HONG KONG-GREAT BRITAIN A permanent deacon among the Hong Kongers who emigrated en masse to London

James Shin Ka-leung will be ordained on July 6 in Westminster. He was already preparing for this ministry when he left Hong Kong and his legal profession in 2021, like thousands of other compatriots who fled the repression imposed by Beijing. He will coordinate pastoral care for Hong Kong Catholic migrants for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

London (/Agencies) – One of the thousands of Hong Kongers who have moved to the United Kingdom in recent years will be ordained a permanent deacon in London and will minister among the many Catholics who make up the new wave of expatriates. The Hong Kong diocesan weekly, the Sunday Examiner, tells his story. Before leaving for Britain with his family in 2021, James Shin Ka-leung was a lawyer in Hong Kong and was part of the group of candidates for the permanent diaconate of the Chinese diocese. He had begun his training in 2015, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

He will be ordained on 6 July at Westminster Cathedral in London by Auxiliary Bishop James Curry, along with two other new permanent deacons of the diocese of the British capital: Eze Ugoala and Paul Hewitt. On 29 June, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales had already appointed Deacon Shin as coordinator of a commission to provide pastoral assistance to new Catholic immigrants in Hong Kong. Significantly, his ordination will also be attended by Fr Bruno Lepeu, a French missionary from the Missions Etrangères de Paris who knows the Chinese context well and will soon move to London to provide pastoral assistance to immigrants in Hong Kong.

Almost 300,000 Hong Kongers have decided to take advantage of the doors opened by London to those who, by virtue of their status as a former British colony, had dual citizenship in the last three years – following the harsh repression imposed by Beijing with the national security law. And in this exodus, made up largely of young families, as we mentioned a few weeks ago in Christians are very numerous. According to a survey by the British and Foreign Bible Society, they make up 18% of the population, a very high percentage compared to the numerical consistency of Christian communities in China, Taiwan or Hong Kong.

Shin commented on Sunday Examiner “Many immigrants, when they try to integrate into local parishes, miss the liturgical and pastoral practices they are familiar with in Hong Kong. For this reason they have formed numerous small groups in various regions that organize pastoral activities, such as prayer groups, catechism courses and Sunday lessons.”

Shin added that there is a strong desire among immigrants for Hong Kong priests to visit and celebrate mass and carry out pastoral activities in Cantonese. The Auxiliary Bishop of Hong Kong, Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-shing, will visit several regions of the United Kingdom in the middle of this month and communities are eager to welcome him.

Four new permanent deacons were also ordained in the diocese of Hong Kong on Saturday, June 29: Wilson Choi Wai-san, Joseph Ng Wai Hang, Francis Mok Chun-keung and John Siu Sze-chuen. The local Church began to ordain permanent deacons again in 1997. Today there are about thirty and they constitute a significant experience for the Asian context, where there are still relatively few dioceses that have introduced this ministry.