Some had expressed hopes that Auxiliary Bishop Zhen Xuebin, consecrated with Papal approval, would change something. But the Forum was CCP propaganda as usual.
by He Yuyan
The Tiandao Forum (天道论坛), the Beijing Catholic Theological Thought Seminar, is an important event for Chinese Catholics. The 9th Tiandao Forum was held on November 30. Expectations were high, considering that the co-leader of the forum was Auxiliary Bishop Zhen Xuebin, who had been consecrated on October 25 with Vatican approval. Unlike in other cases, the Vatican-China deal of 2018 was respected. Pope Francis approved the appointment on August 28, some two months before Zhen’s consecration by Beijing Bishop Li Shan.
Zhen was expected to be a poster bishop for the recently renewed Vatican-China deal, one who would prove to the world the benefits of the agreement. The Vatican, when reporting the consecration, omitted from the biography of Zhen that he served as vice chairman of the Beijing Catholic Patriotic Association from August 2014 to June 2024, and as chairman of the same Beijing Catholic Patriotic Association and the Education Committee from June 2024, a fact that was emphasized in Chinese sources. Although today the Vatican allows and even encourages priests and laypersons to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, it was not so before 2018, and the entity is strictly controlled and managed by the CCP via the United Front.
Beijing Catholics who attended the 2024 Tiandao Forum did not report to “Bitter Winter” anything new with respect to the previous editions. The top local leaders of the United Front Work Department were there and gave speeches. According to the press release, Bishop Li Shan “thanked the leaders of the Central United Front Work Department, the Municipal United Front Work Department, the Municipal Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission, and other government departments for their care and guidance.”
Absent were references to the teachings of Pope Francis, his last encyclical letter, and the recent Rome Synod. On the other hand, “Sinicization”—which does not mean making Chinese Catholicism more Chinese but more closely connected to the CCP—was hailed in all speeches, including the final remarks by Bishop Zhen Xuebin. It was also mentioned how good it is that Catholic students attend the Patriotic Religious Circles Training Class of the Central Academy of Socialism.
None of this is really surprising. What is more surprising, or perhaps simply packaged to be sold in the West, are the artificially created expectations that the new bishops consecrated with Papal approval would behave like all the other Catholic bishops in the world and present to the Catholics the Vatican documents rather than those of the CCP. This is simply not happening in China.
Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.
