China’s Church Divided: Bishop Louis Jin and the Post-Mao Catholic Revival
Paul P. Mariani
Harvard University Press: 2025
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Once again, research on Catholicism in China offers a rich historical case study through which one can interrogate the articulation of relationships between power, civil society, and the Christian faith. In China’s Church Divided: Bishop Louis Jin and the Post-Mao Catholic Revival, the Jesuit scholar Paul P. Mariani provides a detailed and nuanced portrait of the Jesuit bishop, Louis Jin Luxian, who served as the bishop of Shanghai from 1985 to 2013. Through a meticulous investigation of the life of a man compelled to reconcile Christian faith and patriotism in a context of rapid political transformation, Mariani presents an in-depth account of the fruitful yet contentious episcopacy of one of the most significant bishops of post-Mao China.

After enduring the humiliations of the Mao era, Jin was eventually selected by the Communist authorities to lead the official Catholic Church of Shanghai, but without having received the required mandate from the Holy See. His episcopal ordination earned him the condemnation of the so-called underground Catholic community and of a large segment of the universal Church. Yet, over several decades, Jin skilfully recovered historical Church properties in Shanghai, raised funds, and revitalised a number of strategic Catholic institutions such as the seminary, the cathedral, and the Sheshan sanctuary. As he increasingly travelled abroad, he cultivated a delicate balance: promoting the official Chinese religious discourse that insists on the independence of the Catholic Church in China from the Holy See on the one hand, while expanding exchanges and collaborations on the other. It was not until the early 2000s that the Holy See officially recognised Bishop Jin, marking a brief period of political détente.

• Tags: China, Issue 41, Michel Chambon, Paul P. Mariani