Joseph Hu Ruoshan
Joseph Hu Ruoshan ( 胡若山) was one of the first six Chinese Catholic bishops of modern times. He lived from 1881 to 1962.
Biography
Hu was born in Zhejiang Province and orphaned at age five.[1]: 512 Hu was raised by Catholic missionaries.[2]: 73
Hu joined the Congregation of the Mission (the Vincentians) at age twenty-five and was ordained at age twenty-eight.[2]: 73 He taught philosophy and dogmatic theology at the Catholic seminary of Ningbo. He was a consulting theologian for the 1924 Plenary Council of Shanghai.[2]: 73
In 1926, Hu and five other Chinese priests (Philippus Zhao Huaiyi, Simon Zhu Kaimin, Odoric Cheng Hede, Melchior Sun De-zhen, and Aloysius Chen Guodi) were consecrated in Rome and became the first Chinese Catholic Bishops in modern times.[2]: 54 The Holy See framed these consecrations as an important moment for indigenizing the Catholic Church.[2]: 71–73 After leaving Rome, the new bishops toured Italy, France, Belgium, and Holland where crowds of local European Catholics greeted them.[2]: 73
Hu was the Vicar Apostolic of Taizhou, later the diocese of Linhai.[2]: 73
He died in 1962.[1]: 512
References
- ^ a b Mariani, Paul P. (2014). "The First Six Chinese Bishops of Modern Times: A Study in Church Indigenization". The Catholic Historical Review. 100 (3): 486–513. doi:10.1353/cat.2014.0143. ISSN 1534-0708.
- ^ a b c d e f g Wong, Stephanie M. (2025). Making Catholicism Chinese: the Catholic Church in a modernizing China. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-762369-5.