From Maximum Illud to the Consecration of China's First Six Bishops
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35312/67gtf652Keywords:
Maximum Illud, Chinese Bishops, Celso Constantini, Vincent LebbeAbstract
The article reconstructs the process that, beginning with Benedict XV's apostolic letter Maximum illud (1919), led seven years later to the episcopal consecration of the first six Chinese bishops. At the center of the analysis is the evolution of the Holy See's reflection on the nature of missions, increasingly less influenced by the nationalist and colonialist rhetoric prevailing at the time and progressively oriented toward the establishment of local Churches endowed with their own clergy and hierarchy. In this framework, the action of Msgr. Celso Costantini, the first apostolic delegate in China, to whom the task of translating Roman indications into practice through the preparation of the first Chinese Plenary Council (1924) and the promotion of stable ecclesiastical structures on the spot takes on particular importance. The episcopal consecration of the first six Chinese bishops - two of whom were Vincentians - is read as a coherent outcome of this path and as a founding moment for the full insertion of the Chinese Church into universal catholicity, in which the Congregation of the Mission played a leading role.
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