John Wu

John Baptist Cardinal Wu Cheng -chung (Chinese胡振 中 枢机) ( born March 26, 1925 in Ho Hau, Guangdong, China, † 23 September 2002 in Hong Kong ) was bishop of Hong Kong.

Life

The son of Shing Wu Sing and Mary Chow was baptized in the parish church of his native village. He also received a basic education. He then joined in 1940 in the seminary of the diocese Kaying one. On July 6, 1952 he was ordained by Antonio Riberi, the Apostolic Nuncio in China, in the cathedral of the Diocese of Hong Kong as a priest.

Pope Paul VI. appointed him on April 5, 1975 Bishop of Hong Kong as the successor of Peter Lei, who died on 23 July 1974. The prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Cardinal Agnelo Rossi, gave him on 25 July of the same year at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception episcopal ordination; Co-consecrators were Peter Pao- Zin Tou, Bishop of Hsinchu, and Frederic Anthony Donaghy MM, Bishop in Wuchow. He was also officially qualified. On the occasion of his episcopal ordination, he chose the motto veritatem in caritate ( " truth in love ").

On March 25, 1985, he led a five-member delegation at the invitation of the National Agency for Religious Affairs to a seven -day visit to Beijing and Shanghai. He was the first bishop of Hong Kong, who visited mainland China. On January 21, 1986, he led a seven-member delegation at the invitation of the Bureau of the Office of Religious Affairs of the province on a ten -day visit to Guangzhou and the eastern part of his home province of Guangdong. This visit was the first meeting with his 85 years old mother after a separation of 40 years.

On May 29, 1988 it took John Paul II as a Cardinal with the priestly title Church Beata Vergine Maria del Monte Carmelo a Mostacciano in the College of Cardinals to. Thus he became the first cardinal from Hong Kong. He was a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

After the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, he wrote July 11, 1989 a letter to all the bishops of the world, that they all stand up for justice, order and democracy in China.

On September 1, 1991, he called in a pastoral letter on to that believers support the direct elections of 15 September for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong fully - the first direct elections in Hong Kong's history.

In 1999, he convened a diocesan synod, to clarify the pastoral needs of the third millennium.

He died on 23 September 2002 at the age of 77 years in Hong Kong.