Descendant of Chinese Royalty Named Bishop

VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II has named Msg. Ignatius Wang, a descendant of China’s last royal dynasty, an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

Wang, 68, a native of Beijing, is believed to be the first Asian-born bishop in the U.S. Catholic Church.

He has been assigned since 1974 to San Francisco, where about one-quarter of the population is of Chinese descent.

The Vatican said, in announcing Wang’s appointment, that his family, although Catholic for 12 generations, was related to the Manchu emperors of the Ch’ing Dynasty, who ruled China from 1644 until 1911.

Wang attended a seminary in Hong Kong and, after he was ordained in 1959, studied canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

Because he was unable to return to China, he was sent first to Grenada in the Antilles.

In San Francisco, Wang served as a priest and on the archdiocesan tribunal.

In 1981, he became coordinator of the apostolate to Chinese Catholics; in 1994, director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith; and in 1998, chancellor of the archdiocese.