Francis Hsu Chen-ping: Hong Kong’s First Chinese Bishop

Francis Hsu Chen-ping was a member of the new intelligentsia of his time. Training at Oxford and Beda College enabled him to become a scholar-priest or a priest-scholar. In the short four years (1969–1973) of his bishopric in Hong Kong, Bishop Hsu led the Hong Kong Church with wisdom and foresight. Externally, he helped the local Church cope with rapid socio-economic changes taking place in Hong Kong and beyond; internally, he modernized the Church by convening the Diocesan Council to implement the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, which advocated reform in every aspect of Catholic life. Hsu’s distinguished endeavors laid a solid foundation for the local Catholic Church to cope with Hong Kong’s transformation from an industrial town in the 1950s into a metropolitan financial center in the later part of the twentieth century.