Gianni Criveller pime
MILAN (AsiaNews): On July 4, a funeral was held in Beijing, China, for Ren Yanli (任延黎), professor and eminent scholar of Catholicism at the Research Institute of World Religions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; and former director at the same Academy of the Office of Research on Christianity.
News of his passing on 30 June at the age of 79, greatly shocked and saddened me. I was bound to Ren and his wife, Wang Meixiu, by friendship and affection. We collaborated with him on numerous occasions in Beijing, Hong Kong, Rome, Macerata, and Milan.
He hosted me several times as a speaker at the Academy of Social Sciences and other academic institutions in the Chinese capital. In 1997, he generously engaged in organising a series of lectures by Neapolitan theologian, Bruno Forte [now Archbishop of Chieti], at academic institutions in Beijing.
Ren was a member of the commission for the beatification of Matteo Ricci at the Diocese of Macerata [2010 to 2013], which I chaired. There were only two Chinese scholars on the commission, and Ren was the only non-Christian. I well remember the moment of the oath on the Bible, which of course was not asked of him, but he made a somewhat equivalent gesture. He diligently made his contributions and our work was acknowledged with the recognition of Father Ricci’s heroic virtues by Pope Francis on 17 December 2022, the act by which Ricci became Venerable [Sunday Examiner, 25 December 2022].
I met Ren Yanli in 1994 in Beijing, thanks to Father Angelo Lazzarotto, a PIME missionary, a true pioneer of contacts between China and Catholicism since the late 1970s.
Father Lazzarotto facilitated Ren’s admission to the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, where he graduated with a thesis on the salvation of non-Christians according to the Second Vatican Council. He was very proud of his studies and maintained excellent relations with his lecturers.
His knowledge of Italian and Catholicism allowed him frequent and in-depth contacts with those in the Vatican who were responsible for dialogue with China, including important cardinals
Ren spoke Italian very well, furthering his knowledge of Catholicism, of which he became one of the foremost Chinese experts. His knowledge of Italian and Catholicism allowed him frequent and in-depth contacts with those in the Vatican who were responsible for dialogue with China, including important cardinals. A Chinese priest familiar with this area confirmed to me how Ren had won esteem, respect and credibility for his sincerity, cordiality and tenacity both in China and in Rome.
Ren worked hard and unsparingly to reconcile positions as different as those between China and the Vatican. He was a mediator, a man who united and not divided. And the field on which he moved was not without its pitfalls and difficulties: one hand the religious policy of China’s government and on the other, the Holy See’s desire for dialogue.
From the 1990s until a decade ago, centres for the study of Christianity flourished in China, led by so-called ‘cultural Christians’, that is, scholars who were sympathetic to the Christian faith and adhered to it spiritually and ideally. Ren was not a ‘cultural Christian’, rather, he was a scholar operating from within a government agency. Nevertheless, he participated in a season of China’s great openness to faiths.
I personally owe a lot to Ren. I considered him a loyal and sincere friend who did not fail to offer me advice, for my benefit, in difficult times. He hosted me in his home and told me about his life. His name, “Yanli”, means “the dawn of Yan”. It means he was born in Yan-an, in the north of Shaanxi province, in 1944.
Ren worked hard and unsparingly to reconcile positions as different as those between China and the Vatican. He was a mediator, a man who united and not divided
Yan-an is the small town where Mao Zedong’s Long March ended and where the communist army reorganised in preparation for the struggle that would bring it to power in 1949. Ren was thus the son of people who participated in the legendary march. It was no small thing to boast of this origin.
As a young man, he was commissioned to study Italian, which he did with great success. However, the Cultural Revolution interrupted his and his superiors’ plans. After the Cultural Revolution he was allowed to continue his studies, and so it was that he came to Milan in the early 1980s.
He loved returning to Italy, and visiting his favourite gelaterias and pizzerias in Rome or Milan. But in recent years, deteriorating health did not allow him to travel.
After contracting Covid-19, Ren Yanli sadly passed away. My thoughts go with friendship to his wife, Wang Meixiu, who shared the study of Catholicism with her husband, and who also made significant contributions to the sympathetic understanding of Catholicism within the Academy of Social Sciences.
On June 27, Father Jean Charbonnier, of the Missions Etrangères de Paris, who dedicated his life to China and to weaving fragile threads of dialogue and presence, also passed away [Sunday Examiner, July 2]. It feels like an end to a season that was truly promising.
I think that Father Lazzarotto, who is no longer able to write, shares my feelings. In Ren Yanli it is not just we who have lost a friend whom we esteemed, but also the cause of dialogue between China and the Vatican.
Never before have we needed men who unite and not divide; we need bridge-builders and not saboteurs. We need believers in the common humanity that unites men and women “under the same heaven”.
Many years ago Ren told me that he was not a believer. I don’t know if anything inside him changed. But I hope with all my heart that the God of life will not be displeased with the existence of a good man, who spent himself for dialogue and good.
Father Criveller is a member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions and a sinologist
