90-Year-Old Cardinal in Dock ‘As Dark Awaits Dawn’

Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun (L), Bishop Emeritus of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong, arrives for his trial in court in Hong Kong , on Sept. 26. 2022. Sung Pi-lung/The Epoch Times

The nonagenarian Cardinal Zen, Bishop Emeritus of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong, belonging to the very highest echelon of the Roman Catholic Church, who was arrested by the Hong Kong government (HKgov), stood in the dock on Sept. 26. The silence of the Holy See has been criticized both inside and outside the Catholic Church, and has also sparked heated discussions on Sino-Vatican relations.

Some commentators think that Zen was “abandoned by the Pope;” Some people think that as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) saw the current weakness of the Vatican, it did not shy away from arresting Zen in a high-profile manner. In fact, both the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong and the Pope held back from criticising the CCP regarding the incident.

As one of the trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund in Hong Kong, Cardinal Zen, who was accused of conspiring to collude with a foreign country or foreign force, was arrested for allegedly violating the “Hong Kong National Security Law,” by the National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police Force. This is the first time that a current cardinal has been arrested under the CCP.

Zen presided over mass on May 28 following his arrest in May and told the congregation that his arrest was just another experience for him and said, “Martyrdom is normal in our Church.”

Zen Experienced the Hardships of the Church in China

Zen is a politically exposed person because of his long history of resistance to the CCP. Zen was born in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong to study theology in 1948. Later, he trained in Rome, where he was ordained in 1961. After obtaining his PhD at the Salesians’ University in Rome in 1964, Father Zen then served as a professor of theology at Catholic seminaries in Hong Kong in 1971. From 1978 to 1983 he was Provincial Superior of Salesians covering Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and China.

From 1989 to 1996, Zen returned to the mainland to teach in government-sanctioned seminars for six months every year, in seven different dioceses including Shanghai, Xi’an, Wuhan, Shijiazhuang (Hebei), Shenyang, and Zhejiang Province, as well as the National Seminary in Beijing.

“During my seven years of teaching in China, I tried my best to follow the rules and never publicly condemned the undesirable conditions at the time. I needed to remain silent because I didn’t want to sacrifice this opportunity to educate young Chinese seminary students. During this period, my most important responsibility is to find out, observe, and understand the realities of the times.”

The CCP strictly controls religious freedom, and its religious persecution is pervasive and widespread.

According to a 2020 report by the human rights group Freedom House, in China, all leading religious groups’ activities are tightly circumscribed, and they must accept the CCP’s leadership as a condition for their existence. China ensures state-sanctioned ideology by controlling all religious practices and beliefs. Therefore, people who do not recognize the government-approved bishops set up underground churches, and today an estimated 12 million Catholics in China are split between a state-sanctioned church and an underground church that rejects government ties and answers only to Rome.

During his seven-year of experience in China, he profoundly felt the plight of the mainland churches. Since then, he has actively opposed the totalitarianism of the CCP and fought for religious freedom for the 12 million mainland Catholics.

Zen Rejects CCP’s Deprivation of Freedom of Hongkongers

In 1997, Hong Kong’s sovereignty was handed over to China and CCP slowly began trying to restrict Hong Kongers’ liberties. Since then, Zen, who is outspoken, chose what is good and held fast to it. He is committed to Hongkonger’s freedom and over the years he has repeatedly voiced high-profile support for social events and criticized certain decisions of the Hong Kong government, including the 2001 right of abode dispute.

In the dispute, children born to mainland parents in Hong Kong were defined as having no right of abode in Hong Kong. While they were fighting for the right of abode through legal channels, HKgov stated that the children were not allowed to go to school before the judgment. Zen, as an assistant bishop of Hong Kong, publicly called on Catholic schools to take in the children who were banned from going to school without residency rights. He was warned by the HKgov that he may have broken the law.

In 2002, Zen was made bishop of Hong Kong and he resigned in 2009. He was created a Cardinal in 2006.

