Deserved Punishment? Not Ordained For Having Visited World Youth Day
Deacon Paul Yang Dongdong, 34, was not ordained after an intervention of the government because he privately attended the July 2016 Krakow World Youth Day. Most World Youth Days are conceived like rock concerts, combined with some sightseeing, and Novus Ordo sacrileges.
Sources hope that Yang’s exclusion from the priesthood is only temporarily. The Ordination Mass was presided by Regime Bishop Joseph Shen Bin of Haimen (Jiangsu), the vice president of the Council of Bishops and of the Chinese Patriotic Association. When consecrated in 2010, he was recognised by both the Chinese government and the Vatican.
Shanghai Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, 52, was not allowed to attend the ordination. He was put under house arrest at the Sheshan seminary in 2012 and has not been allowed to exercise any episcopal functions since. After the house arrest, the seminary was closed. Priestly ordinations resumed only in 2017.
