St Mark Ji Tianxiang is also a hope for someone who is being or was at some time spiritually abused. It is also a rebuke of clericalism, and a vindication of the primacy of conscience. St Mark being told he sinned mortally when he had not, and the priest refusing confession or to explain that it was not mortal sin, is an imposed scrupulosity. The clericalism is in the claim that the priest’s erroneous judgement that forgiveness was impossible supersedes the individual conscience and desire for forgiveness.
So why did the priest refuse to allow confession? I have a theory: because priests who served in China at the time were largely from France, it can be inferred that he had a devotion the Sacred Heart. If you look at the promises of the Sacred Heart, the logic becomes clear:
1) Christ promised that priests would inflame hearts, give graces, and lead those under their care to repentance.
2) The priest saw no evidence that the promises were being fulfilled in Mark’s life
3) The promises do not undo the free will, and require the parishioners to have basic intent and desire to repent.
4) From the above the priest inferred that there was no desire or intent in Mark to change his life, and certainly not firm intent.
5) From 4, he refused to offer confession, because absolution requires firm intent.
Not understanding Addiction isn’t even an excuse for this, because it is addressed in Aquinas on drunkenness (among other theologians of his era and before) and so would have been part of his education. This provides sufficient knowledge in the priest. Grave matter is in refusing confession. Intent is in refusing confession for a long time.
Why would the priest think he had the right to do this? Because at the time priests were told they were ontologically different and superior to laity, not merely given a mark from Christ, a change to the accidents of the soul not an essential change.
Another element: the belief in racial or national superiority, that Europeans were better than Chinese; and the interrelation between colonialism and missionary work. If you can’t go to confession, there is one sure way to get to heaven: martyrdom. This opens up a disturbing possibility, that the priest was intentionally producing the conditions in someone that will produce a martyr. The production of hagiography quickly after martyrdom suggests that it was planned for or at least anticipated. Martyrdom was used frequently as cause to invade, civilize, and colonize. If so, it is possible that the priest created someone who would be a dramatic martyr, so martyrdom would be useable for someone to conquer and colonize China, to make conversion of China easier.
Thank you, David, for especially the first paragraph of this beautifully extended comment. I was considering the Spiritual Exercises this morning, and you and Paul have touched me viscerally.
Saint Mark is at the centerpiece of those who have been rejected, but who formed the cornerstone of the temple of the kingdom of heaven.
It is worthy of great contemplation, is it not?
St. Mark Ji Tianxiang is a disturbing saint, which is one reason he is so beautiful. He does not fit the familiar devotional pattern in which sanctity appears as visible reform, moral clarity, and a reassuringly tidy ending.
Instead, his story seems to remain marked by addiction, exclusion from the sacraments, and the crushing weight of a spiritual judgment that may have been deeply mistaken. For that very reason, he can appear as a saint for those who have been spiritually abused: someone whose conscience was burdened rather than liberated, and whose hope was wounded by the misuse of religious authority.
Yes, certainly I think his life can be read as a rebuke to clericalism.
If he was led to believe for years — as many of us have — that forgiveness was effectively closed to him, then his story exposes the terrible harm a priest can do when he mistakes severity for truth, and authority for infallibility.
The point is not that conscience is a private oracle, or that priestly ministry does not matter. That is by no means the point.
It is that no confessor, however powerful his office, can finally overrule the mercy of God, or extinguish a soul’s desire for forgiveness. And we have the ministry of Jesus Himself to thank for that.
In that sense, St. Mark vindicates the primacy of conscience rightly understood: not self-justification, but the irreducible dignity of the person before God, even when religious authority has failed him. And fail him it did.
What makes him so compelling — is precisely that he may never have become respectable.
He may have remained compromised, dependent, unresolved, and still turned toward God with whatever freedom he had left. His martyrdom would then signify not the neat conclusion of a successful penitential narrative, but the revelation of a holiness deeper than moral manageability. If our Lord, in the Gospel of Luke, tells us one thing, it is that human beings are not to be managed; we are to be freed.
Mark would be a scandalous saint in the best sense: not a romanticizing of vice, but a witness that grace can abide in a life still wounded, obscured, and judged incorrectly by others.
That, perhaps, is why he feels like a kind of quintessence of holiness.
Holiness is not polish. No. It is not always the visible triumph of order, mastery, or ecclesial approval. Sometimes it is fidelity under conditions of confusion and diminishment; sometimes it is hope that survives bad theology and bad pastoral care; sometimes it is the stubborn orientation of a broken life toward God.
A saint like Mark Ji Tianxiang testifies that divine mercy is greater than our systems of assessment, and that God may bring to completion in glory a life that never became narratively neat on earth.
This reflection as well as Paul's above resonate a lot with me as a queer Catholic. I've loved St. Mark's story for years, but it never occurred to me to look to him as a model of perseverance in the face of my own scrupulosity imposed by confessors and other authority figures. St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, pray for us!
Excellent article. For me it speaks to abuse of authority instead of pastoral concern. Furthermore I’m thinking of all those who have felt isolation because of their sexuality. Peace
Like Saint Bartolo Longo, Saint Mark Ji Tianxiang is one of my favorite examples of holiness because God showed up in his life in a way that shows how much God loves each of us and doesn't give up on anyone. He is also a patron at Divine Mercy University where I did my spiritual direction certificate. They have an image of him in the chapel.
