Cardinal Joseph Zen (陳日君) fled the communist takeover of China as a teenager and found sanctuary in Hong Kong, a bastion of religious freedom that he now fears could disappear under Beijing’s tightening grip.
The 88-year-old former bishop of Hong Kong has spent his retirement looking on with increasing alarm at the Vatican’s embrace of Beijing — and the imposition of a sweeping security law has only heightened his fears.
“As I can see in the whole world, where you take away the freedoms of the people, religious freedoms also disappear,” Zen said from Salesian Mission he joined as a novice seven decades ago.
Hong Kong has been a haven for faiths both before and after its 1997 handover to China. On the authoritarian — and officially atheist — mainland, religion is strictly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) crackdowns have intensified — from the demolition of underground churches to the widespread incarceration of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang and a new campaign to “sinicize” religions.
In contrast, Hong Kong boasts a dizzying array of faiths, including proselytizing groups barred from the mainland, such as the Latter Day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Falun Gong.
However, Zen wonders how long that can last.
After huge and often violent democracy protests convulsed Hong Kong last year, China’s leaders launched a clampdown and on June 30, imposed a broadly worded National Security Law that outlawed certain views and ushered in a new political chill.
A DIVIDED FLOCK
Authorities say religious freedom would not be affected by the new law, which targets secession, subversion, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces.
However, Zen believes the writing is on the wall.
“I think the law requires absolute obedience to the government,” he said.
Hong Kong’s religious communities reflect the territory’s own political divisions and diversity.
Many churches have Beijing loyalist congregations and Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) is herself a devout Catholic.
Shortly before the new security law was unveiled, Beijing’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong gathered more than 50 religious leaders. It said it obtained more than 20 blessings for the law — including from acting Catholic leader Cardinal John Tong (湯漢), as well as a number of prominent pro-government Protestant and Evangelical churches.
Tong has been especially vocal. In two recent letters, he criticized clergy for “inciting hatred” by discussing politics in sermons and warned that people sympathetic to the democracy protests were undermining social harmony.
PASTORS FLEE
Not all religious leaders are comforted by assurances their freedom would remain intact.
Many churches in Hong Kong view the CCP with deep suspicion and openly support the democracy movement.
Some leading figures of earlier protests in 2014 were evangelicals, such as law professor Benny Tai (戴耀廷), sociology professor Chan Kin-man (陳健民) and Reverend Chu Yiu-ming (朱耀明), all of whom were eventually convicted for their activism.
Then, when last year’s much larger democracy protests exploded, sympathetic churches often opened their doors to crowds fleeing tear gas, and the hymn Sing Hallelujah to the Lord became a protest anthem.
With police ramping up arrests against protest leaders, some religious figures have joined those leaving Hong Kong for good.
In August, Wong Siu-yung (王少勇) and Yeung Kin-keung (楊建強), two evangelical pastors who signed a joint “Gospel Declaration” critical of Beijing, announced they had fled overseas to an undisclosed destination.
Two months later, pro-Beijing newspapers in Hong Kong accused the pair of “inciting secession and subversion” — two of the new national security crimes.
Veteran pro-democracy pastor Yuen Tin-yau (袁天佑) said he believed it was naive to think the security law would not affect the faithful.
“It’s a wide strike on freedoms and human rights,” he said. “Religious freedom cannot stand aloof and unscathed.”
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