Francis wanted to receive the bishop emeritus of Hong Kong in a private audience before his forced return because the five-day permit granted by the judges to attend Benedict XVI’s funeral was expiring. “I hope that one day he will be able to visit the Sheshan shrine,” the cardinal told the pontiff. Meanwhile in Xi’an, the chair that belonged to the great Chinese bishop Antonio Li Duan, his successor also presided over a solemn mass in suffrage for Benedict XVI.
Rome () – Before his forced return to Hong Kong this morning, Pope Francis wanted to receive Card. Joseph Zen Zechiun. The meeting took place in the Vatican, in the Casa Santa Marta, as reported to the Jesuit magazine America the cardinal, who will turn 91 in a few days, on January 13. Cardinal Zen was arrested in May on a matter related to the controversial national security law and went on trial a few weeks ago. He was sentenced to pay a fine for not reporting on a fund to help victims of the repression of protests in 2019, but his passport is still seized and he was only able to travel to Rome for Benedict XVI’s funeral thanks to a very brief permit. special granted by the judge.
Cardinal Zen – an extremely outspoken figure in his disagreement with respect to the provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops signed by the Holy See with Beijing and renewed last October – told America that he had had a friendly conversation with Pope Francis. Although he respected the confidentiality of the content, he said he thanked the pontiff for giving Hong Kong “a good bishop” (Msgr Stephen Chow Sau-yan, appointed in 2021). He also spoke with the Pope about his ministry among prisoners in Hong Kong jails, a pastoral work he has been doing for more than 10 years. He told that in these years he had baptized some inmates and continues to carry out this ministry today. There are currently more than 1,300 people in Hong Kong jails or correctional centers for political offenses related to the 2019 demonstrations against the national security law.
Francis showed Cardinal Zen a statue of Our Lady of Sheshan – the Marian image venerated in the Shanghai shrine – which he received as a gift the day he was elected and keeps in his bedroom. Cardinal Zen, who was born in Shanghai – where his family fled after the arrival of Mao’s communists – replied: “I hope one day you can visit the shrine.”
Meanwhile, significant testimonies of the affection with which Chinese Catholics have remembered the figure of Benedict XVI and his love for their country continue to arrive from mainland China. In the historic city of Xi’an, in the State of Shaanxi, Bishop Antonio Dang Mingyan – successor to the great rebuilder of Catholicism in China, Bishop Antonio Li Duan, whom Pope Ratzinger invited in 2005 to participate in the Synod on the Eucharist- on the day of the funeral in the Vatican he celebrated a solemn suffrage mass in the cathedral of San Francisco (see photo 3). The Chinese Catholic site xinde.org reports that all the celebrants bowed three times before the image of Pope Benedict. “He faithfully fulfilled his mission,” said Bishop Dang Mingyan, inviting the faithful to prayer. In the other dioceses of Shaanxi, suffrage celebrations were also held in memory of Benedict XVI.
