Profiles of the Persecuted
Cardinal Joseph Zen is bishop emeritus of Hong Kong
Cardinal Joseph Zen is bishop emeritus of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong, and a world-renowned champion of religious freedom, human rights, and democracy.
On May 11, 2022, Hong Kong authorities began an investigation against the 90-year-old Cardinal under its repressive National Security Law. Beijing imposed the law on Hong Kong in 2020, in breach of its agreement with the UK to respect Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous governance. The Cardinal was accused of violating the law’s section punishing “collusion with a foreign power” for having served as a trustee on a defunct legal aid fund to help pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. Also, in connection with the aid fund, he was charged with breaching an administrative regulation on registration. He stood trial on the administrative infringement in September 2022, was found guilty on November 25, 2022, and sentenced to a fine. Meanwhile, the more serious National Security Law investigation against him continues and the state has confiscated his passport, forbidding him to travel without specific permission.
In 2022, Cardinal Charles Bo of Myanmar, in his role as the President of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences, issued an international call for a week of prayer around May 24, the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, for Cardinal Zen, the Church in China, and the other faith communities facing persecution in China. In his letter of May 14, 2022, Cardinal Bo wrote:
My brother Cardinal, His Eminence Joseph Zen, was arrested and faces charges simply because he served as a trustee of a fund which provided legal aid to activists facing court cases. In any system where the rule of law exists, providing assistance to help people facing prosecution meet their legal fees is a proper and accepted right. How can it be a crime to help accused persons have legal defense and representation?
Cardinal Zen was born into a Catholic family in Shanghai in 1932. At age 16, he fled to Hong Kong a year before the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949.
He was ordained a Salesian priest in 1961. Over the next 35 years, he taught philosophy and theology in various Chinese Catholic seminaries and rose to the position of Salesian provincial superior for China.
John Paul II named him a coadjutor bishop of Hong Kong in 1996 and he became the bishop of the diocese in 2002, until his retirement in 2009. Zen was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006.
Cardinal Zen has been a courageous and leading voice of dissent against the repressive policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), particularly as they pertain to religious freedom. He notably warned the Vatican of the dangers in agreeing to collaborate with the CCP in the appointment of Catholic bishops, under the Sino-Vatican agreement of 2018.
Cardinal Zen’s outspokenness has drawn the ire of CCP authorities, who wrote threatening articles against him in the Beijing press in February 2022, accusing him of “inciting” pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, in prior years. While Catholic clerics were subject to show trials and long imprisonments during the Mao period, Cardinal Zen was the first Catholic bishop forced by the CCP to stand trial in many years. His case is part of a general wave of CCP repression, including religious repression.
Bishop James Su Zhimin
The Catholic bishop of Baoding diocese in Hebei province, appointed by Pope John Paul II, Bishop James Su Zhimin has become one of the world’s longest political prisoners. While leading a religious procession in 1996, Bishop Su was taken into police custody and nothing has been learned about him since. Under Mao, he had been imprisoned for 26 years and severely tortured.
Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin
In 2018 was demoted to the position of auxiliary bishop, to make way for a bishop preferred by the government. He was evicted from his home on January 15, 2019, the day that China initiated its highest-level emergency response to the coronavirus. The 61-year-old prelate was forced to sleep on the doorstep of the church administrative building. After international criticism, he regained access to his apartment, but its utilities were shut off. Under constant government pressure, he found it impossible to carry out his episcopal ministry and returned to his family’s home in 2020.
Bishop Augustine Cui Tai
The 70-year old Catholic bishop Augustine Cui Tai, of Xuanhua Diocese, Hebei province, has been in detention without due process for most of the last 13 years. On June 19, 2020, Bishop Cui Tai was mostly recently taken into detention, after being released for several months.
Fr. Lu Genjun
On November 2, 2020, Fr. Lu Genjun, vicar general of Baoding, was also taken into custody and secretly detained. He has been repeatedly incarcerated, including for an eight-year period between 2006 and 2014.
Pastor John Cao
American resident Pastor John Cao was sentenced in 2017 to seven years of imprisonment for illegally crossing China’s border into Myanmar to give aid.
Pastor Wang Yi
Pastor Wang Yi is among China’s most prominent Christian voices and founder of the underground Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, was sentenced in December 2019 to a nine-year prison term.
Gao Zhisheng
One of China’s most famous human rights lawyers, Gao Zhisheng, from Yulin, has suffered relentless oppression over 16 years for having courageously criticized the CCP in defense of religious minorities, particularly persecuted Falun Gong students. After renouncing his CCP membership in 2005, he was disbarred, placed under house arrest, imprisoned without due process, severely tortured and taken into secret detention. In 2014, he was transferred from prison to indefinite house arrest. In 2017, Gao was apprehended by police after escaping house arrest and has disappeared into secret detention. The CCP refuses to provide his family any information on the 57-year-old attorney’s situation or whereabouts.
Jimmy Lai
On April 16, 2021, Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong entrepreneur, founder of the pro-democracy media group Apple Daily and a leading advocate for fundamental freedoms, was sentenced to 14-months in prison for peacefully protesting an extradition law with China in 2019. The 75-year-old Catholic layman also faced other charges brought under China’s vaguely-worded National Security Law, applied in violation of Hong Kong’s autonomy guaranteed in the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong.
On December 10, 2022, Lai was sentenced to a 5-year and 9-month prison-term for fraud, fined $2 million in Hong Kong dollars, and disqualified for 8 years as a company director. Under the National Security Law, Lai’s biggest trial will begin in September 2023. Facing a charge of “collusion with foreign forces,” Lai may be sentenced to life imprisonment.