In 2011, Zen opposed the government’s imposition of the Education (Amendment) Ordinance regarding school-based management policy, believing that it would weaken the autonomy of sponsoring bodies, and sued the government for this. After losing the lawsuit, he fasted for three days to express his grief.

In 2006, Zen strongly criticized the Beijing government for banning Falun Gong, a private practice group, and accusing them of attempting to subvert China. “If you’re going to speak for the vulnerable, those who don’t have the opportunity to speak publicly, you have to speak louder, otherwise the public won’t hear you,” he said.

He also supported the Occupy protests in 2014 to fight for universal suffrage election for Hong Kong’s chief executive. “Without democracy, there is no freedom, and people without freedom are like slaves,” he said, “Without democracy, there won’t be religious freedom.”

After the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement in 2019, the CCP’s intention to suppress Hongkongers was revealed. In an exclusive interview with the Epoch Times in  December 2019, Zen described the situation as a war, “Because what we are facing is a totalitarian state—the CCP. So it is more than just facing the HKgov which may only be just a puppet;” but the HKgov, which has gone even further than the central government’s will, did not want to give Hong Kong true democracy, and even deprive citizens of their freedom of speech by amending the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance.

Zen said bluntly at the time that if Hongkongers were deprived of all their freedoms, Hong Kong would become the same as other cities in China. “We all know what happened there [China]. Maybe they have reached a certain level of prosperity now. Maybe it lifted many people out of poverty, but the moral decay of the entire country still happens. It is absolute slavery. We also know how the persecution of the Catholic Church in China is getting worse.”

In 2020, bypassing the Hong Kong legislature, the CCP pushed the National Security Law. Zen publicly opposed the legislation, particularly the offenses of endangering national security, which was vaguely defined.

After Cardinal Zen was arrested, Catholic Hong Kong Diocese Waited a Day Before they Responded

After the Second World War, there were very few cases of cardinals being arrested, but before the totalitarian CCP, the official Catholic response was hesitant. After Zen was arrested, the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong issued a press release of about 120 words in response the next day, saying that they were extremely concerned about Zen’s situation and safety, and urged the police and judicial authorities to respond in a reasonable manner. Principles of justice should be applied to deal with the incident,” and further said the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong “fervently prays for the cardinal.”

The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong drew criticism from believers and netizens at the time, saying, “Thank you for the diocese’s continued disappointment in the past and now. I learned that the diocese and the faith can actually be separated, and only today can I be free from the actions of the diocese which affect my faith,” “This statement is more useless than prayer” and so on.

Pope Refuses to Comment on the Incident or Democracy in China

The response from the Vatican and even the Pope has also drawn criticism. The Vatican officials have not expressed their support for Zen so far. When Pope Francis was asked about the incident earlier, he pointed out that Zen clearly had some limitations in expressing his own thoughts; However, the Pope could not make his judgment and said there were lots of perspectives on this issue and he always advocates communication.

Francis also pointed out that he has no right to comment on whether mainland China (the CCP) is democratic or anti-democratic, “because this is a complex country,” but “there are some things that we think are undemocratic.”

German Cardinal: “We Abandoned Him”

The Vatican’s failure to support Zen drew criticism from German Catholic Cardinal Gerhard Muller, who said “we have abandoned him”.

“Cardinal Zen was absent in Rome because he is under house arrest for raising his voice against Beijing, defending human rights both in Hong Kong and China,” said Cardinal Muller.

Cardinal Mueller continued that the Holy See gave up helping Zen due to the issue of bishop appointments in China and the agreement signed with the CCP. He bluntly stated that the agreement did not serve the interests of the Holy See.

In an interview in May 2022, Wong Wai-kwok, a former assistant professor of politics and international relations at Baptist University of Hong Kong, pointed out that the Holy See has always been weak to the CCP, and some leaders of the Holy See even delusionally want to develop Catholicism in China as a solution to the declining number of believers around the world. The CCP sees the weakness of the Vatican, so it does not shy away from arresting Zen in a high-profile manner. To a certain extent, this is caused by the incompetence and ignorance of the Vatican.

