Bishop Vincent Zhan Silu

VINCENT ZHAN SILU Vincent Zhan Silu is Bishop of the Diocese of Funing (Mindong for the Chinese government) in the coastal province of Fujian. Vincent Zhan Silu was born on March 13, 1961 in the city of Ningde (Fujian province) and grew up in a poor Catholic extended family with 10 siblings. In 1978, during the period of new openness desired by Deng Xiaoping, marked by the reopening of churches and seminaries, 17-year-old Vincent, encouraged and moved by his family's testimony of faith, entered the Seminary of Sheshan in the diocese of Shanghai. He was ordained a priest on 24 June 1989 in the Basilica of Our Lady Help of Christians of Sheshan by Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian, who had been ordained bishop without papal mandate. Immediately after his ordination, Vincent Zhan returned to his diocese, where he began his pastoral service as a parish priest. For three years, from 1995 to 1997, he attended courses at the Holy Spirit Study Centre in Hong Kong. These were the years when the former British colony once again became part of the People's Republic of China. The Bishop of Hong Kong at the time was Wu. The auxiliary bishops were Joseph Zen Zekiun and John Tong Hon, the latter having long been responsible for the activities of the Holy Spirit Study Centre. Vincent Zhan Silu was consecrated Bishop of Mingdong on January 6, 2000, the Solemnity of the Epiphany, in the Church of the Immaculate Conception (Nantang) in Beijing, which was then a Cathedral. On that feast day, he and four other Chinese priests were consecrated bishops without papal mandate, an event that negatively affected the prospects for dialogue between the Holy See and the Beijing government on the state and problems of the Catholic Church in China. The canonical legitimation of the exercise of the episcopal office by Vincent Zhan Silu only comes 18 years later, on September 8, 2018, in the context of the negotiations and agreements related to the signing of the Provisional Agreement on the Appointment of Chinese Bishops (September 22, 2018): "In order to support the proclamation of the Gospel in China," says the 'Note on the Catholic Church in China' published by the Holy See on the day of the signing of the Agreement, Pope Francis has decided to reinstate into full ecclesial communion the remaining 'official' bishops ordained without papal mandate." The list of bishops reinstated into full ecclesial communion also includes the name of Vincent Zhan Silu. As part of the signing of the Agreement, Pope Francis entrusted Zhan Silu with the leadership of the diocese of Funing/Mindong, while Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin, until then bishop of the same diocese, not recognized by the Chinese government, agreed to take on the office of auxiliary bishop of Funing/Mindong. The announcement of the pastoral tasks assigned by the Pope to the various bishops, who had originally been ordained without papal mandate and whose canonical status had been regularized before the Agreement, took place in Beijing on December 12, 2018, during a meeting also attended by Bishop Zhan Silu and Bishop Guo Xijin. "It was," according to an article published in February 2019 in L'Osservatore Romano, "a sober ceremony marked by intense ecclesial communion, ending with the prayer of the Our Father and the singing of the Hail Mary to a traditional Chinese melody." On April 18 of the same year (2019), Bishop Vincent Zhan Silu and Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin celebrated together the Chrism Mass, the rite of Holy Thursday. And on October 28, the feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude, Bishop Zhan Silu ordained two priests (one from Mindong and one from Minbei) in the new cathedral of the diocese, dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. It was the first public ordination of priests in 70 years. The personal profile of Vincent Zhan Silu is characterized by a strong inclination towards intellectual work, which is also expressed in the publication of poetic works, theological essays and spiritual teachings. Among the books he has published are titles such as "The Feast of the Holy Trinity," an essay on Priestly Celibacy, and a "Comparison between Ancestral worship and the Sacrifice of the Catholic Mass." 2024 was a particularly busy year for Bishop Zhan Silu's pastoral activity: in February, during the Chinese New Year, he presided over the inauguration of several new churches and the reopening of others that had been closed for a long time for renovation. On January 31, 2024, in the parish of Chengguan, dedicated to the Nativity of Mary, Bishop Zhan Silu participated as a concelebrant in the liturgy of the episcopal ordination of Peter Wu Yishun, consecrated Bishop of the Apostolic Prefecture of Shaowu (Minbei) in the coastal province of Fujian, presided over by Joseph Li Shan, Bishop of Beijing. On February 16, he accompanied Bishop Peter Wu to celebrate his first Mass in Ningde, his homeland. Today, the diocese of Mindong, whose origins date back to the mission of the Spanish Dominicans, has 70,000 faithful, 15 churches, more than a hundred houses of prayer, four homes for the elderly and an orphanage. There are about sixty priests and hundreds of nuns involved in pastoral care.