The Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher and Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, who lived in Hong Kong for eight years, released testimony in defense of the 91-year-old bishop emeritus whose trial is expected to begin shortly. “China and the Church have in him a devoted son, of whom there is no shame,” he said. “He calls for the freedom that every authentic political and civil system must defend.”
Rome () – “Cardinal Zen should not be condemned. Hong Kong, China and the Church have in him a devoted son, of whom there is no shame. This is a testimony to the truth”. It is what the card writes. Fernando Filoni in an open letter, released today from Rome. Filoni was Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and today is Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem.
Filoni’s remarks come as Hong Kong awaits the trial against Card. Zen Zekiunwhich would start next week. The 91-year-old bishop emeritus of Hong Kong will be tried along with five other pro-democracy figures, accused of failing to properly register a humanitarian fund of which they were administrators. An issue that has become a symbol in a city where -as we remembered yesterday- there is more than 1,000 people imprisoned or tried for charges of a political nature.
‘In a judicial process,’ writes Card. Filoni, “he who can speak, let him speak.” Nor did Jesus avoid this in a trial that would mark the history and life of a man who aroused admiration and profound religious respect: John the Baptist. Jesus also paid for his testimony of the truth: “What is the truth?” Pilate asked him ironically in a dramatic trial in which the Nazarene was accused of violating the sovereignty of Rome and was about to be sentenced to death. Another trial is taking place these days. in HK. A city that I love very much because I lived there for more than eight years.”
Filoni refers to the years when he was sent by the Holy See to Hong Kong. In 1992 he came with the task of opening a Study Mission to closely follow the situation of the Church in China. “There I met Father Joseph Zen Ze-kiun”, recalls the Cardinal, “he was the Provincial of the Salesians. A pure Chinese. Very intelligent, sharp, with a winning smile. They told me:” He is a man! from Shanghai! Little by little I understood the meaning”. Filoni recalls his contribution to the encounter between cultures, although he always remained fully Chinese: “he never denied his identity”. In this sense, he compares him to two figures such as the great intellectual of the Ming era, Xu Guangqi, and Jesuit Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian, both from Shanghai.
She then recalls how this was “a city of martyrs at the time of the Nazi-style occupation by the Japanese.” Zen’s own family was victimized, to the point of being forced to flee, losing everything. “The young Zen”, comments Filoni, “never forgot that experience, which forged in him a coherence of character and lifestyle; and then a great love for freedom and justice. Shanghai was heroic, and his children were considered heroes, almost untouchable even by the communist regime. Cardinal Zen is one of the last epigones of those families. Heroes were never to be humiliated; that was also the mentality of the establishment Chinese, as it is in the West for the victims of our own “Nazifascism”.
Then, Filoni recalls the years in which the cardinal – now on trial – taught in seminaries in mainland China, accepting Bishop Jin Luxian’s invitation: “He accepted for the good of the Church, a martyr – he comments – who rose from his martyrdom and sought the path of survival; this was flexibility, not giving in. He looked forward and did not spend time judging people: that was his philosophy of life. Political systems – he said – can be judged, and on them his Thought was clear, but people were not; judgment rests with God, who knows the hearts of men. His respect and support for the person has always been the cornerstone of his human and priestly vision, and continues to be so to this day. today, even if he is tried today in Hong Kong”.
Filoni mentions the “moral and ideal integrity” of Cardinal Zen, which led John Paul II to name him a bishop and Benedict XVI a cardinal. “Some consider it a bit harsh,” says Filoni, “and who wouldn’t be in the face of injustice and the demand for freedom that every authentic political and civil system should defend?
“I must testify to two more things”, adds the Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, “Card. Zen is a ‘man of God’; sometimes intemperate, but submissive to the love of Christ, who he loved as his priest, deeply in love, like Don Bosco, with youth. For her he has been a credible teacher. Therefore, he is a “true Chinese”. Among those I have met, there is no one of whom I can say that he is so truly “loyal” like him. And that is why I give this testimony, which “in a trial is essential,” he concludes. “Cardinal Zen should not be condemned. Hong Kong, China and the Church have in him a devoted son, of whom there is no shame. This is a testament to the truth.”
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