Zen Criticizes the Holy See Agreement With China, As ‘Dancing with the Devil’

Although the Vatican’s Secretary of State Pietro Parolin said in May 2022 that he was very upset about Zen’s arrest, he was the one who was accused by Zen of controlling the Pope and promoting the “compromising policy” of the provisional agreement on the bishop appointment.

On Sept. 22, 2018, the CCP and the Vatican secretly signed a two-year provisional agreement on the bishop’s appointment and established a formal dialogue between the two parties. The details of the agreement have been kept secret, but the outside world generally knows that it is to cooperate with the CCP on the appointment of bishops in mainland China. The agreement came into effect on Oct. 22, 2018, and was valid for two years.

Secret talks between the Vatican delegation and Chinese authorities took place in Tianjin. Italy’s AsiaNews reported that the Vatican delegation visited the 92-year-old Bishop of Tianjin, Shi Hongzhen, who has been under house arrest for a long time for his refusal to join the official church (Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association) recognized by the CCP.

At that time, Zen also pointed out that in the two years since the agreement was reached, the CCP’s persecution of believers has intensified, including the elimination of underground churches, and the prohibition of minors under the age of 18 from entering churches and participating in religious activities. The so-called “Sinicization of Catholicism” has turned Catholicism into the religion of the Communist Party, with the state and the Party as the leader.

On Oct. 22, 2020, China and the Vatican renewed the provisional agreement and decided to extend the validity period for two more years. The agreement allows the Pope to have the final say on bishops appointed by China, and the Chinese government allows all bishops, including those of the official Church, to recognize the authority of the Vatican and the Pope.

On the eve of the renewal, during the prime of the CCP virus epidemic, Zen went to the Vatican alone on Sept. 23, 2020, to ask to see the Pope, but he waited for four days to no avail. Zen criticized the idea of ​​the Holy See renewing the bishop appointment agreement with the CCP as “crazy,” like “dancing with the devil.” Many Italian media also spoke for him.

Zen Publicly Accused Parolin of Being a ‘Shameless and Daring Liar’

When the Vatican renewed the agreement with China in 2020, Parolin declared that the agreement “helps normalize the life of the Catholic believers and Church in China,” and clarified that he refused to interpret the agreement in a political light, and said that China’s human rights and religious freedom issues could not be dealt with in haste.

Zen publicly accused Parolin at the time, “It is not for faith at all, but maybe just for vanity. I don’t know if there are other secret deals with the CCP, I don’t know about this. and I dare not speak about it,“ and said Parolin defended the agreement even though he knew about the false statements in the agreement, saying it was already approved by the former Pope Benedict XVI, that is ”disgusting.“ Zen called him a ”liar, not just shameless but also daring.”

Now is the eve of the renewal of the Sino-Vatican Bishops Agreement. In an exclusive interview with Reuters on July 5, 2022, the Pope said he hoped to renew the provisional agreement in October, saying that the agreement was well implemented, and he described it as a diplomatic achievement.

In an interview on Sept. 16, Parolin pointed out that the Holy See was ready to move the Hong Kong office to Beijing. Dr. Frank Tian Xie, an expert on China issues and a tenured professor at the University of South Carolina Aiken, believes that the Holy See is further trying to curry favor with the CCP. “it is a prelude to the complete annihilation of the last free beliefs that Hong Kong people still enjoy,” he said.

After Zen was arrested and released on bail in May 2022, he presided over a mass prayer for the Chinese church, saying that after the Holy See and the CCP signed an agreement on the appointment of bishops, it may appear that the Chinese church has made progress. All bishops in China have been recognized by the Pope. Bishops also recognize the Pope. But he described the agreement as “The church has been unwise in certain areas although it may have good intentions”.

He believes that it is not quite ready yet for the unity between the underground Church and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, and he could not see the “unity in truth” between the Chinese churches and the Pope.

He also encouraged believers to continue to be faithful under the test of endurance and described it as the dark awaiting the dawn.