Thomas Tien Ken-sin

Thomas Cardinal Tien Ken-sin, SVD (田耕莘; Hanyu pinyin: Tian Gengxin) (October 24, 1890—July 24, 1967) was a Chinese prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Peking from 1946 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope Pius XII.

Background The Church in China 1939-1958

Main article: Pope Pius XII and the Church in China

For centuries, access to the people of China was difficult for the Catholic Church, because as a Church, she did not recognize local Confucian customs of honouring deceased family members. To the Chinese, this was an ancient ritual, to the Vatican, it was a religious exercise, which conflicted with Catholic dogma. As a result of this and its foreign origin, the Church encountered much resistance in China. Within month of his election, Pope Pius XII issued a dramatic change in policies. On December 8, 1939, the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of Faith issues at request of Pius XII new instruction by which Chinese customs were no longer considered superstitious, but a honourable way of esteeming one's relatives and therefore permitted by Catholic Christians. The Government of the Republic of China established diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1943, within a short interval. The Papal degree changed the ecclesiastical situation in China in an almost revolutionary way. As the Church began to flourish, Pius elevated China's status within the Church, established a local ecclesiastical hierarchy, and received the Archbishop of Peking, Thomas Tien Ken-sin SVD, in to the Sacred College of Cardinals. After WWII, an estimated four million Chinese professed the Catholic faith. This was less than one percent of the population but numbers increased dramatically. In 1949, there existed:

* 20 archdioceses,
* 85 dioceses 
* 39 apostolic prefectures
* 3080 missionaries
* 2557 Chinese priests 

The establishment of Mao Zedong's communist regime in 1949 put these early advances on hold and led to the persecution of thousands of clergy and faithful in China. The losses in the following years were considerable. For example, in 1948, the Catholic Church operated some 254 orphanages and 196 hospitals with 81628 beds. . In 1951, the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Riberi, was expelled, as were many foreign missionaries, who were accused of acting as agents of imperialist forces. Catholic clergy experienced increased supervision, frequent arrests and torture. The Holy See reacted with several encyclicals and apostolic letters, Cupimus Imprimis Ad Apostolorum Principis and Ad Sinarum Gentes (1954). In 1957, a schismatic Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which does not recognize papal authority, was formed by the Chinese Communist Party. Bishops and priests who refused to join the Patriotic Association were imprisoned, forced to engage in degrading and exhaustive manual labor, and many were martyred in captivity. An unknown number of mostly elderly clergymen, particularly bishops, are believed to remain in captivity in China, though their whereabouts have been unknown for many years.

Biography

Thomas Tien Ken-sin was born in Chantsui, Yangku, to Kilian Tien Ken-sin and his wife Maria Yang. Baptized in 1901, he studied at the seminary in Yenchowfu before being ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Augustin Henninghaus, SVD, on June 9, 1918. Tien then did pastoral work in the Yangku Mission until 1939. He entered the Society of the Divine Word on March 8, 1929 in Holland, taking his first vows on February 2, 1931 and his final ones on March 7, 1935. He was raised to Apostolic Prefect of Yangku on February 2, 1934.

On July 11, 1939, Tien was appointed Apostolic Vicar of Yangku and Titular Bishop of Ruspae. He received his episcopal consecration on the following October 29 from Pope Pius XII himself, with Archbishops Celso Constantini and Heinrich Steicher, MAfr, serving as co-consecrators. Tien was later made Apostolic Vicar of Qingdao on November 10, 1942.

He was elevated to Cardinal Priest of S. Maria in Via byPope Pius XII in the consistory of February 18, 1946. Tien, the first cardinal from China, was then named the first Archbishop of Beijing on April 11 of that same year. In 1951 he was exiled from China by the Communist regime, and spent this time in Illinois in the United States, to where he came that year for treatment of a heart ailment. He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 1958 papal conclave, which selected Pope John XXIII, and was Apostolic Administrator of Taipei from December 16, 1959 to 1966. From 1962 to 1965, he attended the Second Vatican Council, and voted in the 1963 papal conclave, which selected Pope Paul VI.

Tien died in Taipei, at age 76. He is buried in the metropolitan cathedral of that same city.

Trivia

• The Cardinal's last name is also listed as Tien ken-Sin Tung-Lai.
• He greatly promoted devotion to Our Lady of China.
• For the 1946 consistory, Tien was forced to borrow from the wardrobes of the late Cardinals Mundelein, O'Connell, and Hayes.
• Tien was the first Cardinal also from the Society of the Divine Word.
• He also spent time in a West German hospital.
• The Holy See has not recognized any of CPCA-approved successors of Tien as Archbishop of Peking, though in his 2007 letter to the faithful in China, Pope Benedict XVI expressed an openness to dialogue with the CPCA-appointed "bishops."

External links

• Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church
• Catholic-Hierarchy
• Tien's Appointment to Taipei