HONG KONG (UCAN): Franciscan Father Francis Cui Qingqi was ordained bishop of Wuhan in Hubei province on September 8, the feast day of the Nativity of Mary, with the approval of both the state and the Church. The 57-year-old is the sixth bishop to be ordained under the Vatican-China provisional agreement signed in 2018 and the fourth to be consecrated since the deal was renewed in October 2020.
AsiaNews.it reported that Vatican Press Office director, Matteo Bruni, confirmed that the new bishop was “appointed bishop of Hankou/Wuhan by the Holy Father on 23 June 2021. He is the sixth Chinese bishop appointed and ordained within the framework of the provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops in China.”
Wuhan had been without a bishop since the death of Bishop Bernardine Dong Guangqing in May 2007.
The consecration ceremony took place at St. Joseph Cathedral led by Bishop Joseph Ma Yinglin of Kunming, president of the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China [BCCCC] with Bishop Joseph Shen Bin of Haimen and Bishop Joseph Li Shan of Beijing, BCCCC vice-presidents, concelebrated the consecration liturgy.
The local Church elected Father Cui to head the diocese on 17 September 2020, according to its website.
Father Yang Yu, deputy secretary-general of the BCCCC, read out the approval letter.
Born in Shanxi province in 1964, Bishop Cui was ordained a priest in 1991. He has been the administrator of Wuhan and parish priest of the cathedral since December 2012. He was appointed deputy secretary of the BCCCC in 2016 and became the president provincial of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association of Hubei in January 2018.
Bishop Li Suguang of Nanchang, in neighbouring Jiangxi province, and Bishop Ding Lingbin of Changzhi in Shanxi province, attended the ceremonies along with some 30 priests from Hubei province and some 200 nuns and Catholics of Wuhan.
