54 people were baptized on Sunday, January 12, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, in the Chinese diocese of Shanghai, the first new Catholics of the Jubilee of Hope 2025 in that jurisdiction.
The Vatican agency Fides reports that the Diocese of Shanghai has about 160,000 Catholics, distributed in 111 churches and chapels, where about 170 priests serve, who carry out their ministry and offer different pastoral services in parishes, publishing houses, nursing homes, social service centers, where they also They teach marriage courses and sacred music classes.
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The 54 new Catholics were baptized by the Bishop of Shanghai, Bishop Joseph Shen Bin, in the Cathedral dedicated to Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in a Mass attended by more than 1,500 faithful.
The prelate recalled the importance of the sacrament of Baptism, which opens the doors to Christian life, especially now in the framework of the Jubilee, encouraging the newly baptized to serve those most in need.
“Follow the example of the Apostle Paul, welcoming the Word of God with all your heart and spreading the Gospel, being like lighted lamps that illuminate others with your faith,” the prelate urged the 54 baptized people.
Fides also highlights the faith of Chinese Catholics and offers as an example Fr. Zhang Liang, who two decades ago was parish priest of the XiKai Cathedral in the diocese of Tianjin, who said that “we do not have the right to separate anyone from the call of the Lord.”
On the door of that Xikai church you can see the inscription “Come and see!”, where the faithful and those who want to know more about the Catholic faith are welcomed.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.