- The act of piety: what prayer says that diplomacy cannot say
- The Church in China: A wounded communion on the path to unity
- The Chinese pastoral of Leo XIV: between testimony and patience
- A Church that sows seeds, not a Church that conquers.
- Prayer, the first political act
- What Sheshan said to the Universal Church
- ✝ Biblical references
On Friday, May 22, 2026, deep inside a coal mine in Liushenyu, in northeastern China, ninety miners lost their lives in a firedamp explosion. This was the heaviest death toll recorded in a Chinese mine in seventeen years. Two days later, on Pentecost Sunday, in St. Peter's Square, Pope Leo XIV concluded the prayer of Regina Cæli when he spontaneously raised his voice for these men. No political speech. No appeal to the Chinese authorities. Simply a prayer, sober and direct: to invoke eternal peace for these anonymous workers torn from life in the bowels of the earth.
This tiny, barely noticed gesture nevertheless reveals something essential about how this pontificate intends to address the Chinese question. For May 24th was no ordinary Sunday: it was the Day of Prayer for the Church in China, instituted by Benedict XVI in 2007 and celebrated annually on the liturgical memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Help of Christians, venerated at the Sheshan Shrine, near Shanghai. On the same day, Leo XIV had invoked this Virgin so that Chinese Catholics might be able to be «a seed of hope and peace.» Two intentions united in a single breath: the unity of a divided Church, and compassion for victims of labor. This twofold gesture deserves closer examination, for it reveals a pastoral theology, a certain vision of what the Catholic Church is called to do. be in China, even before negotiating what it will be allowed to TO DO.
The act of piety: what prayer says that diplomacy cannot say
Sheshan, a place of memory and resistance
The Sheshan Shrine is not simply a pious monument. It is a place imbued with the dramatic history of Catholicism in China. The basilica, built atop a hill in the 19th century by Jesuits, has remained the only major Marian shrine in the Middle Kingdom. During the decades of the most severe persecution, pilgrimages were forbidden, priests imprisoned, and the faithful forced to choose between their faith and their safety. Even today, access to the shrine for Catholics of the underground Church—those who remained loyal to Rome without Beijing's approval—remains a politically sensitive issue. To invoke Sheshan is, therefore, to summon, in a single gesture, centuries of unwavering fidelity, silent suffering, and persistent hope.
Benedict XVI understood this when, in 2007, he wrote the prayer to Our Lady of Sheshan that accompanies each May 24th celebration. In this text, he asked the Virgin to support "the commitment of all those in China who, amidst daily difficulties, continue to believe, to hope, to love." Leo XIV, by taking up this tradition with the same inner intensity, places himself within a spiritual continuity that transcends changes in the papacy. He says, without explicitly stating it: the prayer that my predecessors offered, I make my own. The Church has no short memory.
The miner and the faithful: the same dignity
But it is the prayer for the victims of Liushenyu that is striking in its unexpected and revealing nature. In a context where Sino-Vatican relations are under intense scrutiny—particularly since the unilateral episcopal appointments made by Beijing during the period of vacant seat Following the death of Pope Francis, Leo XIV could have limited himself to a purely ecclesiastical intervention. But he did not. He stepped outside the institutional framework to reach out to these unknown workers, who likely had no connection to the Catholic Church, and whose deaths fall within what could be called the profound and ordinary vulnerability of the poor.
This gesture is not without resonance in relation to the encyclical Magnifica humanitas, signed a few hours earlier — on Monday, May 25, 2026 — on the occasion of the 135th anniversary of the publication of Rerum novarum. This encyclical, focused on human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence, reminds us that the dignity of the person is not a philosophical abstraction but a concrete reality, embodied in work, in the physical body, and in the social condition. The miner of Liushenyu—descending into the depths of the earth to extract the energy that powers an entire civilization—is precisely this figure of the working person that the social doctrine of the Church has always sought to defend. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, states with stark authority this principle: «If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat» (2 Thessalonians 3:10). But this is to better emphasize, in the same context, the value of honest work and the solidarity it creates among people. To die at work is to die with a dignity that the papal prayer solemnly recognizes.
