Message from Cardinal Tagle to the Conference on the Centenary of the Shanghai Council

Cardinal Tagle – ICN Screenshot

Source: Fides

Cardinal Luis Tagle, Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, sent a video message to the international conference “Primum Concilium Sinense (Shanghai Council): History and Meaning” organized by Saint Joseph University of Macau from June 26 to 29 on the occasion of the centenary of the First Council of the Catholic Church in China (1924-2024).

Watch Cardinal Tagle’s speech here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QycGMmL746c&t=11s

The full text of his speech follows:

Dear brothers and sisters,

On behalf of the Dicastery for Evangelization, the Section for Early Evangelization and the Young Particular Churches, I address greetings to each of you from the Palace of the Propagation of the Faith in Rome, as you gather for days of study, dialogue and discernment centered on an ecclesial event that took place one hundred years ago: the First Council of the Catholic Church in China (Primum Concilium Sinense), held in Shanghai from May 15 to June 12, 1924.

The Council of Shanghai marked a turning point in the journey of the Catholic Church in China. The concerns he addressed and the responses he provided are, in many ways, still relevant today. Let me share four points.

1) The Council of Shanghai can be considered a new beginning, a new beginning, in the sense that it brings us back to the authentic source and true nature of the apostolic work of the Church, and overcomes the misunderstanding which seemed to prevail during the period of colonialism. This misunderstanding, also present in China, tended to identify Christianity as a religious doctrine imposed by other civilizations, by means of instruments of political, social or cultural pressure. This misunderstanding became an obstacle to the proclamation of the Gospel and often fueled distrust, hostility and even hatred towards the Church and the missionaries.

The Council of Shanghai followed the indications contained in the Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud in which Pope Benedict XV recalled that faith in Christ “is foreign to no nation”. Because the liberation and healing brought by Jesus are a gift for everyone, as Pope Francis always repeats. The Council of Shanghai shows that the mission of proclaiming the Gospel is not identified with a civilization and a culture, and that it is precisely for this reason that it protects and promotes the riches of different peoples and their cultures. Thus, the documents of the Council of Shanghai contain reminders of openness to the values ​​of Chinese culture and society.

We are living in a time of global opposition, where some sectors are fueling what is called the “clash of civilizations”. The Shanghai Council indicated another way: the possibility that cultural traditions should not close in on themselves, should not oppose each other, but should remain open to mutual encounter and exchange.

2) During the Council of Shanghai, the bishops present in China were all missionaries from other countries. The Council laid the foundations for the flourishing of a fully Chinese Catholic Church, led by Chinese bishops. And even this orientation was not dictated by human tactics or calculations, but by the mystery of the Church in her pilgrimage throughout the world.

The fruit of the proclamation of the Gospel and of every authentic apostolic mission is always the birth of a local Church, fully immersed in its historical, social and cultural context. But this immersion, this immanence of the Church in the different contexts never makes the local Church an isolated, self-sufficient and self-enclosed reality. Each local Church is always in communion with the other local Churches and with the whole universal Church.

3) The Council of Shanghai also represents a realization of synodality, which is proposed to us with such force in our time also, thanks to the magisterium of Pope Francis.

The apostolic delegate Celso Costantini, who presided over the Council at the request of Pope Pius

Even at the Council of Shanghai, the Fathers who participated in the Council experienced that synodality is not a secondary dimension, but constitutive and indispensable to the life of the Church.

In the video message sent to the Conference on the Concilium Sinense, organized in Rome on May 21 by the Pontifical Urbaniana University in collaboration with Agenzia Fides, Pope Francis affirmed that the participants in this Council “lived an authentically synodal experience and took important decisions together. The Holy Spirit brought them together, made harmony grow among them, led them on paths that many of them would not have imagined, overcoming even perplexity and resistance. This is what the Holy Spirit does who guides the Church.” Pope Francis addressed the participants in this conference, among whom was also the Bishop of Shanghai, Msgr. Joseph Shen Bin.

4) Allow me also to pay tribute to Cardinal Celso Costantini, who, as the first Apostolic Delegate to China, was on the human level the great director of the Council of Shanghai.

Costantini, following in the footsteps of Matteo Ricci, implemented Maximum Illud. We can learn a lot from this prophetic and creative figure. Pope Francis, in his video message to the Conference on the Council of Shanghai, held at the Pontifical Urban University, emphasized that “At the Council of Shanghai, thanks also to the work of Celso Costantini, the communion between the Holy See and the Church which in China has manifested itself through its fruitful fruits, fruits of good for all the Chinese people.

I pray that in the light of the Primum Concilium Sinense, you will be able to see more clearly the paths that we can travel together with our Chinese brothers and sisters, so that in our common witness to our faith in Jesus Christ, “fruits of good “for all the Chinese people” could grow. God bless you!