Bishop Francis Cui Qingqi. Photo: Pillarcatholic.com A new bishop of Wuhan, China, was ordained September 8 under the terms of the Vatican-China agreement, a Vatican spokesman has confirmed.
Bishop Francis Cui Qingqi, 57, is the sixth bishop to be consecrated in China since the Holy See signed a provisional agreement with the Chinese government in September 2018.
According to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Cui as the bishop of the Diocese of Hankou/Wuhan on June 23 and his episcopal ordination took place September 8 in Wuhan, the city where the first Covid-19 cases were reported.
The newly ordained bishop is a Franciscan who is said to be close to the Chinese government.
The Wuhan diocese has been without a bishop for the past 14 years, with Fr Cui filling the void in an unofficial leadership position since 2012.
After studying in Beijing, Fr Cui was appointed by provincial authorities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to head a five-member “management committee” to oversee the Wuhan diocese nine years ago, according to a 2012 report in the Italian newspaper La Stampa.
Fr Cui was appointed deputy secretary of the state-sanctioned bishops’ conference in 2016 and became the president of the Catholic Patriotic Association of Hubei in January 2018.
He was born in Shanxi province in 1964, 15 years after the Chinese Communist Revolution, and was ordained a priest in 1991 at the age of 27.
In October 2020, the Vatican and China renewed their provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops for another two years. The terms of the agreement have not been made public.