Posted on 09/29/2022 6:24:44 PM PDT by marshmallow
Since his birth in Shanghai 90 years ago, Cardinal Joseph Zen has experienced every iteration of the People’s Republic of China.
For a long time, he watched from the relative safety of (then British-ruled) Hong Kong. But now Hong Kong is no longer safe for human rights supporters, not even if they belong to the very highest echelon of the Roman Catholic Church: Cardinal Zen went on trial in Hong Kong on September 26 facing charges of colluding with foreign powers.
Not even the Soviet Union went so far as to prosecute a cleric of the highest rank, which in itself sends a signal — by prosecuting Zen, the Chinese Communist leadership is unwittingly demonstrating how much it is rattled by democracy activism.
Together with five far younger democracy supporters, the charges allege a fund started by the defendants to help Hong Kongers arrested during the region’s 2019 pro-democracy protests was not registered.
This week the world will thus see a frail 90-year-old man, who walks with a cane, facing charges more commonly applied to spies. Zen, a priest since 1961, has experience of life beyond China — like virtually all Roman Catholic priests, he trained in Rome, where he was ordained in 1961. He belongs to the religious order of Salesians of Don Bosco, SDB, which was founded by an Italian priest in the 19th century and devotes itself to helping young people and the homeless. From 1964, after gaining his PhD at the Salesians’ university in Turin, then-Father Zen served as a professor of theology at Catholic seminaries in Hong Kong. In 1996, he was made an assistant bishop of Hong Kong.
The following year Britain handed its crown colony to China, and with that began Zen’s struggles on behalf of his flock. By the time Zen.........
(Excerpt) Read more at cepa.org ...
I’m not Catholic, but it seems like we need a new Pope. Someone who thinks standing up for the Church is more important than dabbling in leftist politics.
Don’t expect a communist to criticize a communist
Ping
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