Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Fuzhou (Agenzia Fides) - Bishop Giuseppe Zheng Changcheng, Bishop in Foochow (Fuzhou) in the Chinese province of Fujian 1,6000 km south east of Beiejing, died on 18 December 2006 at the age of 94. The elderly Bishop had returned home from hospital after months of treatment for cancer of the throat. He died in the Bishop’s residence next to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary where he used to spend much time praying in front of the Statue of the Mother of God.
Bishop Zheng was born on 14 January 1912, the son of a poor carpenter. He entered the seminary in Fuzhou in 1926, moved to Shanghai Seminary in 1930 and finally to Holy Spirit Seminary in Hong Kong. He was ordained a priest on 27 January 1937. Before starting pastoral work he was sent to study Chinese Literature and History at Fu Jen Catholic University in Beijing. He taught at Fuzhou Seminary and was appointed administrator of the archdiocese in 1951.
In 1955 he was sentenced as a counter-revolutionary to 28 years in prison. While in detention he converted several prison inmates with his witness. Released in 1983, he worked to revitalise the local Church: he was rector of the seminary from 1988 to 1992. On 24 January 1991, at the age of 79 he was ordained bishop in Fuzhou. In the next sixteen years he restored about 30 churches and built a diocesan shrine dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Rosa Mystica 30 km from Fuzhou. The modern complex inaugurated in 1993 includes a large Catholic Bookshop and a hostel for pilgrims. Bishop Zheng had made a request to the Holy See to grant the title of Minor Basilica for the shrine, visited by numerous pilgrimages.
The elderly bishop was the only ecclesiastic in the province to received recognition on the part of the local authorities for outstanding works of charity . He entire life was dedicated to Christ. He witnessed major changes in the history of China and was never heard to complain in the long years spent in prison. In recent years he was in great pain but remained lucid and followed events in the archdiocese even from his hospital bed.
Everyone remembers Bishop Zheng’s joy when, still in hospital, he received a letter and the gift of Bishop’s Ring from the Holy See and as a sign of communion with the Pope who, informed of the Bishop’s serious condition, sent him a special Apostolic Blessing.
Bishop Zheng died without seeing the fulfilment of the dream for which he had recently offered his life: full reconciliation between the two Catholic communities in the archdiocese. He will be remembered as a kind man, loved by all and known from his profound humility and deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The archdiocese of Fuzhou with over 200,000 Catholics is one of the oldest ecclesiastical circumscriptions in the Chinese People’s Republic. Situated on the south coast of China the area of Fuzhou was one of the first and most prosperous trading centres. At the news of the death of the beloved Shepherd over a thousand Catholic gathered to pray. On 20 December his body was taken to the Rosa Mystica Shrine where daily prayers were said until the funeral on 28 December. Bishop Zheng had requested for his funeral only a Mass and not the usual civil ceremony normally attended by state authorities and non Christians. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 27/1/2007; righe 46, parole 622)
