Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei

Who was Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei?

Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei was the Roman Catholic bishop of Shanghai in China from 1950 until his death, spending 30 years in Chinese prisons for defying attempts by China's Communist government to control Roman Catholics in the country through the government-approved Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

On September 8, 1955, Bishop Kung, along with several hundred priests and church leaders, was arrested and imprisoned. He was sentenced five years later to life imprisonment.

Kung was secretly named a Cardinal in the consistory of 1979 by Pope John Paul II, while serving a life sentence for counter-revolutionary activities. After he was released in 1986, he was kept under house arrest until 1988. Until 1991, his membership in the College of Cardinals was kept secret, or in pectore; this is a formula that has been used when the pope wants to name a cardinal in a country where the Church is oppressed, to protect the safety of the cardinal and his congregation. Cardinal Kung himself did not know until he had a private meeting with the Pope in Vatican City in 1988; by then, he had passed the age limit for participating in a conclave.