News from the Pastoral Bible Foundation

Tamil Bible

We received news from Fr. Raphael, Superior Provincial of the Claretians in Chennay, India that after several years of work the first edition of the Tamil Pastoral Bible is ready for the press. We are pleased to be of help in this pastoral project and bring one more translation of this Pastoral Bible to the People of God (I guess that there are 13 languages with this one…).


---------------------


New Testament in Kreyol

Let me also share that at the same time our team is working with our missionaries in Haiti for the publication of the New Testament in Kreyol (forthcoming later on this year).

Here is the first page of the Gospel of John:

“La Biblia de Nuestro Pueblo” free download in internet

We are pleased to inform you that now you can download for your personal use the bestseller Spanish Pastoral Bible “La Biblia de Nuestro Pueblo”.

As we reach close to one million copies, Claretian Missionaries (China) and Ediciones Mensajero (Spain) are pleased to make this Bible available for free in internet.

http://www.mensajero.com/bibliapueblo/bibliapueblo.html

http://www.bible.claret.org/bibles/lbnp/index.html

And our good friend Fr. Domingo Pacheco, working with his team from Argentina also makes this Bible and other books and pastoral resources available for free download.
Kindly check: www.labibliaabierta.com.ar

Five million bibles… and our share

The Philippine bishops are launching a campaign to place

5 million copies of the bible for the poorest in the Philippines.

We are helping…
At this moment we are printing 50,000 copies
of the Christian Community Bible
as a specially subsidized edition
that will be available for only $2.40 per copy.

The book has 1800 pages on a very readable print size.
Here is the new cover:

Our visitors…

We were blessed this last month with several visitors.

It is already a tradition: Fr. José Cristo Rey García Paredes, CMF goes to Taiyuan on the month of December to teach at the Formation Center. This year he participated in the graduation of 60 religious sisters who underwent theological formation during 2 years. The picture taken of the group together with authorities, professors and graduating class was with the weather at15 degrees below zero (centigrade).

On the way back, Fr. José Cristo Rey stayed with us in our “Barbastro House” in Zhuhai. In the picture, with some of our friends.

---------------------------

Salesian Fr. John Ledesma

Fr. John Ledesma, SDB spent a day with us between his numerous commitments in China and other parts of Asia. He has already earned an “honorary membership” to our community.

Whether in Beijing or Macau, Fr. John is a dear friend and collaborator, sharing our dreams and aspirations for China and helping us to carry them out.

---------------------------

Author and lecturer Megan McKenna

Taking some time off from her busy schedule and before going to Japan for a series of talks, Megan came to Macau and Zhuhai to spend a few days with us.

She gave us her last 9 published books as a gift… just the latest from the 36 she has written. We hope that her time off from her ministry will give even more inspiration for her fantastic work around the world.

Christmas Mass

An intimate pre-Christmas celebration on December 23

at our apartment in Zhuhai.

a “heavy” ministry…

As publishers we have a “heavy” ministry…
carrying heavy books,
but nothing compared to what you will see in this video:

Otokeyif.com_109
Uploaded by fab327

A child has been born to us!

In the beginning was the Word.
And the Word was with God
and the Word was God;

he was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him
and without him nothing came to be.
Whatever has come to be,found life in him,
life which for humans was also light…

And the Word was made flesh;
he had his tent pitched among us,
and we have seen his Glory,
the Glory of the only Son
coming from the Father:
fullness of truth and loving-kindness.
-Jn 1:1-4,14

Today we share some news from the life
of the Church in China and about our life.

Ordinations End Shanghai Diocese's Celebration of 400 Years of Evangelization

SHANGHAI, China (UCAN) -- Shanghai diocese capped its nine-month celebration of the 400th anniversary of Catholicism's arrival with the ordination of two priests.

Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Xing Wenzhi of Shanghai ordained Fathers Joseph Li Gangyao and Joseph Xu Ruhao on Dec. 6 at St. Ignatius Cathedral in the downtown Xujiahui district of the city, 1,080 kilometers southeast of Beijing. Both graduated from Sheshan Regional Seminary on the outskirts of Shanghai.

About 2,000 Catholics, including relatives of the new priests, attended the ordination Mass, which 87 priests from local and neighboring dioceses concelebrated.

With the ordination of Father Li, Shanghai diocese now has 75 diocesan priests. Father Xu was ordained for Anhui diocese, to the west.

Bishop Xing told the congregation that although the anniversary celebrations have come to a close, "our mission does not end today, but rather it marks a new impetus for us to spread the Gospel to those who have never heard of it."

The Catholic Church began in Shanghai in 1608, when Paul Xu Guangqi, the first Shanghai Catholic, invited Italian Jesuit Father Lazare Cattaneo to preach here. About 200 people received baptism during the priest's two-year stay, and the first Catholic church was built near Xujiahui.

TAIWAN Bishops Discuss Distance-learning Proposal For Chinese Theology Studies

TAIPEI (UCAN) -- Taiwan bishops have discussed the possibility of developing Taiwan as a distance-learning center for students, especially in Hong Kong and the Philippines, to study theology in Chinese.

