Some photos from D. Shanghai – Chrism Mass

From a reader:

under this weblink you can see 163 (!) Photos of the Pontifical Chrism Mass (Novus Ordo) held last Wednesday in the Cathedral Church of Shanghai. All the priests of the see of Shanghai were present, together with some foreign priests.
 
On the first photo you can see all the seminarists from the Sheshan-Seminary near Shanghai.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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26 Comments

  1. Rob Collorafi says:

    The dear bishop looks awfully tired. Do we know if the Communists have tortured him? There’s a real venerable and saintly quality about him. Does anyone know anything about him?

  2. Rob Collorafi says:

    I did a little research and think I’ve discovered who the elderly bishop in the photos above is from this short bio:

    “The Jesuit Aloysius Jin Luxian was born 92 years ago in a Christian village in the suburbs of Shanghai. Arrested the 8 September 1955, he spent more than twenty years in jail and then in a regime of guarded freedom. In 1985 he accepted to become Bishop of Shanghai with the approval of the government, but without the recognition on the part of the Pope. In 2005 it was Jin who was the “director” of the ordination of his own successor in pectore Joseph Xing Wenzhi, nominated by the Pope, “elected” by the diocese, approved by the government. An operation in whose configurations there arrived also for his episcopate the canonical legitimation of the Pope, who then also invited Jin to Rome – without success – for the Synod on the Eucharist.”

    It would appear that he was the “Patriotic” Chinese bishop but has recently reconciled with the Pope. A fascinating story.

  3. Garrett says:

    Interesting, and beautiful really.

    Although I have to inquire as to why those pontifical gloves look like a maestro’s pair! Eek.

  4. FT says:

    Is the amice an unknown vestment in China?

  5. HQD says:

    FT:

    Ha, I don’t think lack of amice is unique to China! I’ve seen a few Chrism masses even where the Bishop uses one but the concelebrants are unaware that amices exist. Oy!

  6. Stephanie says:

    I was just living in Shanghai last year and I liked this Church much more than the “international” Catholic Church in Shanghai. There is much reverence and more correlation to the Traditional Mass than at any other Churches I have been to in China. I only hope the Mass in Latin will someday come.

  7. Interesting, I’m currently teaching some priests
    and nuns English who hail from China. I recognized
    the nuns by their habits, but I don’t what Order
    they belong to over there.

    Jin is an interesting man. I read a fascinating
    profile of him in the Atlantic Monthly sometime
    ago.

  8. Bosco says:

    Fr Jin was arrested together with Bishop Gong (Cardinal Kung) and hundreds of other priests and faithful when the Communicst government started to crack down the Church in Shanghai in 1955. He and otheres were imprisoned for decades. But unlike many others, Jin compromised and insisted that only by cooperating with the Communist government and the Patriotic Association, could the Church in China survive. He accepted episcopal consecration without papal mandate while Cardinal Kung was still the true bishop of Shanghai, and Bishop Jin publicly made claims against Papal Primacy in order to justify the so-called self-consecration policy. He was not friendly towards the underground Church that is faithful to the Holy See, and in frount of Western reporters, he made no attempt to conceal his feeling that underground Catholics and Bishop Joseph Zhongliang Fan (the true succesor of Cardinal Kung, consecrated with papal approval) were simply fools and trouble-makers. Of course, he did sumbit letter to Rome and ask for recognition several years ago. The Holy See accepted Jin’s request and later asked both Bishop Jin and Bishop Fan to respectively nominate a candidate to be the future Bishop of Shanghai so that there will be only one Church in Shanghai. The Holy See accepted Jin’s nomination, who is now Biship Xing.

  9. Dr. Eric says:

    The Church is Catholic in more ways than one.

    ?????
    ??????

  10. Dr. Eric says:

    My Chinese characters didn’t show up in my post.

    J?d? fùhuó le!
    T? quèshí fùhuó le!

  11. Emilio III says:

    Dr. Eric, I don’t know of a sure way to copy most non-Latin characters unless you use the unicode codes. If you have MS Word, you can save your text in .html format. Since .html normally uses straight ASCII text, the characters have to be coded, then you can copy the coded characters and copy them here.

    I’m sorry to say I have no clue what this means, but it was copied from the above link using this method : 圣周三徐家汇教堂圣油弥撒全记录

  12. Emilio III says:

    I meant to add that there must be a better way, but at least it works.

