Cardinal Zen’s arrest will test effectiveness of Vatican-Beijing agreement

May 13, 2022

By Edward Pentin
The arrests of Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun and four pro-democracy activists on charges of alleged “collusion with foreign forces” pose a direct challenge to the Holy See and the effectiveness of its recent controversial efforts to work more closely with Beijing.

The Holy See issued a brief statement on Wednesday afternoon saying it had “learned with concern the news of Cardinal Zen’s arrest and is following the situation with great attention.”

The 90-year-old bishop emeritus of Hong Kong was released from custody late Wednesday but on police bail and so, still faces pending charges.

The cardinal has been an outspoken critic of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s autocratic rule and his arrest comes just three and a half years after the Holy See signed a secret and controversial provisional agreement with Beijing aimed at legitimising the appointment of bishops.

The agreement, which the cardinal decried as a “betrayal” of the underground Church loyal to Rome, was renewed in late 2020. The latest developments will test the effectiveness of those accords and whether they have, in fact, offered the Holy See any true bargaining power. The Vatican has always argued that patience is necessary before these agreements bear fruit and it will be of interest to see how they respond as the cardinal’s case proceeds. His arrest is also a significant test for his current successor, Bishop Stephen Chow Sau-yan, who took charge of the diocese last December.

The cardinal was arrested with four others for running a now-disbanded fund that helped defend those apprehended for pro-democracy protests.
The “612 Humanitarian Relief Fund,” set up in 2019, raised more than $32 million (RM140.6 million) for those affected, but Hong Kong police shut it down last year under the territory’s national security law that came into force in 2020.

Cardinal Zen and the US government have criticised the law for eroding civil and political freedoms that Beijing had promised Hong Kong under the “one country, two systems” arrangement when the territory was returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997. --NCRegister