State launches religious charity campaign

China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) launched the first nationwide Week of Religious Charity in Mid-September. This follows a document released by the government in February that encourages religious groups to perform charitable activities.

The weeklong campaign from September 17-23 began with an opening ceremony and conference in Wuhan city, capital of central Hubei province. About 200 representatives from government-recognized Buddhist, Catholic, Islamic, Protestant and Taoist groups, officials and scholars were present. A SARA press release  said there are nearly 5,500 religious groups, about 130,000 sites for religious activities, 360,000 clergy and more than 100 million religious believers in China.

It cited incomplete statistics that money donations for charitable purposes from the religious sector amounted to three billion yuan (US$475 million) in the last five years, of which 250 million yuan were from Catholics.

- Courtesy: http://www.ucanews.com

80 new seminarians and 213 religious

Seminaries in China have received 80 new seminarians in this new school year while 213 women also entered into the training for the consecrated life.

Nine major seminaries in China have opened their doors in September to the new candidates. It is the beginning of seven years of intense study and faith formation. Earlier this year, in the month of June, 52 seminarians graduated after completing their studies.Recognizing the need for good training, the seminaries in China now offer varied courses on religion, theology, pastoral care,  catechism etc. 213 nuns are also studying in the major seminaries.

Body is in decay, yet he keeps faith alive!

I was visiting this house for the leprosy affected for the first time. A few of them are able to move on their own. Others are bed-ridden. The centre has a small room, with holy pictures and calenders on the wall for display. Whenever a priest visits them, they have the Eucharist celebrated here. 

 During our visit to the leprosy affected people

What captured my attention was a calendar of several sheets - with the Word of God, hand-written on it. One of the Catholic inmates of the centre shared his story. He spends his time writing the Word of God in big letters in the calendar and hangs it on the wall, for easy recall! His body is decaying, yet has a very healthy faith, healthier perhaps than many of 'healthy' us!

294 baptisms in eight months in Nanjing

Nanjing, a city of 6 million people, has a special place in our Mission, because the printing press that undertakes all our Biblical printing works is situated in this City.

In the first 8 months of 2012 the diocese of Nanjing welcomed 294 new members after a long journey of preparation and catechesis. More than 400 catechumens participated in the formative stage and 294 were baptized. Both in this diocese and throughout the country, the Church focuses on the faith formation; training for the mission ahead.
To connect with Christians, all parishes are also using social communication network, including the use of internet, texting, etc.. But, they say, 'do not forget the personal contact and visits to families'.

Faith, witness and evangelization

At the outset of the Year of Faith, these three words: faith - Testimony - evangelization synthesize the program of the diocese of Xian Xian, in the province of He Bei. The program  for the year hosted by the Diocese includes theological refresher courses for priests and religious from 15 to 18 March, 2013. 

On July 20, the diocese will celebrate the Feast of the 56 Martyrs of Xian Xian and then publish a book with the history of these martyrs. On August 17 ​​there will be a Youth Congress. And on 19 and 20 October, on the occasion of Mission, there will be a Congress of Evangelization. And on 23 November 2013, the Diocese will celebrate the solemn closing of the Year of Faith

The diocese accounts for about 75,000 Catholics and 100 priests. It has 206 churches and chapels under its territory. This local community has sent dozens of priests and nuns to study abroad.

Father Gabriele Alegra, who oversaw the translation of the Bible into Chinese, is beatified

 

A humble man, ready to wash the floors in place of any seminarian, a holy man, who spent his free time in silence before the tabernacle, a man of strong faith that sustained him in his " titanic work " of translating the Bible into Chinese: this is how Card. Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, described the figure of Fr. Gabriele Maria Allegra, who was beatified on September 29 in Acireale (Catania), in the diocese where he took the first steps of his Franciscan vocation. 

The ceremony was attended by thousands of faithful. At first it was planned inside the cathedral, but then was moved to the square in front of the building, due to the unexpected large number of participants.

In his homily, after describing the childhood of the blessed, Card. Amato said that "it was in 1928, on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the death of Blessed John of Montecorvino (1328-1928), first archbishop of Kambalek (Beijing), when the irresistible vocation to go as a missionary to China first exploded within him.

It was then that the young student of theology first thought of the idea of ​​translating the Bible into Chinese. Given that there was no Catholic version of  Holy Scripture in the that language, he proposed to go to China to realize this dream. And so it was. He began this effort alone in Heng Yang on April 11, 1935, he then went to Beijing and concluded in Hong Kong in 1961. This was the great literary enterprise of the Chinese Catholic Church, praised by Catholics and non-Catholics. "

There was also a group from Hong Kong, led by Card. Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of the city where Fr. Allegra lived.

