Milan (AsiaNews) – China and the Vatican reported the ordination of another bishop under the 2018 agreement between Beijing and the Holy See. Ignatius Ding Zuyao was consecrated bishop of Haimen, a diocese with a long history in Jiangsu province.
The ceremony took place at the church in Nantong, where the cathedral has been located since the 1980s led by Bishop Joseph Shen Bin of Shanghai, who chairs the College of Chinese Catholic Bishops, a collegial body not officially recognised by the Holy See.
The presence of Bishop Shen Bin is significant. Chosen by the Communist Party to serve as a key point of reference for the Church in China, who was unilaterally transferred to the see of Shanghai in a controversial move in 2023, a fact later accepted by Pope Francis, Bishop Shen is a native of Jiangsu and served as bishop of Haimen from 2010 to 2023. The new bishop, therefore, is his successor.
Bishop Wang Renlei of Xuzhou, Bishop Xu Honggen of Suzhou, Bishop Lu Xinping of Nanjing, and Auxiliary Bishop Wu Jianlin of Shanghai joined Bishop Shen Bin in the consecration.
As is customary during the ceremony, Secretary-General Father Yang Yu read the approval document from the College of Chinese Catholic Bishops (rather than a papal bull, as is the case in all other dioceses worldwide).
According to official Chinese sources, some 400 people, priests, nuns, and parishioners, attended the liturgy.
The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association reports that Bishop Ding Zuyao was elected on 14 May, while a statement from the Holy See notes that Pope Leo XIV, having approved his candidacy within the framework of the Provisional Agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China, appointed him bishop of Haimen on 24 August.
He thus becomes the ninth Chinese bishop appointed by the current pontiff since the start of his pontificate, and the 19th since the signing of the 2018 Agreement.
Bishops born in the 1980s
However, another element stands out in today’s appointment: the age of the new bishop of Haimen. Bishop Ding Zuyao was born in August 1986, and at 40, he is now the youngest bishop in the entire Catholic Church, with only fifteen years of priesthood behind him.
It is difficult to view his youth as an exception anymore since the new bishop of Haimen has, in fact, taken the title of youngest bishop from another recently appointed Chinese prelate, Bishop Joseph Chang Yanfeng of Chifeng, who was ordained last July at the age of 42.
Furthermore, looking at the date of birth of the bishops appointed in China in 2026, four out of five were born after 1980.
Overall, against the backdrop of Catholic Church appointments worldwide, it becomes clear that out of more than 5,400 bishops in the world, only about 20 were born after 1980, and in most of those cases, serving as auxiliary bishops rather than as ordinaries of a diocese.
In light of this, and considering the process by which appointments are made under the agreement between Beijing and the Holy See, where the pope is effectively limited to either approving or rejecting a proposed name, it is clear that the official Church bodies in China are pushing to nominate very young priests, all of whom have come of age under the current leadership.
While this certainly reflects the unique situation of the Chinese Catholic community, it also represents a deliberate strategic choice. It should be noted that this is happening at a time when seminary enrolments in China sharply dropped in recent years, as have new priestly ordinations. Consequently, these young bishops will find themselves leading dioceses where, conversely, the average age of the clergy is rising rapidly.
The legacy of Bishop Simon Zhu Kaimin
Finally, it is worth pointing out that today’s ceremony took place just days before the centenary of the consecration of Haimen’s most illustrious bishop, Simon Zhu Kaimin (1868–1960), a Jesuit and one of the first six Chinese bishops, solemnly ordained by Pius XI in the Vatican Basilica on 28 October 1926.
Driven by a great missionary zeal, he courageously led what was then an apostolic vicariate for over 30 years, navigating the turbulent era of Mao’s China, only to be branded a "reactionary" by the Communists and ultimately dying in what was effectively internal exile in 1960.
In 2012, to mark the 85th anniversary of the diocese’s founding, Bishop Shen Bin honoured his memory by unveiling a statue that commemorates him as an embodiment of a Church with a distinctly Chinese traits.
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