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‘The Death of the True Faith’ in China Cdl. Zen's latest dubia on the Holy See's guidelines for Chinese clergy HONG KONG (ChurchMilitant.com) - Cardinal Joseph Zen has highlighted serious problems with the Holy See's new pastoral guidelines for clergy registration in Communist China. Having recently met with Pope Francis, Cdl. Zen updated his website on Monday with the full text of his dubia on the Holy See's new guidelines concerning the civil registration of the clergy in China. Zen summarizes his dubia: This document has radically turned upside what is normal and what is abnormal, what is rightful and what is pitiable. Those who...

I’m going to relay a one-time experience I had with Zen meditation when I was in my early 20’s. I didn’t need to visit Japan for this experience: Zen came to me in the form of a 2-day weekend retreat held in San Diego.  The event was held in a large two-or-three floor neighborhood house facing out on lovely Balboa Park with its large trees.   I gained much from this meditation retreat, and I would definitely encourage others to give it a go.   Before attending this retreat, I’d read that it may take a Zen monk many years to...

On Saturday, 7 April 2018, two important events took place which seemed, to a superficial observer, to be utterly unrelated:In Rome, people gathered and discussed the topic “Catholic Church, where are you going?” Present were prominent prelates such as Cardinal Raymond Burke, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, and Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider. It was about the negative effects of the controversial passages in the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia of Pope Francis. The German-American journalist Maike Hickson reported on this event here and here.In Bonn, the former capital city of the Federal Republic of Germany, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun received the “Stephanus-Prize for...

I would like the express my gratitude to Cardinal Zen for agreeing to answer a few questions for Catholic World Report at this crucial moment in the history of the Catholic Church in China. Over the past several days we corresponded about pressing issues related to the current Sino-Vatican negotiations that are underway. I first met Cardinal Zen several years ago at his humble residence with the Salesians in Hong Kong, where we spent more than an hour discussing the state of China’s Church. Since then, Catholics in China have encountered new pressures from state authorities. Their situation has become...

BRISBANE, Australia, March 2, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — An Australian archbishop has angered Catholics by criticizing two cardinals who have been outspoken advocates of orthodoxy. Mark Coleridge, Archbishop of Brisbane, tweeted yesterday that he wished Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong, who has been impassioned in his support of the persecuted underground Catholic Church in China, would smile. “Things can be tough in China, I know,” he conceded, “but I just wish the Cardinal would smile once in a while.” Archbishop Coleridge was reacting to a photo of Zen on an article about the cardinal’s strong opposition to the Vatican’s impending deal...

As the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ election draws near, we hear repeatedly that we are facing a dramatic and absolutely unprecedented ‘page’ in the history of the Church. This is only partly true. The Church has always experienced tragic times which have seen the laceration of the Mystical Body since its very beginnings on Calvary right up to the present day.The younger generations don’t know and the older generations have forgotten how terrible the years that followed the Second Vatican Council were, of which the present age is the result. Forty years ago while the 1968 revolt was erupting,...

In a February 5 blog post, published in English translation by Sandro Magister, Cardinal Zen throws false prudence (i.e., servile timidity) to the winds and tells the truth about the impending Vatican sellout of the Catholics of China to their communist overlords. As he puts it: “A few persons who care about me have advised me to pray more and not to talk too much. Of course it is right to pray more, because the Lord is our hope and we have confidence in the intercession of Our Lady, the Mother of God. They have probably advised me in this...

In a strongly worded statement, the outspoken clergyman said he did not need sympathy and would continue to speak his mind without fear while he still could. Zen, a prominent pro-democracy activist, caused a stir last month after he revealed in a Facebook post details of his trip to the Vatican, where he met Pope Francis to discuss his worries about the faithful being suppressed by Beijing.Vatican rebukes retired Hong Kong cardinal after remarks on ‘selling out’ of Chinese Catholics After expressing concern at the Vatican’s request for two mainland Chinese bishops to step down and make way for Beijing-sanctioned...

China’s leading prelate, Cardinal Joseph Zen, is sounding the alarm that the Vatican "is selling out the Catholic Church in China​"  and that it is "giving the blessing on the new...schismatic Church" created by the Communists.  "So, do I think that the Vatican is selling out the Catholic Church in China? Yes, definitely, if they go in the direction which is obvious from all what they are doing in recent years and months," the 86-year-old retired Bishop of Hong Kong wrote in a Jan. 29 letter addressed to “Friends in the Media,” in which he confirmed a report that the...