St Mark Ji Tianxiang is also a hope for someone who is being or was at some time spiritually abused. It is also a rebuke of clericalism, and a vindication of the primacy of conscience. St Mark being told he sinned mortally when he had not, and the priest refusing confession or to explain that it was not mortal sin, is an imposed scrupulosity. The clericalism is in the claim that the priest’s erroneous judgement that forgiveness was impossible supersedes the individual conscience and desire for forgiveness.
So why did the priest refuse to allow confession? I have a theory: because priests who served in China at the time were largely from France, it can be inferred that he had a devotion the Sacred Heart. If you look at the promises of the Sacred Heart, the logic becomes clear:
1) Christ promised that priests would inflame hearts, give graces, and lead those under their care to repentance.
2) The priest saw no evidence that the promises were being fulfilled in Mark’s life
3) The promises do not undo the free will, and require the parishioners to have basic intent and desire to repent.
4) From the above the priest inferred that there was no desire or intent in Mark to change his life, and certainly not firm intent.
5) From 4, he refused to offer confession, because absolution requires firm intent.
Not understanding Addiction isn’t even an excuse for this, because it is addressed in Aquinas on drunkenness (among other theologians of his era and before) and so would have been part of his education. This provides sufficient knowledge in the priest. Grave matter is in refusing confession. Intent is in refusing confession for a long time.
Why would the priest think he had the right to do this? Because at the time priests were told they were ontologically different and superior to laity, not merely given a mark from Christ, a change to the accidents of the soul not an essential change.
Another element: the belief in racial or national superiority, that Europeans were better than Chinese; and the interrelation between colonialism and missionary work. If you can’t go to confession, there is one sure way to get to heaven: martyrdom. This opens up a disturbing possibility, that the priest was intentionally producing the conditions in someone that will produce a martyr. The production of hagiography quickly after martyrdom suggests that it was planned for or at least anticipated. Martyrdom was used frequently as cause to invade, civilize, and colonize. If so, it is possible that the priest created someone who would be a dramatic martyr, so martyrdom would be useable for someone to conquer and colonize China, to make conversion of China easier.
Thank you, David, for especially the first paragraph of this beautifully extended comment. I was considering the Spiritual Exercises this morning, and you and Paul have touched me viscerally.
Saint Mark is at the centerpiece of those who have been rejected, but who formed the cornerstone of the temple of the kingdom of heaven.
It is worthy of great contemplation, is it not?
St. Mark Ji Tianxiang is a disturbing saint, which is one reason he is so beautiful. He does not fit the familiar devotional pattern in which sanctity appears as visible reform, moral clarity, and a reassuringly tidy ending.
Instead, his story seems to remain marked by addiction, exclusion from the sacraments, and the crushing weight of a spiritual judgment that may have been deeply mistaken. For that very reason, he can appear as a saint for those who have been spiritually abused: someone whose conscience was burdened rather than liberated, and whose hope was wounded by the misuse of religious authority.
Yes, certainly I think his life can be read as a rebuke to clericalism.
If he was led to believe for years — as many of us have — that forgiveness was effectively closed to him, then his story exposes the terrible harm a priest can do when he mistakes severity for truth, and authority for infallibility.
The point is not that conscience is a private oracle, or that priestly ministry does not matter. That is by no means the point.
It is that no confessor, however powerful his office, can finally overrule the mercy of God, or extinguish a soul’s desire for forgiveness. And we have the ministry of Jesus Himself to thank for that.
In that sense, St. Mark vindicates the primacy of conscience rightly understood: not self-justification, but the irreducible dignity of the person before God, even when religious authority has failed him. And fail him it did.
What makes him so compelling — is precisely that he may never have become respectable.
He may have remained compromised, dependent, unresolved, and still turned toward God with whatever freedom he had left. His martyrdom would then signify not the neat conclusion of a successful penitential narrative, but the revelation of a holiness deeper than moral manageability. If our Lord, in the Gospel of Luke, tells us one thing, it is that human beings are not to be managed; we are to be freed.
Mark would be a scandalous saint in the best sense: not a romanticizing of vice, but a witness that grace can abide in a life still wounded, obscured, and judged incorrectly by others.
That, perhaps, is why he feels like a kind of quintessence of holiness.
Holiness is not polish. No. It is not always the visible triumph of order, mastery, or ecclesial approval. Sometimes it is fidelity under conditions of confusion and diminishment; sometimes it is hope that survives bad theology and bad pastoral care; sometimes it is the stubborn orientation of a broken life toward God.
A saint like Mark Ji Tianxiang testifies that divine mercy is greater than our systems of assessment, and that God may bring to completion in glory a life that never became narratively neat on earth.
Amen. Blessing upon blessing.
This reflection as well as Paul's above resonate a lot with me as a queer Catholic. I've loved St. Mark's story for years, but it never occurred to me to look to him as a model of perseverance in the face of my own scrupulosity imposed by confessors and other authority figures. St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, pray for us!
I love St Mark. I prayed asking his help to quit caffeine cold turkey. No doubt he helped.
St Mark, pray for us.
reading this comment as I am about to find more caffeine. Oh dear.
I lived in China for several years, so this is a special read for me. Thank you, Paul! ❤️🔥
Excellent article. For me it speaks to abuse of authority instead of pastoral concern. Furthermore I’m thinking of all those who have felt isolation because of their sexuality. Peace
Like Saint Bartolo Longo, Saint Mark Ji Tianxiang is one of my favorite examples of holiness because God showed up in his life in a way that shows how much God loves each of us and doesn't give up on anyone. He is also a patron at Divine Mercy University where I did my spiritual direction certificate. They have an image of him in the chapel.
Beautifully said.