Joseph Fan Zhongliang S.J. (; 18 December 1918 – 16 March 2014), also known as Josephus Vei Zong Leong, was a Chinese

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

in the

Diocese of Shanghai The Roman Catholic Diocese of Shanghai ( la, Dioecesis Sciamhaevensis; ) is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the Municipality of Shanghai, China. It was erected on December 13, 1933 as the Apostolic Vicar ...

in China.

Life

Fan was baptised aged 14. He joined the

Jesuits The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

in 1938 and became a priest in 1951. He was arrested together with Bishop

Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei (; 2 August 1901 – 12 March 2000) was the Catholic Bishop of Shanghai, China, from 1950 until his death in 2000. He spent 30 years in Chinese prisons for defying attempts by China's Communist government to control ...

of Shanghai and other priests in 1955. He was convicted of counter-revolutionary activities and sentenced to 20 years in jail in 1958 and sent to a work camp in

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

Province. After his release in 1978, he taught at a high school in Qinghai. The Bishop of Qinghai ordained him Coadjutor Bishop of Shanghai on 27 February 1985, while the Bishop was in jail. Security police arrested him again on numerous occasions, and ransacked his flat. In 1992, the accounts of the entire Shanghai underground church were closed down, along with many of the Bishop's personal accounts, including the bishopric. Formally, Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei was the leader of the church in Shanghai. After a long prison sentence in China, he moved to the United States, and died there in 2000. At that point, the Holy See appointed Fan Zhongliang as the successor of Cardinal Kung as the Bishop of Shanghai. Later, the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...

named

Aloysius Jin Luxian Aloysius Jin Luxian (; June 20, 1916 – April 27, 2013) was a Roman Catholic bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Shanghai. Biography Bishop Aloysius Jin was born in Shanghai into a family that had been Catholic for generations. He wa ...

, SJ as the Bishop of Shanghai, causing a rift in the Church. Both bishops were advanced in years, and due to a change in the political climate in the People's Republic of China, decided to work together. They, with the support of the Vatican and the Church in the region, chose a candidate to succeed them. This was

Joseph Xing Wenzhi Joseph Xing Wenzhi (; born 1963) is an auxiliary bishop in the Diocese of Shanghai. Background In 2005, Pope John Paul II. named Xing auxiliary bishop in the Diocese of Shanghai and confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI. Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian co ...

, who was named by the bishopric as auxiliary bishop on 28 June 2005.„Aloysius Jin Luxian - Bischof von Shanghai“
, China-Zentrum: China heute 2007, Nr. 4-5, S. 153-155 Upon the death of Bishop Jin in April 2013, the Holy See hinted that Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin has changed from being the Auxiliary Bishop of Shanghai to the Coadjutor Bishop. However, the

Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association The Catholic Patriotic Association (), abbreviated CPA, is a state-sanctioned organization of Catholicism in the People's Republic of China. It was established in 1957 after a group of Chinese Catholics met in Beijing with officials from the Chi ...

continued to deny the validity of Bishop Fan and stripped Bishop Ma of his title as of December 2012, thereby observing a

sede vacante ''Sede vacante'' ( in Latin.) is a term for the state of a diocese while without a bishop. In the canon law of the Catholic Church, the term is used to refer to the vacancy of the bishop's or Pope's authority upon his death or resignation. Hi ...

in Shanghai, until the Chinese government transferred the Bishop of

Haimen Haimen (, Qihai dialect: , Shanghai: ) is a district of Nantong, Jiangsu province, with a population of approximately 1 million. It is located at the opposite side of the Yangtze River to Shanghai and is directly north of Chongming Island except f ...

, Archbishop

Shen Bin Joseph Shen Bin (born 23 February 1970) is a Chinese prelate of the Catholic Church who serves as Bishop of Shanghai and president of Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. He was Bishop of Haimen from 2010 to 2023. Biography Joseph Shen Bin w ...

, to the Diocese of Shanghai, without the Pope's approval, in 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fan, Joseph, Zhongling 1918 births 2014 deaths People from Shanghai Chinese Jesuits Roman Catholic bishops in Shanghai Jesuit bishops 20th-century Chinese Roman Catholic priests