Vatican denies rift between Pope and advisers over China by Staff Reporter posted Tuesday, 30 Jan 2018 Pope Francis pauses while answering questions from journalists aboard his flight from Lima, Peru, to Rome (CNS photo/Paul Haring) The Vatican has implicitly criticised Cardinal Zen's account of the Pope's relations with a Vatican delegation in ChinaThe Vatican has issued a statement contradicting Cardinal Joseph Zen’s account of the Pope’s relationship with his collaborators on China.Cardinal Zen wrote an open letter saying that Pope Francis had indicated in a private audience that he was opposed to the replacement of ‘underground’ Chinese bishops with...

Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun commented on the news that the Vatican asked two Chinese diocesan bishops to retire in order to be replaced by two regime bishops, “For many years we were told to resist, to be faithful, now we are told to capitulate.” Talking to La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana (January 26) Zen stated that if the Vatican orders a capitulation, some will give in after years of fight and privations, “To capitulate is easy.” But, “There will be those who will continue to resist.” For Zen it is not a progress to force everybody to enter the...

Hong Kong Diocese; Joseph Zen , second from left, holding staff (By Wikimedia Commons)TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Ties between China and the Vatican appear to be getting more complex with recent news that a retired Hong Kong Cardinal made a secret mission to deliver a letter directly to the Pope on behalf of Catholics in China. CNA reports that on Wednesday, Jan. 23 in the Vatican, Hong Kong’s 86 year old Cardinal emeritus Joseph Zen (陳日君) appeared in Saint Peter’s Square, lined up in the cold with other petitioners, seeking to deliver a letter directly into the hands of...

Retired Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen flew from Hong Kong to Rome in order to deliver in “a secret mission” a letter on behalf of Chinese [underground] Catholics to Pope Francis. Although he is a Cardinal, Zen has no direct access to Francis. Therefore the 86-year-old Cardinal had to "line up in the cold" at the General Audience on Wednesday with other petitioners to deliver the letter to Francis, Taiwan News (January 25) writes. Francis promised Zen "to read" the letter.

In an exclusive interview with Crux, retired bishop of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen says he believes Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin is more interested in diplomacy than he is the Catholic faith. The cardinal spoke critically about the current state of the Holy See's relationship with China and says he believes the Church is willing to compromise too much in order to establish diplomatic relations. HONG KONG - He’s been called “the conscience of China,” lauded by some for his indefatigable promotion of democracy and loathed by others for his hard-line position against the Beijing authorities. At age...

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He is preparing, that is, to grant the communist authorities the privilege of selecting candidates. And he is exiling to an island in the Pacific the highest ranking Chinese archbishop in the curia, contrary to the agreement. But in China, Cardinal Zen has already taken the lead in the rebellion by Sandro Magister ROME, August 14, 2016 – In China, among the one hundred and nine Catholic bishops there are eight who have been consecrated at the behest of the communist authorities and who have never received the pope's approval, thereby incurring excommunication, a couple of them with children and...

The names of the tech workers in this story have been changed.Ten thousand miles from Silicon Valley, in a room near the Black Sea, Yegor Karpenchekov dreams of money. At night, while the rest of Odessa sleeps and cocaine smugglers drift in and out of the port under cover of darkness, Yegor logs onto FaceTime and talks to a 70-year-old woman in San Francisco. Her name is Sally Faubion, and five months ago she recruited Yegor from the freelancer marketplace UpWork to code her apps. She believes "divine intervention" brought them together; for Yegor, it was likely $20 per hour...

“You can follow thousands of catechism courses, thousands of spirituality courses, thousands of yoga or zen courses and all these things. But none of this will be able to give you the freedom as a child (of God). Only the Holy Spirit can prompt your heart to say ‘Father.’ - Pope Francis, 9 January 2015 As we move closer to the Schimod on the Family 2015, I expect more homilies like this. Before the vine is planted the ground needs to be prepared. Papal homilies seem to be the rotavator. The placement of the Catechism of the Catholic Church -...

Members of Burma’s Buddhist majority, including some of its much-respected monks, are increasingly persecuting the country’s long-suffering Muslim minority and adopting an ideology that encourages religious violence. It seems a far way from the Buddhism typically associated with stoic monks and the Lama – who has condemned the violence – and more akin to the sectarian extremism prevalent in troubled corners of the Middle East. The violence has already left nearly 250 Burmese Muslim civilians dead, forced 150,000 from their homes and is getting worse. “You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a...

First paragraph excerpt: Of all the moral precepts instilled in Buddhist monks the promise not to kill comes first, and the principle of non-violence is arguably more central to Buddhism than any other major religion. So why have monks been using hate speech against Muslims and joining mobs that have left dozens dead?