New English Bishop: Orthodox on Morals, Silence Since Francis-Controversies
Rev. Wang is the founder of Sycamore, one of the most widely used Catholic evangelization programmes in the English-speaking world.
He is believed to be the first English Catholic bishop with Chinese ancestry. His father is Chinese, with family roots in Guangdong Province in southern China. Wang himself was born in London and grew up in Harpenden, Hertfordshire.
PhD on Happiness
He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Westminster in 1998 and has a PhD from Cambridge on human happiness. His later published book developed this research into Aquinas and Sartre: On Freedom, Personal Identity, and the Possibility of Happiness.
He also earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Reading.
Early Years: Defender of Catholic Morals
In 2007, he authored the booklet A Way of Life for Young Catholics.
He wrote on masturbation: "Our sexuality, in its broadest sense, is meant to lead us to open and loving relationships with others; but masturbation traps us in ourselves and in our own sexual fantasies."
On pornography he wrote: "The use of pornography does immense damage to the hearts and minds of those who turn to it, as well as to those involved in the pornographic industry."
Essayist of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition
For nearly two decades, Monsignor Wang has written the blog BridgesAndTangents.wordpress.com. The earlier years (roughly 2009–2015) are where his most original voice is found; later, his writing becomes more focused on pastoral formation, evangelization, and homilies.
He writes not as an ecclesiastical commentator but like a university chaplain. He consciously avoids the language of the culture wars and consistently argues from human nature. He usually asks: What is happiness? What is freedom? What is marriage? What is sexuality for? His approach appears strongly influenced by John Paul II and Benedict XVI and characterizes much of his writing.
His own description of the blog is: "Looking across the landscape of contemporary culture – at the arts, science, religion, politics, philosophy; sorting through the jumble; seeing what stands out, what unsettles, what intrigues, what connects, what sheds light."
On Homosexual "Marriage"
During the British debate on homosexual "marriage" in 2012, Rev. Wang opposed the government's proposal.
He argued that "no-one denies that there can be a profound relationship between two people of the same sex," but insisted that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.
He criticized the government's consultation for asking only how marriage should be redefined rather than whether it should be.
Unusually Personal Blog Post on Celibacy
In his defence of celibacy, he wrote: "I had been seeing celibacy in negative terms: 'No' to marriage, 'No' to sex, 'No' to children – when in reality it was a profound 'Yes'."
He added: "There are struggles. Times of loneliness; sexual desires; dreams about what marriage and fatherhood would be like. I don't think most of this is about celibacy – it's about being human. The husbands I know struggle with the same things, only they dream about what it would be like to have married someone else! What matters is trying to be faithful, instead of pretending that another way of life would be easy."
Internal emigration? Red flag?
In April 2013, he wrote positively about the "consistent ethic of life" (or "seamless garment"), explicitly crediting Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago with coining the expression: "Pope Francis has given witness to ‘a consistent ethic of life’. This phrase was coined by Cardinal Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago from 1982 to 1996. It can be applied to Pope Francis in his approach to justice and life issues over the last few years."
However, the "consistent ethic of life" sought to relativise abortion by equating it with poverty and migration. Cardinal Bernardin was one of the leading anti-Catholic American cardinals of the post-Second Vatican Council era and was accused of being homosexual.
After the beginning of the Francis pontificate and the major ecclesial debates that followed, Rev. Wang largely stopped making public interventions on controversial moral or ecclesiastical questions.
His emphasis shifted instead toward evangelization, young people returning to the faith, beauty, prayer, vocation, friendship, and missionary discipleship.
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