Five Chinese university students received the sacraments of Christian initiation in the Cathedral of Bologna on the day of the Epiphany. Presided over by the archbishop, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the celebration included eight languages, and was attended not only by the Catholics of Bologna but also by a dozen international Catholic communities present in the Italian city.
It was precisely five young Chinese university students, in Bologna for studies, who received baptism, communion and confirmation and thus entered the community of the Catholic Church. Gregory, Mary, Clare, Teresa and Lucia, these are their Christian names, have been prepared in these two years in contact with the Piccola Famiglia dell’Assunta di Montetauro (Rimini), the monastic community spread throughout the Romagna region with family homes that welcome disabled people and that have activated a virtuous contact with the Chinese communities of the territory. A large group of monks and nuns from Montetauro were present at the celebrations, accompanied by their founder Don Lanfranco Bellavista and the Chinese priest Savio Yan, who lived in their community for many years and specifically accompanied the young catechumens in their catechesis.
Cardinal Zuppi emphasized in his homily that the people present in the cathedral are the Church as it should be, that is, a community of believers called from different nations. The cardinal also recalled the origin of the five young people from the great and noble nation of China.