 Relics of Bl. Gabriele Alegra [雷永明神父] on display in the Immaculate Conception Cathedral Church in Hong Kong, on 4 October 2012

- Report Courtesy: http://www.asianews.it; Photos: Kung Kao Po

Our publications ...

Every month we present
editorial work we have done.

This month we introduce
"the first Bible in Spanish with Lectio Divina."
This Bible provides
reading-guidelines - Lectio
for each chapter of the Bible
(Read, Reflect, Pray, Act).
A pioneering work: 2400 pages, printed in two colors.
This new Bible is now in press.
Here's the cover:

HONG KONG - PARADOXES

These slides would best explain the Paradox, that Hong Kong is. 

 [View the slide in full-screen to read the captions]

Welcome to the Macau-China Bulletin, September 2012

In this issue of the Bulletin, we especially focus on our family news from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao. We begin with Taiwan where the Claretian Missionaries arrived 17 years ago. There are five Claretian from Chile, Italy, India and China working in Taiwan. Fr. Arturo, writes about the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Assumption Parish which is currently under the pastoral care of the Claretian Missionaries.

60 years of the Assumption Parish in Taiwan

On Sunday, August 19 we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the parish of Our Lady of the Assumption where Claretians have been rendering their services for the past three years. 

Our Lady of the Assumption, an image 

painted by Chung-Yu Lin (one of the parishioners)

The festival began on Monday 13 with a Mass presided by the native Claretian, Fr. Peter Chao. On Sunday, the Festal Mass was presided by the Archbishop of Taipei John Hung, SVD. 

On the occasion the parish was blessed with five infant baptisms while four adults received the Sacraments of Christian initiation and eight others received the Sacrament of Confirmation. 

The Archbishop with the concelebrants 

and the confirmed with their sponsors.

After the Mass the archbishop blessed a beautiful Chinese image of Our Lady of the Assumption, painted by Chung-Yu Lin (one of the parishioners) and now adorns the outer wall of the Parish.

Outer wall of the Parish
Our Lady of the Assumption

"St. Jerome of China"- Fr.Gabriele Maria Allegra to be Beatified

Italian priest who translated the Bible into Chinese will be beatified  

The Italian Franciscan priest, Father Gabriele Maria Allegra, who translated the entire Bible into Chinese for the first time, will be beatified in the Cathedral in Acireale, Sicily, on September 29. The beatification of the man known as “the Saint Jerome of China” will take place ten years after Pope John Paul II first recognized a miracle through his intercession in 2002.  

Father Gabriele Maria Allegra

Father Allegra will be the first person from the Hong Kong diocese and from the Franciscan province of Taiwan-Hong Kong to be so honored by the Church,  UCA News, which first broke the news, reported.
Born “Giovanni Stefano Allegra” in San Giovanni la Punta, in the province of Catania, Sicily, in 1907, the future blessed friar entered the Franciscan minor seminary in Acireale in 1918, and the order’s novitiate in Bronte in 1923.  Three years later he was sent to Rome to study at the Franciscan’s International College. In 1928, Allegra felt inspired to devote his entire life to the translation of the Bible into Chinese.   

After being ordained priest in 1930, he set sail for China.  He arrived in Hunan, southern China, in July 1931 and there started studying Chinese and with the help of professors prepared a first draft translation around 1937. Due to fatigue, he had to return to Italy for 3 years, but there continued his biblical studies. 

He tried to return to Hunan in 1940 but could not do so due to the Sino-Japanese war and so had to go to Beijing. On that journey he lost his original draft translation and had to start all over again once he arrived in the Chinese capital. There, in 1945, he established the Franciscan Biblical Study Centre (Studium Biblicum Franciscanum), but when the Communists came to power in 1949 he and his team had to move to Hong Kong, where he lived for most of the rest of his life.  
On Christmas Day, 1968, Father Allegra, he achieved his life’s ambition when the first one-volume Bible was published in Chinese.  Known as the “Studium Biblicum” version, that is still the main Chinese text today and is considered to be the most faithful to the original manuscript.       

This great Franciscan died in Hong Kong in the year, 1976. It came as no surprise, however, when eight years later, in 1984, the local bishop (later cardinal), John Baptist Wu, opened the cause for his beatification. John Paul II declared Father Allegra “Venerable” in 1994, and next month he will become “Blessed”.