Milan (AsiaNews) – Chongqing, Sichuan’s great metropolis, has a new bishop. As part of new episcopal ordinations taking place in China this summer under the 2018 Agreement between China and the Holy See, Father Andrew Ding Wang, the young priest currently vice-secretary of the Chinese Bishops' Council (the collegial body not recognised by the Vatican), was consecrated today, filling a post that had been vacant for several years.
Bishop Li Shan of Beijing, who chairs the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, led the consecration ceremony in the Cathedral of Saint Joseph in Yuzhong District; the other consecrators were Bishop He Zeqing of Wanzhou, a neighbouring diocese; Bishop Luo Xuegang of Yibin (another diocese in Sichuan); Bishop Cui Qingqi of Wuhan; Bishop Xiao Zejiang of Guizhou; and Bishop Zhen Xuebin, Auxiliary Bishop of Beijing.
As expected, the "official" statement reports that Father Yang Yu, secretary general of the Chinese Bishops' Council, read the approval document (but without mentioning the papal appointment). Some 350 people attended the consecration ceremony, including priests, nuns, seminarians, and lay people.
The Vatican's statement
In a statement issued by the Vatican Press Office, the Holy See confirmed that the ceremony took place in accordance with the agreement, specifying that on 28 July 2026, Leo XIV appointed Father Andrea Ding Wang as archbishop of Chongqing.
This point is important because it highlights the historic role this diocese has played in the evangelisation of China. However, the official bodies of the Church in China, controlled by the Communist Party, never refer to archbishops and archdioceses. No bishop in China wears the pallium, the symbol of archiepiscopal dignity and jurisdiction over suffragan dioceses, which the pope bestows each year on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
Archbishop Andrew Ding Yang was born on 16 September 1981, in Chongqing’s Hechuan District. From 2000 to 2006, he attended the Beijing Seminary.
After a year of pastoral training at the parish of St Joseph in Yuzhong, he was ordained a priest on 24 May 2007. From 2009 to 2011, he furthered his theological studies at the University of Saint Joseph, Macau.
From 2012 to 2014, he taught at the National Theological Seminary in Beijing. In March 2014, he moved to Rome, where he attended the University of the Holy Cross for a year.
Returning to China the following year, he served as parish priest in Tongliang, Tongnan, Tongguanyi, and Jiulongpo, in the Archdiocese of Chongqing.
The city of Father Vincent Lebbe
As noted, the local Church has played a key role in the history of the Church in China. The first Jesuit missionaries arrived in Sichuan as early as the 17th century; while, in 1716, Vincentian Father Johannes Millener was appointed as the first apostolic vicar, with his see in Chongqing.
The missionary history of this city is also linked to the name of another Vincentian, the Belgian Father Vincent Lebbe, who in the first half of the 20th century was a great supporter of inculturation and the promotion of the local clergy in China.
Father Lebbe died in Chongqing in 1940 after he was held prisoner by a communist militia for several weeks.
At that time, the diocese was entrusted to the French missionaries of the Missions étrangères de Paris (MEP), and its last archbishop, Mgr Louis-Gabriel-Xavier Jantzen, was arrested in 1950, tried, and ultimately expelled to Hong Kong.
After some very troubled years, the local Church regained unity in 1993 with the consecration of Bishop Peter Luo Beizhan, performed by the then Bishop Matthias Duan Yinming of Wanxian, who was already in communion with the pope at the time.
Unfortunately, Bishop Luo Beizhan was struck down by a serious illness a few years later, succumbing in 2001. Since then, the Archdiocese of Chongqing has not had its own pastor.
A final note concerns the age of the new bishop consecrated today. Bishop Andrew Ding Yang is not yet 45. Likewise, three of the four bishops appointed by Leo XIV in China in recent weeks were born after 1980.
The Archbishop of Chongqing is only two years older than Bishop Joseph Chang Yanfeng of Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, who was consecrated on 22 July. At 42, the latter is the youngest bishop of the Catholic Church in the world.
This, too, speaks volumes about the Church in China today and the long-lasting importance these appointments will have in the life of local Catholic communities.
