Naples (AsiaNews) – Card Stephen Chow saw-yan, bishop of Hong Kong spent his first Sunday free from synod work in Naples, at what once was the Chinese College (Collegio de' Cinesi).
Between the 18th and the 19th centuries, dozens of young Chinese came to Naples to train and then return home as missionaries among their own people.
Invited by Fr Paolo Kong, chaplain of the Chinese community of Naples and coordinator of the Chinese Catholic communities in Italy, the three prelates celebrated Mass in the afternoon at the Church of the Holy Family of the Chinese (Sacra Famiglia dei Cinesi), in the city’s Sanità neighbourhood, which has its roots in the college founded in 1724 by the missionary Matteo Ripa. In the 19th century, it became a secular establishment, and is currently called University of Naples L'Orientale (Università di Napoli L'Orientale).
Card Crescenzio Sepe, archbishop emeritus of Naples, who visited the People's Republic of China in 2010, and Auxiliary Bishop Mgr Michele Autuoro concelebrated the Mass with three Chinese bishops. About 50 people took part in the service.
Card Chow led the simple ceremony. In his homily, he did not directly refer to the situation in China, but, in light of recent tragic news, he spoke of how much today's world needs to find peace and harmony, nurturing ties between peoples.
The liturgy was accompanied by a very meaningful gesture, namely the deposition of a relic of Saint Paulus Wu Wanshu, a young Chinese martyr, killed in Hebei in 1900 at the age of 16 as a result of anti-Christian violence during the Boxer Rebellion.
A Chinese witness of the faith, Saint Paulus Wu lived at a time that the official historiography of the Communist Party of China considers one of “humiliations" inflicted upon the country.
It should be remembered that, beatified by Pius XII in 1955, he is one of 120 Chinese martyrs proclaimed saints by John Paulus II on 1 October 2000 in a ceremony that sparked a harsh reaction on the part of Beijing.
For this reason, the presence in Naples of two prelates from bodies of the "official" Church in China is highly significant.
Chinese Catholics remember Paulus Wu as a great witness of the faith. According to Shan Jincheng, a non-Catholic, in the deposition he gave in 1929 that was the basis of Wu’s beatification, the 16-year-old’s refusal to deny his Christian faith in front of the Boxers was so great that it drove even his grandfather Wu Anjun to refuse to abjure, choosing a martyr’s death.
With a reputation as someone timorous in the village, the old man, upon seeing his grandson accept to die for his faith in Jesus, ran to the Boxers telling them: “Kill me, I am a Christian too.”
Now Saint Paulus’s relic will accompany the journey of the Chinese community of Naples, strengthening a friendship with the East with roots that go back a long way.
