Hong Kong’s Roman Catholic cardinal met with Chinese church leaders last week in a rare China visit, but afterward decried that he couldn’t discuss sensitive topics between Beijing and the Vatican during the tightly controlled meeting.
China set up an official state church after the Chinese Communist Party came to power six decades ago, but many local believers went underground to worship. More than 60 million Chinese belong to independent churches loyal to the Vatican — some three times the size of the official church, according to academics and church activists.
In a recent blog posting, Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen (陳日君樞機) said he visited Shanghai on Monday and Tuesday last week, where he met with Shanghai Bishop Jin Luxian (金魯賢) and his deputy Xing Wenzhi (邢文之) of the official church.
An outspoken China critic, Zen was last allowed in China in 2004, according to Hong Kong media, and this visit was his first since he was promoted to cardinal in 2006. He frequently denounces China’s lack of democracy and religious freedom, so his visit has raised hopes of goodwill from Beijing.
Zen, however, is less optimistic and expressed a yearning for religious freedom and freedom of expression in China in a blog entry he posted on Friday last week.
“How terrifying this system is! It has built a wall between people’s hearts. It has installed a padlock on people’s mouths,” Zen wrote. “Aren’t we all adults who love our country? But we can’t discuss the major issues concerning our country. Aren’t we all leaders of the church? But we can’t discuss the future of the church.”
“Lord! When can we Chinese people open our hearts and speak and behave like proper human beings?” he asked.
Asked about the prospect of better Sino-Vatican relations in light of his visit, Zen said: “It’s nothing like that,” Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper reported yesterday.
“I didn’t expect to do anything big in these two-and-a-half days ... I couldn’t meet with any underground bishops. It also wasn’t possible to have a chat with the clergyman at the monasteries,” Zen was quoted as saying on Saturday after taking part in a march to show solidarity with Chinese Christians.
Zen didn’t immediately return a call from The Associated Press yesterday. A man who answered the telephone at the Shanghai diocese refused to transfer the call to Jin, asking a reporter to seek permission for an interview first. Calls to the state-sanctioned Chinese church, the Catholic Patriotic Association of China, went unanswered.
The Vatican maintained a presence in Hong Kong while it was a British colony and has been allowed to stay since the territory returned to Chinese rule, but in China, the diplomatic stalemate has persisted.
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