Speaking on May 21 to a conference on the Church in China, Pope Francis appealed to the faith and loyalty of Chinese Catholics, suggesting that past history could help guide the faithful through current Church-state tensions.
This week’s conference, sponsored by the Pontifical Urban University, commemorates that Shanghai Council of 1924: the first council of Catholic bishops in China. “The Holy Spirit brought them together,” the Pope said, “allowed harmony to grow among them, led them along paths that many of them would not have imagined, even overcoming perplexities and resistance.”
The memory of that Council, the Pope said, “can also suggest today new paths to the entire Church and open paths to be undertaken with boldness to proclaim and bear witness to the Gospel in the present.”