Bishop Anthony Dang Mingyan said he introduced the German president to the diocese's charity works and described the general situation of Shaanxi province during the 50-minute March 24 visit.

Xi'an, where an estimated 40,000 Catholics reside, was the last leg of a five-day trip during Gauck's first state visit to China from March 21-25.

"I summarized several aspects, such as social facilities, education, hygiene services and elderly caring," Bishop Dang told ucanews.com.

"Gauck appreciated our achievements on these social services" and invited him to visit Germany, he added.

Although the pair did not discuss cooperation on charity works between the two countries, Bishop Dang said that as a result of Gauck's visit, he hopes his diocese will develop a relationship with Misereor, the Germen bishops' conference development organization.

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In an escalating standoff between Church and state, the announcement delaying the burial was made at Bishop Liu's memorial service at Tangshan Cathedral on Tuesday, prompting two minutes of applause from the 3,000 people gathered.

In response, officials came on Wednesday morning and took clergy away to offices of the State Administration for Religious Affairs in their respective parishes.

The mobile phones of all priests and nuns in Tangshan, east of Beijing, are now being monitored, said a source who declined to be named.

The disagreement over the cemetery has escalated following the death of Bishop Liu aged 92 on December 11, a year after he suffered a heart attack which had left him bedridden.

Before his death, the bishop had demanded to be buried at Lulong Cemetery, the final resting place of the diocese's first bishop, Ernst Geurts of Holland, who died in 1940.

The site became a church cemetery after priests and nuns were later buried there but it was wrecked during political turmoil in the 1950s, shortly after the Communists took power.

Since then, it has been used as farmland, and in 1993 - with the government's permission - Bishop Liu reburied Geurts and other clergy in a corner of the 2.6 hectare site.

Source

UCA News
Image: UCA News

A report by UCA News said the Vatican-approved bishop, who escaped house arrest and lived in hiding for the last 16 years of his life, was buried in secret by priests and laypeople.

An underground priest, who spoke to UCA News on condition of anonymity, said Bishop Liu was "a key figure" in the establishment of the bishops' conference in 1989, which "contributed to the continual existence in China of a Church that is loyal to the Holy See."

Born in 1919, Bishop Liu entered the seminary in 1935 and was ordained a priest in 1945. In 1955, he was arrested and imprisoned for two years for opposing the independent Church movement.

In 1958, he was arrested again and received a life sentence for opposing the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, a government-sanctioned body that promotes an independent Church. When he was eventually released in 1981, he began to evangelize across China.

Liu was consecrated coadjutor bishop of Yixian in 1982 and became the ordinary four years later. After suffering a stroke in 1994, he resigned from all his posts, but was placed under house arrest in Weigezhuang, his hometown.

Source

UCA News

Image: UCA News

"After today's ordination, I would devote every effort to episcopal ministry. It is inconvenient for me to serve the CPA post any more," Auxiliary Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin of Shanghai told the congregation at the ceremony.

About 1000 people in St Ignatius' Cathedral, Shanghai, responded with long and thunderous applause, reported UCANews.

Bishop Ma is the first "open" Chinese bishop in recent years to announce publicly during an episcopal ordination his intention to give up his offices in the CPA. He had been vice chair of the Shanghai CPA and a member of the standing committee of the national CPA.

"He needs to have much courage to speak these words as there are many government officials present. These words are not spoken to Catholics but to the officials," said one person who attended the ordination.

About 30 priests concelebrated the ordination Mass but most clergy in Shanghai's "open" Church community decided to follow their conscience and avoided concelebrating with an illicitly ordained bishop who was present, sources said.

That prelate, Bishop Vincent Zhan Silu of Mindong, did not lay hands on Bishop Ma, which came as a pleasant surprise to the priests who had avoided the ordination.

Meanwhile, the Vatican is considering its response to the illicit ordination of Father Joseph Yue Fusheng, also a CPA official, as bishop of Harbin city on July 6.

Five Vatican-approved bishops were reported to have taken part in the ceremony at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Harbin city, the capital of Heilongjiang province.

The Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples had earlier warned those intending to participate that they faced automatic excommunication.

Sources:

UCANews

Catholic News Agency

Image: UCANews