Pope Leo XIV Affirms Communion With China's Bishops
Marking the centenary of the first Chinese bishops’ ordination, he links their fidelity to Peter with a mission free of colonial aims.
On November 5, 2026, Pope Leo XIV addressed the international conference “The Face of the Universal Church in China. 100 Years since the Consecration of the First Chinese Bishops” in a video message. The conference was organized in Rome by the Dicastery for Evangelization with the Pontifical Urbaniana University; the message was played at the opening session.
The six bishops were ordained by Pope Pius XI in St. Peter’s Basilica on October 28, 1926, after sailing from Shanghai. Pope Leo XIV called their journey “a metaphor for the long path travelled by the Catholic Church in China up to that day, the fruit of the great missionary impulse of the 1920s.”
Mission, Shanghai, and Communion
Recalling Benedict XV’s 1919 apostolic letter Maximum illud, he said the mission “cannot be confused with processes of colonization.” He noted that the 1924 Council of Shanghai, under Apostolic Delegate Archbishop Celso Costantini, urged that Church leadership be entrusted “soon” to Chinese priests and bishops, because “the unity of the Church is not uniformity but communion in diversity.”
Quoting his letter of September 8, 2026, on St. Toribio de Mogrovejo, he stated: “No pastor in the Church can attribute the mission to himself alone, but receives and exercises it in communion, united to the Successor of Peter and to all the other Successors of the Apostles: the bishops scattered throughout the world.” He called the six bishops’ journey to Rome “a sign beautiful, free, comforting,” and “the communion that flowers from the faith of the Apostles, whose irrenounceable sign is the unity of each Bishop with the Bishop of Rome.”
He cited Benedict XVI’s 2007 Letter to Chinese Catholics (n. 8): “the Catholic Church in China, by a particular grace of the Holy Spirit, has never been deprived of the ministry of legitimate Pastors who have kept the apostolic succession intact,” and Pope Francis’s 2024 words that Chinese Catholics, “in communion with the Bishop of Rome, walk in the present time.”
Joy Then, Prayer Now
He closed by saying that a century ago the six men’s journey “kindled joy and pride” among their compatriots, “consigning to oblivion mistrust, suspicion and hostility,” and that “in a world torn apart by conflicts and overwhelmed by wars,” the Church prays that the Lord will guard “the treasure of ecclesial communion.”
Bishop Giuseppe Li Shan of Beijing spoke at the conference, recalling Matteo Ricci’s method of evangelization and the 1924 Shanghai Council. Bishop Ignazio Ding Zuyao of Haimen also took part. The official Italian text of the papal message served as the reference version.