It was not a diplomatic tool. Precisely because Leo XIV did not none He asked the Chinese authorities, made no criticisms, and conditioned no action on reciprocity: his prayer was freely given, selfless, and genuinely fraternal. This is the very strength of the pastoral gesture: it obeys not the logic of exchange, but that of giving.
The Church in China: A wounded communion on the path to unity
The old fracture and its scars
To grasp the significance of Leo XIV's prayer for the unity of Chinese Catholics, one must revisit the rift that has torn Chinese Catholicism apart since the 1950s. After the Communist Party seized power and expelled foreign missionaries, two churches gradually emerged: the state-recognized Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, which carried out episcopal ordinations without papal mandate; and the underground Church, which remained loyal to the Holy See at the cost of severe persecution, imprisonment, and a forced existence in semi-clandestinity. This division was not merely institutional: it was spiritual, emotional, and sometimes familial. Entire communities lived for decades unable to recognize one another as brothers and sisters in the same faith.
Benedict XVI laid the foundations for genuine pastoral dialogue in his 2007 letter, clearly stating that the central issue was not political but ecclesiological: it concerned the nature of a bishop and the role of the Successor of Peter in appointing pastors. "It is not a matter of appointing civil servants to manage religious matters," he wrote, "but of having authentic pastors after the heart of Jesus." It is this vision that the provisional agreement of 2018, last renewed in October 2024 for another four years, attempted to implement, albeit imperfectly and at times painfully.
The temptation of the fait accompli
The pontificate of Leo XIV opened in a particularly delicate context. During the vacant seat In the spring of 2025, Beijing appointed two bishops—one for the symbolic diocese of Shanghai—without consulting the Holy See, exploiting the institutional vacuum to accelerate its control over the local Catholic hierarchy. This maneuver, interpreted as a deliberate provocation, sparked outrage among many Catholics loyal to Rome and reignited the debate about the fragility of the Sino-Vatican agreement. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who had negotiated the agreement and patiently defended its logic of gradual trust, reaffirmed the Holy See's commitment to moving forward despite the setbacks.
Leo XIV, for his part, chose a path that went beyond mere diplomacy through appointments. Certainly, the management of episcopal affairs continued—the first appointment of a Chinese bishop under this pontificate had been announced as early as June 2025. But the Pope did not reduce his relationship with the Church in China to this institutional mechanism. His prayer of May 24th is precisely the sign that the Church views Chinese Catholics not as a geopolitical problem to be solved, but as a community of brothers and sisters whose unity is a gift of the Holy Spirit to be implored, not simply an agreement to be negotiated.
The prophet Ezekiel once contemplated the vision of dry bones coming back to life through the breath of the Spirit: «I will cause the Spirit to enter you, and you will live» (Ezekiel 37:5). This promise of resurrection addressed to a divided and scattered people is also a key to understanding the Church in China: communion is not primarily a legal construct, but a grace to be received.
The Chinese pastoral of Leo XIV: between testimony and patience
A Church that sows seeds, not a Church that conquers.
The formula Leo XIV used in his prayer of May 24th is theologically rich: that Chinese Catholics be «a seed of hope and peace.» This image of the seed is evangelical in its very structure. It speaks of the humility of presence: the seed does not impose itself, it is buried, small, dependent on a soil it did not choose. It also speaks of eschatological patience: the seed carries within it a promise that transcends its visible dimension. And finally, it speaks of discreet fruitfulness: in a country where the Catholic Church represents less than 1% of the population, the relevance of its witness is not measured by the number of baptisms but by the quality of its human and spiritual presence.
This vision is in line with that of previous popes, but it takes on a particular character in Leo XIV's encyclical. Magnifica humanitas In a world where artificial intelligence threatens to replace human relationships with simulations, where algorithms tend to define identities and govern behavior, a Church that prays for nameless miners, that invokes the Virgin Mary in a shrine in Shanghai, that entrusts to the Holy Spirit what diplomacy cannot resolve—such a Church is precisely the counter-witness the world needs. It proclaims that every human being possesses an irreducible dignity, that every death deserves to be acknowledged, that every believing people deserves to be embraced in their uniqueness.
