Let’s now go South…

In Sichuan province, southwestern China, the Nanchong diocese cathedral held two evening celebrations, on Dec. 23 and 24, attended by many who are not Catholics.

Sichuan province is the 5th largest administrative division of China in terms of area (485,000km2) and the 3rd largest with respect to population (87,250,000).

According to sources, visitors were moved to tears on Dec. 23 watching The Soul of Love, a six-act musical portraying the life of Christ.

The Dec. 24 celebration saw members of an Internet chat group, Dream Kingdom, singing carols and hymns in Chinese, including Silent Night and Ave Maria, to an audience that included about 1,000 people who were not Catholics.

Dream Kingdom’s 500 members, who not only chat on the Internet but also have occasional face-to-face meetings, comprise mostly non-Catholic young workers.

These days, end of January, our own Fr. Peter Chao is in Sichuan attending to some religious communities. This is the Province that suffered the great earthquake last May 2008.