For decades, Bishop Jia, a courageous shepherd of Zhengding in Hebei Province, had remained faithful to the Holy See despite harassment and imprisonment at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for his refusal to join the state-sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA),a system designed to divorce the Catholic Church in China from Rome. Bishop Jia’s staunch refusal to kowtow to the CCP regime resulted constant detention, state surveillance, and regular pressure from Beijing.
Born on May 1, 1935, in Wuqiu Village, Jinzhou City, Bishop Jia’s priestly vocation, cultivated among Vincentian friars, had to undergo huge trials in China during the dictatorship of Mao Zedong. Bishop Jia spent 15 years behind bars for his faith.
AsiaNews reported about Bishop Jia’s path to priesthood and the episcopacy:
“Released in 1978, he was able to be ordained a priest on 7 June 1980 by Bishop Joseph Fan Xueyan of Baoding, one of the last Chinese bishops appointed by Pope Pius XII, who also spent 15 years in prison.A few months later, on 8 February 1981, Bishop Fan, then 74, ordained in an underground ceremony Fr Jia Xhiguo as bishop of the Diocese of Zhengding.
In a statement submitted to AsiaNews, the Catholic community in Hebei testified: “Bishop Jia’s life was marked by suffering and repeated arrests and imprisonment, but his heart as a pastor never changed.”
Paying their respects to the late Bishop Jia, the Hebei Catholic community added: “We are grateful to you for your extraordinary courage in founding and leading multiple dioceses, transmitting the flame of the Church; we are grateful because, even when you were repeatedly arrested and imprisoned, you continued to care for the flock, preserving the flame of hope in the darkest nights.”
Also, Shalom World News elaborated regarding the sufferings of Bishop Jia during his lifetime:
“Church accounts recall his suffering in prison, where authorities allegedly flooded his cell with water, inflicting painful bone spurs that troubled him for life. The most recent wave of arrests began in 2004, when his disappearance in Hebei Province sparked international alarm. He was freed a week later after the Connecticut-based Cardinal Kung Foundation brought his case to light. Detentions followed in 2008, 2009, and again in August 2020, just before the Feast of the Assumption. Beyond his defiance, Bishop Jia’s compassion shone through: he founded an orphanage in Hebei for abandoned children, which authorities reportedly demolished in 2020 for lacking government approval.”
Evidently, Bishop Jia was not only a firm prelate loyal to the See of Peter, but he was also a man of compassion, having founded an orphanage in Hebei for abandoned children, epitomizing the mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ towards the poor and underprivileged.
Strikingly, CCP officials tried to deter people from attending Bishop Jia’s funeral on October 31 this year.
When the Holy See inked the contentious 2018 provisional agreement with Beijing regarding episcopal appointments, Vatican officials lauded the pact as a “step forward” for dialogue.
Nevertheless, for Chinese bishops faithful to the Holy See like Bishop Jia and Cardinal Joseph Zen, the Sino-Vatican pact was not liberating at all. For one, the clandestine nature of the agreement and its ambiguity left Chinese Catholics unsure of whether fidelity meant obedience to the CCP or to the successor of St. Peter.
Admittedly, Bishop Jia’s death has worsened the problem of vacant episcopal sees in Communist China, where existing Sino-Vatican tensions have left dozens of dioceses without a shepherd. Exacerbating the ongoing crisis even further has been the declaration of Fr. Paolo Dong Guanhua as the new bishop of Zhengding in 2016 even as Bishop Jia was still alive, without Vatican approval. A 2016 Catholic Culture article stated:
“Father Dong Guan Hua arranged to be ordained by an elderly Chinese bishop—Bishop Casimirus Wang Milu, described by Vatican Insider as “mentally unstable”—in defiance of Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo of Zhengding. In fact, Bishop Jia had excommunicated Dong because of his past activities, even before his episcopal ordination.”
The Fr. Dong incident highlighted Bishop Jia’s unflinching loyalty to Rome, which makes the overall silence from the Vatican (apart from a tribute released on the Chinese language section of Vatican News) following Bishop Jia’s death on October 29 this year all the more unnerving.
On the other hand, Catholic outlets in Asia, including UCANews and Asia News, as well as other media outlets distant from the Vatican, seemed more effusive in mourning the late bishop.
The silence pertaining to Bishop Jia’s passing indeed calls for scrutiny, inviting reflection on the pertinent question as to why the Vatican has remained generally reticent about one of its most loyal sons.
Yet the reality is that only Vatican insiders who are privy to embargoed materials and behind-the-scenes talks would have the answer to this question. God willing, despite all this secrecy, Pope Leo XIV can continue to exercise moral fortitude directing the Vatican’s policy on Communist China, at the very least for the “Church unity” that he claims to seek and for sake of the millions of persecuted Catholics living under the yoke of Marxism.
Our Lady of China, pray for us.
Requiescant in pace, Bishop Jia.
