Father Francis Cui Qingqi, OFM, was ordained as Bishop of Hankou/Wuhan on September 8, 2021. He is the sixth bishop ordained under the 2018 Provisional Agreement between the Holy See and China and the fourth consecrated since the accord was renewed in October 2020.
The Provisional Agreement was signed in Beijing on September 22, 2018, by representatives of the Vatican and China with the shared hope of fostering a path of institutional dialogue and contributing positively to the life of the Catholic Church in China, to the good of the Chinese people, and to peace in the world.
Bishop Cui filled the post which has been vacant since Franciscan Archbishop Bernardine died on May 12, 2007. Born in Xiangyuan of Shanxi province in 1964, Bishop Cui was ordained a priest in 1991. He has been the administrator of Wuhan Diocese and parish priest of the cathedral since December 2012. He was appointed deputy secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC) in 2016 and became the provincial president of the Catholic Patriotic Association of Hubei in January 2018.