HONG KONG (AsiaNews): Bishop Matthew Cao Xiangde, of the official Church community in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, died at the age of 93 on July 9. He was one of the bishops appointed in 2000 without papal mandate.
In September 2004, Bishop Cao sought legitimacy from the Holy See. This was granted on 8 June 2008, but without jurisdiction.
Born on 16 September 1927 in Tongzhen, Pudong New Area, in Shanghai, he entered the Wensheng Regional Seminary in Jiaxing, run by the Lazarists, in 1950 and moved to the Beijing seminary two years later.
In 1954, amid the storm that engulfed the Chinese Church with Mao Zedong’s rise to power, he continued his studies and pastoral practice in Haimen, Zhejiang, but was only ordained in November 1985 by the late-Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian of Shanghai, after the Cultural Revolution.
Following his priestly ordination, he served at Hangzhou cathedral [built in 1661 by the great Jesuit missionary Martino Martini who died and is buried here] and in the parishes of Xiaoshan and Jinhua.
On 25 June 2000 he was elected and ordained a bishop by Bishop Matthew Yu Cheng-cai, of Haimen, despite the Holy See’s exhortation not to proceed.
Bishop Cao was a member of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) and the Chinese Bishops’ Conference.
He led the CCPA, later becoming its honorary president, as well as the Ecclesiastical Commission of Zhejiang province, and chaired the city’s Political Consultative Conference.
He had recently retired to a hospice in Wuyunshan due to poor health, but on 25 June 2020 he was able to mark the 20th anniversary of his episcopate together with the clergy and the authorities.
The official obituary states: “For all his life Bishop Cao always loved the fatherland and the Church, supporting the principles of Church autonomy, independence and self-administration, serving it with faithfulness and zeal in a humble and modest way. He fulfilled his duties with responsibility and served society.”
