LULIANG (UCAN): Father Antoine Ji Weizhong, was ordained as the bishop of Luliang, Shanxi province, China, on January 20, at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Fenyang, Fides reported.
Luliang, formed from what was the Diocese of Fenyang, will continue to be a suffragan [part of a larger ecclesiastical area] of the Archdiocese of Taiyuan.
The 51-year-old Bishop Ji is the 11th bishop to be ordained under the 2018 Provisional Agreement on the Appointment of Bishops between the Holy See and China.
Pope Francis approved his appointment on 28 October 2024, just days after extending the provisional agreement for another four years. The agreement had been extended twice before in 2020 and 2022.
The new bishop was born on 3 August 1973, in Wenshui County, Luliang. He studied philosophy and theology at the National Catholic Seminary in Beijing from 1995 to 2001.
He was ordained a priest in October 2001 for the Diocese of Fenyang, and later pursued language studies at Xi’an University. He also studied at the St. Augustine Faculty of Philosophy and Theology in Bonn, Germany, from 2005 to 2010, where he obtained a licentiate in dogmatic theology.
He has served as a parish priest, then as head of the Diocesan Pastoral Centre, and finally as vicar general of the Dicoese of Fenyang.
Bishop Meng Ningyou of Taiyuan and vice president of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association presided over the episcopal ordination ceremony. Bishop Ding Lingbin of Changzhi, Bishop Liu Genzhu of Linfen, and Bishop Ma Cunguo of Shuozhou were among the other attendees.
The estimated 450 people attended the event including some 130 priests from various Chinese dioceses, as well as nuns, seminarians, and lay people.
The see of Fenyang had been vacant since the death of Bishop Huo Cheng in 2023 according to Fides. In a desire to more effectively care for the spiritual wellbeing of the people, on 28 October 2024 Pope Francis decided to suppress the Diocese of Fenyang and erect the new Diocese of Lüliang.
Luliang covers an area of 21,000 square and has a total population of 3,346,500 people of which about 20,000 [0.6 per cent] are Catholics.
The diocese has 51 priests and 26 Fides reported.
