Pope Leo XIV says "Today, in a world torn by conflict and engulfed by war, the Bride of Christ continues the same mission, praying that, in the face of every threat, the Lord will protect..." to Conference on 100th Anniversary of China's 1st Bishops

Video message from the Holy Father on the occasion of the International Conference organized by the Dicastery for Evangelization – First Evangelization Section, in collaboration with the Pontifical Urban University, "The Face of the Universal Church in China. 100 Years Since the Consecration of the First Chinese Bishops," November 5, 2026


Below is the text of the video message 

Dear brothers, dear sisters,

I am happy to be able to address all of you, participants in the Conference entitled "The Universal Face of the Church in China ." It is dedicated to the events of the first Chinese Catholic Bishops consecrated in the contemporary era, who received episcopal ordination in St. Peter's Basilica from the hands of Pope Pius XI , one hundred years ago, on 28 October 1926.

Their Consecration represented an event of great importance, not only for the journey of the Catholic Church in China, but for the universal Church, as the title of your Conference suggests.

They had left by ship from Shanghai to receive episcopal ordination from the hands of the Successor of Peter, and we could summarise the feelings that animated them on that journey with the words of St. John of Avila: "If you send me, Lord, to do what you have done, give me your heart" ( Sermon 57 , 20).

In their journey we see a metaphor for the long journey undertaken by the Catholic Church in China up to that day, the fruit of the great missionary thrust of the 1920s.

In 1919, with the Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud , Pope Benedict XV reaffirmed the clear principle that the Church's missionary work cannot be confused with processes of colonization and the exportation of ideas or cultural models. The seed of the Gospel, in fact, is brought to grow wherever it is sown, not through human strategies, but by the grace of God. And the Church, born from the mission and the initial proclamation, is happy to take on the traits and connotations of the individuals and peoples among whom she is called to bear witness to Christ in charity.

In 1924, at the Council of Shanghai—the first General Council of the Church in China—the urgent need arose to quickly entrust the leadership of ecclesiastical communities and circumscriptions to native Chinese priests and bishops. This request was promoted by the missionary bishops themselves, all from other countries, under the farsighted guidance of the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Celso Costantini. It was appropriate to initiate and foster this process, to remain faithful to the very nature of the Church, whose unity is not uniformity but communion in diversity (cf. Francis, General Audience , September 25, 2013, 3).

Among the People of God, shared faith embraces differences, embracing, wherever possible, the traits of individuals and peoples, with a broad scope that reflects the workings of God, who calls each person with their own unique characteristics. Thus, the Church lives among peoples with friendship and sympathy for their expectations and good aspirations. The Fathers of the Church already testified to this, joyfully noting that faith in Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit make people of different and sometimes distant cultures, languages, civilizations, and nations brothers and sisters.

In this regard, recently, referring to the great missionary Bishop Saint Turibius of Mogrovejo , I had the opportunity to underline that no Pastor in the Church can attribute the mission to himself alone, but receives it and exercises it in communion, united with the Successor of Peter and all the other Successors of the Apostles: the Bishops scattered throughout the world (see Letter to the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean on the occasion of the Third Centenary of the Canonization of Saint Turibius of Mogrovejo , 8 September 2026).

In this light, it is moving to think of our six future bishops, who came from Shanghai to Rome to receive episcopal ordination at the tomb of the Apostle Peter. They traveled the world to bear witness to the communion that blossoms from the faith of the Apostles, whose indispensable sign is the unity of each individual bishop with the Bishop of Rome.

It is a beautiful, free, comforting sign, a liberating bond, a closeness that instills trust, and above all a manifestation of the mystery of the Mystical Body of Christ which, as Saint Paul VI wrote in the Creed of the People of God , "possesses no other life than that of grace." Herein lies the uniqueness of the Church with respect to all other social and political systems and organizations that shape and regulate societies and the coexistence of peoples.

Pope Benedict XVI , in his Letter to Chinese Catholics (27 May 2007), wrote that «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 preserved the apostolic succession intact» (n. 8).

His words were followed by those of Pope Francis : "Chinese Catholics, in communion with the Bishop of Rome, walk in the present time. In the context in which they live, they also bear witness to their faith with works of mercy and charity, and in their witness they make a real contribution to the harmony of social coexistence, to the building of the common home" ( Video Message to the Participants in the International Conference "100 Years since the Concilium Sinense: Between History and the Present" , 21 May 2024, 3) .

Thus, as often happens in the long history of the Church, looking to the past can illuminate the present. One hundred years ago, the journey of six men from China to Rome to become Bishops of the Catholic Church ignited joy and pride in many of their compatriots, consigning mistrust, suspicion, and hostility to oblivion. Today, in a world torn by conflict and engulfed by war, the Bride of Christ continues the same mission, praying that, in the face of every threat, the Lord will protect the treasure of ecclesial communion, a fruitful source of goodness and peace for all.

My dearest, I wish you good luck in your work and I bless you from my heart.

Translation from Source: https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2026/11/05/0871/01619.html