Today, at 7:50 p.m., Beijing time (1:50 p.m. Rome time), Monsignor Michael Fu Tieshan, Patriotic Archbishop of China's capital, died in Beijing Hospital, the medical centre for China's political élite, where he had been admitted a few days ago in serious condition. Before his death, he received the visit of President Hu Jintao.
Archbishop Fu had been sick with lung cancer for years. According to some members of the faithful, it is thanks to his political stature that he was able to live so long, as the most costly and modern treatments were profusely bestowed upon him. Some say the government had established a group of young soldiers of the People's Liberation Army to act as "reservoir" of blood for the transfusions that he needed.
A few days ago he received the sacrament of the anointing of the sick and the priests and nuns of Beijing began lining up to pay their respects. According to some priests in the capital, at the moment of the anointing, unable to speak, Fu Tieshan shed a few tears.
Fu Tieshan has been described at the "most tragic" figure of the Chinese Church: disliked and shunned by the faithful of his diocese for having continuously taken sides against the Pope, the Vatican and the people of China (he had even praised the Tiananmen massacre of 1989 on state television); rewarded, praised, promoted up the government's and the Patriotic Association's bureaucratic ladder, becoming Vice-President of the People's National Assembly and President of the Patriotic Association. The faithful of his diocese had always criticized him for his weakness which brough him to total subjection to the Party and to the workings of a woman, Ms Chen Maoju, his would-be secretary who, taking advantage of the bishop's illness, squandered and pocketed for herself much of the Beijing Church's estate.
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