Catholic Church in China: Dad whose 3 sons became priests dies

Three Chinese bishops praised the recently deceased father of three priests who challenged the one-child policy, a measure that the communist government imposed between 1982 and 2015 to control the population of the world’s largest country until 2023.

As reported by the Vatican agency FidesBishop Peter Ding Lingbin, Bishop of Changzhi, in the Chinese province of Shanxi, addressed the faithful and priests at the funeral Mass of the father of priests on June 5, in the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus .

“I have always recommended to all the faithful to maintain a discreet attitude and be humble,” the prelate noted in his words during the Eucharist.

“But today, with pride, I would like to praise very loudly, in front of everyone, this Catholic father who has faithfully dedicated not only his own life to the Lord, but also to his children, the three priests,” the bishop stressed.

One of those three sons is Fr. Antonio Gao Ruihu, who serves in the Diocese of Changzhi, the second is Fr. Gao Huqing, of the Diocese of Baoding; while the third is Fr. Francis Gao Ruiqing, from the Diocese of Hankou/Wuhan.

A survey of families with various vocations

Fides also reports that the Catholic website Faith conducted a survey according to which, until January 2010, there were only 320 families with more than one vocation to consecrated life, in 69 dioceses of the Asian country.

One of them has 2 priests and 3 nuns, four have four other vocations and two more have accepted the vocation of their three children.

The survey revealed that, despite the crisis in vocations and professional training, caused by the one-child policy, secularization and the irregularities of community life, “many Catholic families generously give their children to the Church. Often even his only son.”

China’s one-child policy

The communist government of China imposed the one-child policy between 1982 and 2015, as a form of population control. To ensure that every woman or couple complied with this measure, he subjected millions of women to abortion and forced sterilization.

In 2014, a year before the end of the one-child policy, Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute (PRI), wrote an article titled This is for the lost children of Chinain which he lamented that, up to that point, 400 million children have died from forced abortions as part of the communist program.

Mosher, one of the first to denounce the abuses of this program worldwide, asked to pray for the aborted children and “for their mothers, many of whom were taken to State health centers by force or with threats, to to have abortions that they never wanted and that they now deeply regret.