CARDINAL TIEN, exiled Archbishop of Peking, has been greeted by great crowds on his arrival in Formosa -his first visit to Nationalist China since The Cardinal, almost totally blind, is a member of the Divine Word Fathers and the first Chinese ever to be made a member of the Sacred College of Cardinals.
Packed buses splashed through the 'mud of the pre-dawn darkness to meet the Cardinal as his plane landed at the windswept airport.
To greet him also were Archbishop Riberi, Apostolic Internuncio to China. and Archbishop Kuo of Taipei. three other exiled Bishops from Red China, and Mgr. Kupfer, Prefect Apostolic of Taichung.
More than 2.000 lay people greeted the Cardinal with banners and hymns.
Later this month, after visiting many parishes in the city, Cardinal Tien will officiate at evening Pontifical Mass in Taipei's largest auditorium which holds 8.000 people.
The Cardinal is expected to remain in Formosa for about four months, visiting various ecclesiastical jurisdictions and investigating the progress of the Church there in recent years.
Last week Cardinal Tien was in Tokyo where he celebrated a special Mass to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the arrival in Japan of the first Divine Word Fathers, and laid the foundation stone of a new chapel at their University at Nagoya.
While in Formosa the Cardinal is expected to make arrangements for a Mission centre for exiled priests of the Peking diocese. Some of them who were seminarians when they were exiled from Red
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China, have completed their studies and been ordained at European and American seminaries. 'Hwy will be appointed to churches and schools in Formosa.
Cardinal Tien, who was horn in the Shangtung Province of China in 1890 and ordained in 1918, was
consecrated Bishop in 1939. He was created a Cardinal in 1946. Since 1951 he has lived with the Fathers of the Divine Word at their American motherhouse at Techny, Illinois.