A file image of St. Francis Xavier Church in Dongjiadu, central Shanghai, which will be closed for two years to allow reconstruction work to be performed. (ucanews.com photo)
Construction work surrounding a 164-year-old church in central Shanghai has caused damage and disrupted Masses say parishioners in what some see is part of a plot between developers and local officials seeking church property.
Situated on prime land, St. Francis Xavier Church, the former cathedral of Jiangnan Vicariate, developed cracks in its floor and walls, which parishioners say was the result of neighboring construction work that began in 2014.
"During Sunday Masses, construction around the church really causes disturbances," said one local Catholic. "You can hear the noise and feel the obvious vibration made by the construction machines."
Renovations to fix the damage caused by the surrounding construction are expected to take two years. Within the next couple of weeks the parish's Masses will be held at St. Joseph's Church in the same district.
Parishioners say that the cleared land surrounding the church makes it look like a "nail house" — a Chinese term that describes a house whose owner refuses to make way for developers.
Given the surrounding construction, some of the parishioners believe there is collusion between local government officials and land developers.
"They suspect the developer is destroying the church intentionally by making the piling just a few meters near to main church building," said a church source.
Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin of Shanghai has been under house arrest for four years. (Photo supplied)
Shanghai's most senior bishop
Two Shanghai Catholic bloggers have linked the issues faced by St. Francis Xavier Church to Auxiliary Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin who has been under house arrest for the past four years for resigning from the state-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA).
Via their blogs they urged the authorities to release Bishop Ma, who is Shanghai's most senior Catholic bishop, so to allow him to manage the church's renovations and other church affairs.
A local Catholic source said that Bishop Ma responded to the blogs via at least two messages to his WeChat friends that asked them to stop sharing such content about him.
"The bishop has informed us that those blog articles might be 'steam bun dipped with blood'," the source told ucanews.com.
The allegory means sucking the blood of Bishop Ma, said the source. The use of the allegory implies that the bishop does not want to give the impression that he is mobilizing lay Catholics to put pressure on Beijing, which would make his situation more complicated, the source added.
Bishop Ma has been confined to Sheshan Seminary in Shanghai since he quit the CCPA in 2012. In June this year he dramatically recanted his resignation, sending shockwaves through the Catholic Church in China. The bishop also stunned Chinese Catholics when, via his blog, he sung the praises of the CCPA.
