Hebei mourns Bishop Jia Zhiguo, a courageous pastor who survived the chains
Underground Bishop of Zhengding since 1981, he died this morning at the age of 90 in the bishop's residence where he had been confined. After he was jailed during the Cultural Revolution, he was tasked with rebuilding dioceses in several Chinese provinces. His courage cost him more stints in jail, but he was a seed of vocations among Chinese Catholics. The faithful remember him for “preserving the flame of hope in the darkest nights”.
Milan (AsiaNews) – Catholics in Hebei are mourning the passing today of Mgr Jia Zhiguo, 90, underground bishop of Zhengding, a great figure in this Chinese province with deep Christian roots.
With him goes a prelate who fully experienced the suffering of the Church in China, but who, with his courage, also sowed so much hope among his people.
Bishop Jia Zhiguo was born on 1 May 1935 into a Catholic family in Wuqiu, a village in Zongshizhuang County, in present-day Jinzhou City.
His priestly vocation, nurtured among Vincentian friars, faced great obstacles in Mao's China. Starting during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, he spent 15 years under arrest for his faith.
Released in 1978, he was able to be ordained a priest on 7 June 1980 by Bishop Joseph Fan Xueyan of Baoding, one of the last Chinese bishops appointed by Pope Pius XII, who also spent 15 years in prison.
A few months later, on 8 February 1981, Bishop Fan, then 74, ordained in an underground ceremony Fr Jia Xhiguo as bishop of the Diocese of Zhengding.
That and two other underground episcopal ordinations performed by Bishop Fan did not go unnoticed to Chinese authorities, who rearrested him in 1982 and sentenced him to ten years in prison on charges of "collusion with foreign forces to endanger the sovereignty and security of the motherland."
Released early in 1987 following strong diplomatic pressures over his treatment, he nevertheless remained under house arrest.
Knowing full well what could happen to him, Bishop Fan had already obtained for Bishop Jia special authority to select new bishops across China. And so it was he who, in the 1980s, rebuilt the Catholic community in Hebei and neighbouring provinces, also presiding over the episcopal ordinations of four underground bishops: Zhang Huaixin (Diocese of Weihui), Chen Jianzhang (Bishop Fan's successor in the Diocese of Baoding), Yang Shudao (Diocese of Fuzhou), and Li Congzhe (Diocese of Suiyuan).
He also ordained many priests for the Diocese of Yongnian, significantly helping to reduce the clergy shortage in that area.
On 4 April 1989, while he was meeting a Salesian priest from Hong Kong in Beijing, Bishop Jia was arrested and jailed again, marking the beginning of a long period of detentions and releases that lasted more than 20 years, which AsiaNews has reported several times.
His most sensational arrests include that of 8 November 2005, on the eve of then-US President George W. Bush's visit to China (he spent ten months in prison on this occasion) and 24 August 2008, the day after the closing of the Beijing Olympics (he was released after a month).
At the end of 2008, Mgr Paul Jiang Taoran, the "official" bishop of the Diocese of Shijiazhuang (the capital of Hebei), who had been ordained without a papal mandate, reestablished communion with Rome and recognised the authority of Bishop Jia, thus effectively achieving reunification in the Diocese of Zhengding.
But this did not spare Bishop Jia from being arrested again. On 30 March 2009, he was detained again at the Church of Christ the King in Wuqiu. Bishop Jiang later died in November 2010.
Confined to the bishop's residence since 2010, Bishop Jia nevertheless continued to spread the Gospel without making any compromises with the authorities. His prayers and words always instiled courage in the faithful in Hebei. Many looked to him as a role model, including many young people who began to dedicate themselves to the Church and later became priests.
He never had personal wealth, but was always concerned with serving people. Thanks to the help of nuns, he opened his residence to disabled children and young people abandoned by their families.
His last battle was against the ban on activities with children imposed on the Church by the communist authorities when churches reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Church must be open to all, even to minors under the age of 18," he said in 2020.
"Bishop Jia's life was marked by suffering and repeated arrests and imprisonment, but his heart as a pastor never changed," reads a statement sent to AsiaNews by the Catholic community in Hebei.
"We are grateful to you," it reads, addressing the deceased bishop directly, "for your extraordinary courage in founding and leading multiple dioceses, transmitting the flame of the Church; we are grateful because, even when you were repeatedly arrested and imprisoned, you continued to care for the flock, preserving the flame of hope in the darkest nights."
"The Lord said: 'The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few,'" the statement notes. “You responded to this call your entire life, to the point of being completely worn out. Now you have arrived in the heavenly homeland, where there is no more pain nor oppression. We pray to you: before the Father, intercede for us and for the Church in China.”
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