This would involve providing online courses or videotaped lectures, according to a press release the Chinese Regional Episcopal Conference issued on Dec. 3. The bishops' Commission for Education and Culture will coordinate preparation of the proposal, according to the press release.

The proposal was a major topic of discussion for of the Taiwan bishops during their Nov. 24-28 plenary assembly.

The Church official clarified that the proposal would not be aimed primarily at mainland Chinese but as a service to all Chinese. He pointed out that it would provide another choice for Catholic students from Hong Kong, which uses mainly the Cantonese dialect in its seminary college. Taiwan, like mainland China, uses Mandarin Chinese.

As a first step toward realizing the plan, the Taiwan bishops' Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith and Catechetical Instruction as well as the Commission for Clergy will invite the dean of Fu Jen's theology faculty and counterparts in Hong Kong and the Philippines to set up a committee. This committee is expected to meet after Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 26, 2009, the press release says.

Meanwhile, the Commission for Clergy will set up another committee together with Taiwan Regional Catholic Seminary and Fu Jen to look into the possibility of mainland Chinese studying philosophy and theology in Taiwan.

Taiwan law currently does not allow mainland Chinese to study on the island, but the government's education department in November proposed allowing this. Accordingly, Taiwan's Executive Yuan (council) on Dec. 4 amended the Statute Governing the Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, the University Act and the Junior College Law.

However, the Executive Yuan said it would limit the number of mainland students as well as the number of universities and the kinds of degrees open to them, so as not to affect local students' prospects.

At their meeting, the Taiwan bishops also discussed summer courses for priests set to begin in 2009. Under this plan, Fu Jen's theology faculty will offer masters' degrees to priests who want to further their studies through summer courses over a period of 10 years, Father Cheng said.

CHINA 50th Anniversary of 'Self-elected, Self-ordained' Bishops Commemorated

HONG KONG (UCAN) -- In Beijing on Dec. 19, 45 bishops and about 200 Catholic priests, nuns, seminarians and lay leaders holding key positions in the government-sanctioned "open Church" have attended the commemoration of the golden jubilee of "self-election and self-ordination of bishops."

Du Qinglin, director of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Communist Party of China, and Ye Xiaowen, director of State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA) received the Catholic representatives during a meeting that morning in the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square.

The next speaker was Bishop Joseph Ma Yinglin of Kunming, secretary of the Bishops' Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC), who was ordained without papal mandate in 2006. Following him were speeches by a Protestant pastor, four Catholic bishops, a priest, a nun and a lay representative.

Thereafter was an afternoon tour to the Olympic "Bird's Nest" stadium, and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at Immaculate Conception Cathedral of Beijing.

Before the Dec. 19 meeting, a Vatican-approved bishop in southwestern China told UCA News government officials had given him an air ticket to Beijing. However, he acknowledged that he did not know what event would be taking place in the capital.

Some Church leaders did admit knowing the event was to commemorate the 50th anniversary of "self-elected and self-ordained bishops," but they claimed it did not conflict with Church principles to attend the meeting as long as Church authorities were not ordaining another bishop without Vatican approval.


A little history:

In 1957, six years after Beijing expelled the Holy See's apostolic nuncio from China, the CCPA was set up to uphold the principle of an "independent, autonomous and self-managed" China Church.

In 1958, the government-sanctioned China Church elected and ordained, without papal approval, Fathers Bernardine Dong Guangqing and Yuan Wenhua as, respectively, bishops of Hankou and Wuchang in Hubei province.

Before those ordinations took place, several telegrams were sent to the Vatican asking for approval. But the Holy See replied by citing Canon Law, which says any bishop ordained without papal mandate, or who ordains such a bishop, incurs automatic excommunication, "reserved to the Apostolic See."

Nonetheless, the China Church proceeded with the illicit ordinations at St. Joseph's Cathedral in Hankou on April 13, 1958. During the next 50 years, there have been about 170 "self-elected, self-ordained" bishops in China.

With easier communications developing after the reform and opening of China in 1978, Chinese Catholics in the mainland have gradually resumed contact with the Universal Church. Many "self-elected and self-ordained" bishops sought papal legitimization, and some candidates apply for papal mandate before they are ordained. These days, there still are some bishops who were ordained illicitly and have not been legitimized by the Vatican.

Among the 60 or so bishops currently in the open Church community, more than 80 percent are in communion with the pope.

In his June 2007 letter to Chinese Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI said the pope's appointment of bishops guarantees Church unity and hierarchical communion. "The Pope, when he issues the apostolic mandate for the ordination of a bishop, exercises his supreme spiritual authority: this authority and this intervention remain within the strictly religious sphere," he asserted.

--------------------------------------

Related article: Vatican Letter Urges Chinese Bishops to Fulfill Duties with CourageYou can read it at:www.ucanews.com/2008/12/19/vatican-letter-urges-chinese-bishops-to-fulfill-duties-with-courage/