerns all the baptized were held in China.
There are many examples like these. These are just small glimpses into the real life of Catholic communities in China. There, the mission of proclaiming the Gospel and the commitment to charity open ways to heal the Church’s past wounds and to concretely experience communion among brothers and sisters in Christ.
As Pope Leo XIV recalls in his Apostolic Exhortation “Dilexi Te”, the Church has no material interests to defend, but stands beside the poor and is their voice in a world still marked by extreme inequalities , which must be healed to achieve that social harmony, so dear also to the tradition of Chinese thought. Harmony!
*Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization , Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Urbaniana University
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