Bishop of Yan'an
Bishop John Baptist Yang Xiaoting, Bishop of Yan'an, was born on April 9, 1964, to a Catholic family in the Diocese of Zhouzhi, in Shaanxi. He studied at the seminary of Zhouzhi from 1984 to 1989, and he was ordained a priest on August 28, 1991, while continuing his studies at Shaanxi University. From 1993 to 1999 he studied in Rome at the Pontifical Urban University, where he took a licentiate and a doctorate in theology, and in 2002 he was awarded a master's degree in religion and sociology at the Catholic University of America in Washington. On his return to China he worked in a parish, where he opened a centre for formation and research, and he then served as vice-rector and dean of studies of the seminary of Xi'an. He was ordained Coadjutor Bishop of Yan'an on July 15, 2010, with the approval of the Holy See, with Louis Yu Runshen, Bishop of Hanzhong, as principal consecrator and Anthony Dang Mingyan and Joseph Han Yingjin as co-consecrators. He succeeded as Bishop of Yan'an on September 30, 2010.