ASIA/CHINA - When the "Union of Chinese students" of the Pontifical Urbaniana University" paid tribute to Celso Costantini, the first Apostolic Delegate in China

by Martha Zhao
Beijing (Agenzia Fides) - "This publication aims not only to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the arrival of Archbishop Celso Costantini as the first Apostolic Delegate in Beijing, but above all to recall the Pope's love for the Church in China". This is what Father Vincenzo Zhao Wennan writes in the preface to the unique volume entitled "Commemorative acts of the 10th anniversary of the arrival of Archbishop Celso Costantini in China (1922-1932)", published in 1932 by the then very active "Union of Chinese students of the Pontifical Urbaniana University".

The future Cardinal Celso Costantini (1876-1958), pioneer of the dialogue of the Holy See with Beijing (see Fides, 8/11/2022), was the first Apostolic Delegate in China from 1922 to 1933. During these years, Costantini managed to celebrate the first National Council of the Catholic Church in China (Shanghai 1924) and to launch the process of ecclesial "decolonization", fighting against the stubborn remnants of the Protectorate and against all the forms that continued to impose European traits to the Catholic presence in the Far East, ending up presenting it as a religious correlate of Western expansion in these lands. Thanks also to the efforts of Costantini, the first 6 Chinese bishops ordained in modern times were consecrated by Pope Pius XI in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican on October 28, 1926. In 1927, Costantini also promoted the founding of the Congregatio Discipulorum Domini (CDD), the first clerical religious institute in China. With his support, China's first Catholic university, Fu Ren, now in Taiwan, was also founded. Costantini arrived in Beijing on December 29, 2022 to begin his mission as Apostolic Delegate to China. Exactly 100 years after that date, thanks to the research of Agenzia Fides, a precious document emerged from the archives, which singularly attests how the missionary insight of Costantini was reflected in the liveliness and creativity with which the Chinese Catholics - religious, lay and clergy, including priests and seminarians who were being trained in Rome at the University of Propaganda Fide – lived their bond of communion with the Church of Rome and the passion to announce the Gospel in their immense country.
The publication consulted by Fides bears the date of November 8, 1932. Costantini, who had been in Beijing for 10 years, had preferred to avoid that the tenth anniversary of his mission in China be marked by festivities and moments of celebration, limiting to welcome a representation of Chinese Catholics at the seat of the apostolic delegation. On the contrary, in Rome, Chinese priests and seminarians who were then in the Eternal City to follow courses at the Urbaniana University had taken the opportunity to collect in a volume a series of speeches which, starting from the tenth anniversary of Costantini's mission, also offered valuable testimonies and insights into the new horizons that were opening up for the apostolic mission of the Church in China at that historic moment. In the preface of the volume, Father Zhao echoed the speech delivered by Archbishop Costantini upon his arrival in Beijing: "My presence here is a demonstration of the Pope's love, of his paternal concern for the Chinese people and of his zeal in the pastoral accompaniment of Chinese Catholics". A few years later, in 1935, Costantini himself was appointed secretary of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide.
In the summer of 1932, the initiative to prepare a publication on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Costantini's mission in Beijing was coordinated by Father Paolo Yu Bin, who at that time was also giving courses in Italian to other Chinese students at Urbaniana. Yu Bin, the future archbishop of Nanjing, was later created a cardinal by Paul VI in 1969, and also served as rector of Fu Ren Catholic University when it moved to Taiwan.

The volume in homage to Costantini was conceived and produced by the Union of Chinese Students of Urbaniana as a true "academic act". The editors' note highlights the purpose of the publication, which was to recount Costantini's commitment and the support he offered to Chinese Catholics in the search for the paths that the Church in China was called to follow in order to fulfill with fruit the mission of announcing the Gospel in the "new times" experienced by the Chinese people.

It is striking that among the authors of this publication there are also seminarians and priests destined to play a leading role in the subsequent vicissitudes of Chinese Catholicism. Besides future Cardinal Yu Bin and Father Vincenzo Zhao, the co-authors of the text also include Father Peter Joseph Fan Xueyan, future bishop of Baoding, a great witness of the faith in the subsequent times of tribulation, who signed a contribution on "Monsignor Costantini's observations on the current situation in China", and Father Stanislaus Luo Guang, future archbishop of Taipei and rector of the Fu Ren Catholic University.
The volume also includes a biography of Costantini, a chronicle of his travels in China, an anthology of exhaustive quotations from his speeches, as well as short essays focusing on his contribution to the Council of Shanghai, the process of fostering the formation of clergy indigenous people and the appointment of the first Chinese bishops. Other contributions, edited by Father Paolo Yu Bin, focused on the role played by Costantini in the birth of the Congregation of the Disciples of the Lord and the support he offered to the "Chinese Catholic cultural movement" and to the activities lay people from Chinese Catholic Action. Other contributions also focused on Costantini's interest in Chinese arts, and in the "anti-drug movement". An appendix also commemorated the recently deceased figures of Cardinal Willem Marinus van Rossum C.SS.R, Prefect of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, and Chinese Bishop Evarist Zhang Zhiliang. (Agenzia Fides, 29/12/2022)

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