China tightens grip on Catholics

The arrest under Hong Kong’s draconian national security law of 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen represents a shocking new low in the disgraceful drive by Beijing’s atheist communist rulers to oppress the territory. Cardinal Zen’s crime, in Beijing’s eyes, apparently is that he and others arrested with him were trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which was set up to offer legal advice, psychological counselling and emergency financial aid to those who were injured, arrested or jailed for their involvement in the mass pro-democracy demonstrations that swept Hong Kong in 2019.

For that so-called crime, Cardinal Zen and the others, including former opposition MP Margaret Ng, singer-songwriter Denise Ho and academic Hui Po-keung, face a maximum penalty of life in prison. It would be hard to think of a more appalling or more heinous case of gross overreach by Beijing or one more deserving of global outrage. Having crushed political dissent, a free press and an independent judiciary in Hong Kong, Chinese President Xi Jinping clearly has set his malicious sights on what remains of religious liberty, with the globally admired prelate his immediate target in seeking to deter others from helping those held for taking part in pro-democracy protests.

Beijing’s fear is that any surviving remnant of freedom in the vibrant global hub that Hong Kong was before it was brought to its knees by Chinese Communist Party repression could spread to the Chinese mainland. Religious freedom cannot be tolerated lest Christian beliefs spread in China outside state control. Respect for elders may have formed the foundation of Chinese culture and morality for thousands of years. But clearly not when it comes to Cardinal Zen, even though it is difficult to imagine why Beijing should be so fearful of a 90-year-old priest. His arrest should weigh heavily with Pope Francis as well as Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the main architect of the widely criticised secret deal that gives the CCP control over the appointment of Catholic bishops in China. Cardinal Zen, Hong Kong’s bishop emeritus, has long been among the foremost critics of China’s religious persecution and what has been described as the “Faustian deal” done by the church with the CCP that requires bishops be acceptable to the atheist communist leadership. He has publicly admonished the Vatican for “selling out the Catholic Church in China”. Following his arrest on Wednesday, the Vatican said: “The Holy See has learned with concern the news of the arrest of Cardinal Zen and is following the development of the situation with extreme attention.”

That weak response is hardly adequate in a situation that recalls the appalling persecution of Catholic bishops during the Mao Zedong era when cardinal Kung Pin-Mei, the Catholic archbishop of Shanghai, spent 30 years in communist prisons for defying attempts by the regime to control Catholics through the government-approved Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. The Vatican must be unrelenting in its defence of Cardinal Zen and those arrested with him. Otherwise, with Mr Xi’s hand-picked enforcer, John Lee, “elected” as Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive in succession to the supine Carrie Lam, the likelihood is that even greater oppression and more human rights abuses are about to be unleashed by Beijing’s diktat. Mr Lee’s so-called election was itself a farce that contravened just about every tenet of the Basic Law Beijing pledged to maintain when Hong Kong was handed over by Britain in 1997. He is claimed to have won 99 per cent of the votes in a Beijing-dominated election committee – the sort of overwhelming victory that even autocracies such as Russia, Belarus and Iran might shy away from claiming.

The nonagenarian Cardinal Zen’s shameful arrest is an ominous sign of the deep darkness that has overtaken Hong Kong and what lies ahead for its people as Beijing tightens its vice of communist repression and intolerance.