Hong Kong’s Catholic Church in President Xi Jinping’s Era

The National Catholic Register ^ | 1/15/18 | Victor Gaetan

[marshmallow]

An interview with Bishop Michael Yeung Ming-cheung, Pope Francis’ choice to shepherd Hong Kong.

Twenty years since Hong Kong’s passage from British colonial rule to Chinese central government rule, 20 years since the application of the “one country, two systems” formula, Beijing is dropping the pleasantries. The communist giant has increasingly exerted its power over education, the judiciary and the electoral process governing the island’s 7.35 million people.

This trend was reinforced with the October 2017 Chinese Communist Party congress that re-elected President Xi Jinping party chief and commander of the army.

Last August, Pope Francis selected mainland-born Bishop Michael Yeung Ming-cheung, 72, a calm, thoughtful and conciliatory man, to lead the influential 500,000 Catholic community of Hong Kong.

Bishop Yeung succeeds Cardinal John Tong Hon, 78, bishop of Hong Kong, from 2009 to 2017. Last year, Cardinal Tong announced, “The Vatican and China could be close to a milestone agreement” — a declaration that infuriated his predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Zen, 86, the bishop of Hong Kong from 1996 to 2009, who has been a determined voice against any agreement between the Holy See and Beijing.

Register senior correspondent Victor Gaetan interviewed Bishop Michael Yeung Ming-cheung in a bustling diocesan office, adjacent to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

You described Hong Kong as a potential bridge between Chinese authorities and the Holy See when you became bishop last summer. How are you serving as a bridge?

Well, what is a bridge? It tries to link isolated pieces of land, right? So when we say we would like to play the role of a bridge, we do not mean we want to be a third party, because the Chinese government would never allow Hong Kong to get involved as a third party.

For example, during the Sino-British negotiations over......

[ebb tide]

In China, there is only one Catholic Church. Some are under the control of the government, the patriotic Church; others refuse to be controlled and are sometimes called the “underground Church.” But the patriotic and the underground, they are both still the Catholic Church.

The sell-out of the true Catholics has begun; thanks to Francis.