Prayer, the first political act
There is an apparent naiveté in this emphasis on prayer. One might object: while the Pope prays, Beijing appoints bishops, monitors religious communities, restricts access to shrines, and toughens its policies toward unregistered churches. Researcher Guillaume Guennec, co-director of the NGO Open Doors, emphasized earlier this year that this pressure could represent a new stage in the policy of church control launched by Xi Jinping in 2017. Faced with this reality, is prayer ultimately futile?
To do so would be to misunderstand the inherent power of intercessory prayer in the Catholic tradition. To pray for the Church in China is first and foremost to acknowledge that this Church exists, that it suffers, that it hopes—and that the universal Church does not abandon it. It is also to recall that the community of faith transcends political borders: when Leo XIV united his prayer with that of Chinese Catholics «as a sign of our affection for them and of their communion with the universal Church,» he performed an act of the Church that has a concrete mystical reality, independent of its immediate diplomatic effects.
The Letter of James reminds us of this with disarming simplicity: «The earnest prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective» (James 5:16). This conviction is not naive: it is the very foundation of Christian hope, a hope that is not passive waiting but active trust, capable of sustaining the faithful in the most oppressive situations. The Catholics of the Chinese underground Church, who have endured decades of clandestinity, have experienced this in a profound way. The papal prayer is also an act of solidarity with their story.
What Sheshan said to the Universal Church
It is remarkable that the Pope chose to focus the Day of May 24th on a Marian shrine rather than on an ecclesiastical or political declaration. Mary, in Catholic theology, is not a marginal or ornamental figure: she is, in the words of Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, "the mold of God," the one in whom faith is most perfectly embodied in human history. At Sheshan, she is invoked under the title "Help of Christians"— Auxilium Christianorum — a title which specifically evokes the help given in trials, in persecutions, in battles that human forces cannot overcome.
By invoking Our Lady of Sheshan, Leo XIV told Chinese Catholics: you are not alone. And he said to the universal Church: look to China not with condescension or geopolitical anxiety, but with the veneration due to a Church that suffers and believes, which is, in this sense, a figure of the entire Church on pilgrimage through history. The Church in China is a mirror: it reveals what it means to be Catholic when faith truly comes at a price.
This twofold gesture of May 24th—prayer for unity and compassion for victims of workplace accidents—underlies the pastoral approach of Leo XIV: a Church that prays before negotiating, that accompanies before governing, that unites the dignity of workers and the grace of the Spirit in a single act of love. It is perhaps the most demanding, and the most fitting, form of Catholic presence in the contemporary world.
✝ Biblical references
3 passages · 3 books
The Lord is faithful: he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one. (2 Thessalonians 3:3)
Clarifications on the coming of the Lord and a call to work and perseverance.
→ Explore Codex 2 Thessalonians
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. (Ezekiel 36:26)
Apocalyptic visions, oracles of judgment, and the promise of the restoration of Israel.
→ Explore the Ezekiel Codex- «I cannot accept»: the Ash Wednesday letter and the doctrinal chasm between Rome and the SSPX
- Leo XIV and the SSPX: The Church put to the test by its own memory
- «Not a superpower, but the omnipotence of love»: Leo XIV’s Pentecost homily in the face of the empire
- When the Spirit blows against the current: the Charismatic Renewal, a sign of contradiction for France in 2026
Faith without works is dead. (James 2:26)
Practical Christian wisdom: active faith, language, the poor, prayer and anointing of the sick.
→ Explore the Jacques Codex- Light on the Darkness: Ferrari, the Pope, and the Blessed Contradiction
- When the digital revolution digs up the land of the poor: Magnifica Humanitas and the cry of Latin America
- Magnifica Humanitas: when the Church speaks to all humanity, in its own language
- The omnipotence of love: what Leo XIV said to the miners of Shanxi — and to all of us
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