VATICAN – A new book about Cardinal Celso Costantini, “builder of bridges” with China
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
By Gianni Valente
Rome (Agenzia Fides) – “In the face of the Chinese especially, it seemed appropriate to me not to accredit in any way the suspicion that the Catholic religion appeared to be placed under protection and, even worse, as a political instrument at the service of European nations.” Thus, in his memoirs, the Friulian Cardinal Celso Costantini recalled one of the qualifying features that had characterized his mission as First Apostolic Delegate in China, which extended from 1922 to 1933.
Recently, the evolution of Sino-Vatican relations and the Agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China on the appointment of bishops have revived interest and studies around the figure of Costantini (1876-1958), a precursor of dialogue of the Vatican with Beijing. In recent decades, long before the China-Holy See Agreement on the appointment of bishops, the memory of this brilliant and prophetic figure of the 20th century Catholic Church has been kept alive thanks to the works and initiatives of his compatriot Father Bruno Fabio Pighin, professor at the S. Pius X Faculty of Canon Law in Venice and episcopal delegate for the cause of Costantini’s own canonization.
Now, a new volume edited by Professor Pighin helps explore little-known aspects of Costantini’s multifaceted personality.
The volume is titled “Cardinal Celso Costantini and China. Builder of a ‘bridge’ between East and West.” The publication, published by Marcianum Press, has been commissioned by the “Friends of Cardinal Celso Costantini” Association, already promoter of the permanent exhibition “Cardinal Celso Costantini and China”, which opened in 2023 at the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art in the Diocese of Pordenone.
The new work on Costantini will be presented on Thursday, June 20 (5:00 p.m.) in the Aula Magna of the Pontifical Urbaniana University. Participating in the presentation will be Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of His Holiness, and Monsignor Fortunatus Nwachukwu, Secretary of the Dicastery for Evangelization (Section for the First Evangelization and the New Particular Churches), together with Monsignor Juan Ignacio Arrieta, Secretary of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts. The opening greetings will be given by Giuseppe Pellegrini, Bishop of Concordia-Pordenone, native diocese of Cardinal Costantini, and Professor Vincenzo Buonomo, Pontifical Delegate and Magnificent Rector of the Urbaniana.
Pordenone, Fiume, Beijing and Rome
In this large volume, the various chapters written by academics and scholars illuminate the many traits of Costantini’s eclectic personality. From the years of his priestly vocation that flourished in the diocese of Concordia-Pordenone – where he was also Vicar General, in the era interrupted by the First World War – to the pastoral activity he developed as the first Apostolic Administrator of Fiume (today in Croatia) , where in 1920-21 he avoided a bloodbath by opposing the enterprise of the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio and the Italian nationalists who wanted to reconquer the independent city.
In the volume, the reconstruction of Costantini’s role as a “great evangelizer” in China is carried out by historian Agostino Giovagnoli, while his contribution to the Shanghai Council is described by Adel Afif Nasr. The second part of the work rediscovers Costantini’s profile as a sculptor and protagonist of sacred art. The volume, with 150 photos and illustrations, also presents the artistic works and precious Chinese textiles that the cardinal left us as a legacy, and also offers a valuable bibliographic review by Simon Ee Kim Chong.
The “Costantini method” and the Agreement on the appointment of bishops
The publication and presentation in Rome of the new work edited by Pighin is fully part of the series of events dedicated to the centenary of the “Primum Concilium Sinense”, the Council of the Catholic Church in China held in Shanghai from May 15 to June 12 of 1924, whose main architect was the then Apostolic Delegate Costantini. On May 21, an important conference on the centenary of the Concilium Sinense was held in the Aula Magna of the Pontifical Urbaniana University, in collaboration with Fides Agency and the Pastoral Commission for China, and had as speakers, among others, the Bishop from Shanghai Joseph Shen Bin, to Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization (see Fides 21 and 22/5/2024).
In the video message sent to that Conference, Pope Francis also highlighted the essential contribution offered by Costantini at the Shanghai Council, convened at the request of Pope Pius XI to relaunch apostolic work on Chinese soil, favor and accompany the growth of a Chinese Church indigenous and oppose the colonial mentality that had penetrated even into ecclesial practices. «Constantini – Pope Francis recalled in that video message – limited himself to repeating that the mission of the Church was “to evangelize, not to colonize.” At the Council of Shanghai, also thanks to the work of Celso Costantini, the communion between the Holy See and the Church in China was manifested in its fruitful fruits, fruits of good for all the Chinese people.
Cardinal Parolin, in his preface to the volume published by Marcianum Press, adds suggestive and valuable details to capture the full scope of the prophecy of what the Secretary of State calls “the Costantini method.”
After his years in China, Costantini became Secretary of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, and in 1953 he was created Cardinal by Pius XII. The new volume on Costantini also recounts the patient and tenacious attempts he made as Apostolic Delegate to promote the strengthening of direct relations between the Holy See and the Chinese authorities, and the systematic sabotage – almost always successful – perpetrated by the Western powers to prevent that the Pope would deal with Beijing without intermediaries. «That path – points out Cardinal Parolin – traced a direction, in which the Church continues today, as happened with the Provisional Agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China reconfirmed in 2022. This Agreement, which had already been desired by the Pope Benedict in 2007 and signed under the Pontificate of Pope Francis in 2018, refers to the appointment of Bishops in China, in ideal continuity with the first six Chinese Bishops, consecrated in Rome by Pius XI and Costantini himself in 1926. Today, also by virtue of the Agreement signed in 2018 and extended twice, “all the prelates of the Country of Confucius are in communion with the Successor of Peter and with the Universal Episcopal College.”
The Cardinal Secretary of State also remembers the role played by Costantini after the first episcopal ordinations carried out in China without a papal mandate, starting in 1958. In that situation, so painful for the ecclesial communion – recalls Cardinal Parolin – Costantini “advised Pius XII not to read the Chinese situation with European eyes, because it was not a ‘schism’. A suggestion that had concrete effects: The 1958 encyclical Ad Apostolorum Principis “does not speak at all of ‘schism'” when referring to Chinese bishops ordained without the consent of the Pontiff. In it, Pius nation. Several pronouncements by Pope Francis are also found in this same trajectory, in line with his predecessors. The “‘Costantini method’ – points out the Cardinal Secretary of State – is also a source of inspiration for the present.” A “well illustrated” address also in the volume edited by the priest and professor Bruno Fabio Pighin.
(Agenzia Fides 18/6/2024)
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