  13. Timbot says:

    What Dr. Eric meant to write was:
    ?????
    ??????
    Christ is Risen!
    He is Risen Indeed!

  14. Timbot says:

    Hmmm…
    manual input used to work on this blog……
    comment widget no longer unicode compatible?

  15. teresa says:

    Dear Stephanie:

    you can visit a Tridentine Mass every fourth Sunday of the month in Shanghai, in the former Jesuit Church St. Joseph, Mass begin: 10:30.

    The address is: South Sichuan Road 36.

    On every second Saturday of the month there is a training for lay people from 9-11, designed to get them acquainted with the Mass Canon and the Ordinarium of the Mass.

    And singing will also be learned there.

  16. TK says:

    While I do not judge Bishop Jin’s state of mind and internal disposition, he was at least at one time the “counterfeit presentation” (cf. Hamlet) of Cardinal Kung. Jin cooperated with the Communists; Kung did not.

    While I do not know the full situation, I would be uncomfortable in giving Bishop Jin credit, given stories such as the following (taken from the TFP website):

    “On November 16, 1987, while he was still under house arrest in the custody of bishops who had abandoned the Holy Father to join the communist-founded church, the Cardinal was permitted to participate in a banquet organized by the government for Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila, who was visiting China. It was the first time since his incarceration that Bishop Kung had seen another prelate. The two had no direct contact since they were seated at opposite ends of a long table with some twenty communists and Patriotic Association bishops between them.

    At a certain point Cardinal Sin suggested that each one at the table sing his favorite song. When it was Bishop Kung’s turn he fearlessly sang, “Tu es Petrus et super hanc petrum aedificabo Ecclesiam meam…” — Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church. The Patriotic Association’s bishop of Shanghai, Aloysius Jin, tried in vain to interrupt and silence Cardinal Kung, but he looked straight at Cardinal Sin and finished the song. Afterwards, the schismatic bishop rebuked him demandingly, “What are you trying to do, show your position?” Cardinal Kung humbly replied, “It is not necessary to show my position. My position has never changed.””

    Ignatius Cardinal Kung, pray for China!

  17. teresa says:

    We will all keep praying for the Unity of our Holy Mother Church, and her suppressed people.

  18. Immaculatae says:

    Father,these are amazing photos. Thank you for sharing them as a reminder to pray.

  19. Carlos Palad says:

    What ugly and disappointing liturgy. The “style” is suspiciously
    similar to the way the Mass is celebrated in Philippine cathedrals.

    I wonder if Chinese clerics educated in Manila (there are many of them) have anything
    to do with this.

    Notice that the albs have no cinctures as well.

  20. Sémanariste says:

    When did the Patriotic Church finally go Novus Ordo? Its liturgy was still frozen in the mid-50s decades after the New Mass was introduced everywhere else. In any case, it looks like the Chinese have taken to the New Mass like fish to water. What a pity.

  21. Theodorus says:

    The Patriotic Church in China didn’t start to celebrate the New Mass till early 1990s.

  22. Clare Krishan says:

    Sorry but the SQL link to the thread is broken – can you inform your email contact that they may inform the nice people at the “days of the original tribal center grazing pasture” website that their part of the Catholic world has gone silent! God Bless

  23. Clare Krishan says:

    For those unlucky ones liek myself, as a consolation prize here\’s the Beijing Seminary on Easter Sunday:
    http://jenambrose.blogspot.com/2009/04/alleluia.html
    & a video of the 12th station Jesus Dies on the Cross as prayed by the congregation gathered at Xixhiku Cathedral (Holy Savior):
    http://jenambrose.blogspot.com/2009/04/good-friday.html

  24. Clare Krishan says:

    And here’s a photo gallery of Palm Sunday procession at XiChang Church
    http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=www.tianguangbao.org&sl=zh-CN&tl=en

  25. jen says:

    The first Novus Ordo Mass in Mandarin was celebrated at Sheshan by then-Father Zen on 30 September, 1989. It was a very daring and radical move at the time in opposition to the government. It shouldn’t surprise, then, anyone that now-Cardinal Zen was instrumental.

  26. XJ says:

    The seminarians in the photo are studying in a facility that was founded – with great risk to himself – by Bp. Jin Luxian. He was much loved by our last pope, who had a keen understanding for the struggles that bishops under communist regimes face. That those who comment on this blog might be as charitable and understanding. You may read about Jin’s life, in detail, here:

    http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200707/chinese-bishop

Comments are closed.