The Center for Human Rights at the Catholic University of America has recently published an op-ed by Chen Guangcheng commemorating the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. To view this article, check the link in the description or go to humanrights.catholic.edu.
William Saunders: Hi, I’m William Saunders. I’m the director of the Center for Human Rights at the Catholic University of America, where our distinguished fellow is Chen Guangcheng, the famous “barefoot lawyer,” and hence the name of our podcast.
But today Guangcheng is not with us, but I’m going to be speaking with Dr. Eric Lai, who is a research fellow in the center for Asian Law at Georgetown University Law Center. And he has been with us before. And you can find those prior podcasts, at our website. And our website is humanrights.catholic.edu. So let’s get started. Welcome back, Eric.
Dr. Eric Lai: Hello, William. Thank you so much for inviting me again.
W: The occasion for our talk is a letter you sent to the Wall Street Journal on May the 9th. Why don’t you tell us about it?
E: Right. I was grateful that the Wall Street Journal published a piece of my letter in reply to the head of the Acton Institute. That was at the time when Cardinal Joseph Zen, the Bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, went to [the] Vatican for the pre-conclave meetings after the departure of our beloved Pope Francis.
And it was quite a surprise, to the public because Cardinal Zen since 2022, he was arrested under Hong Kong’s national security law. And he was also convicted of a local crime for organizing an unlicensed society. And after that, Cardinal Zen is still on police bail as of now.
And after Pope Francis died, he requested to the court that he wish to attend Pope Francis’ funeral, and attend the conclave meetings. There was a precedent that Cardinal Zen was able to attend the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI. And this is his second, this was his second trip to the Vatican after he got arrested.
At the time, there was a public call, also from the Wall Street Journal, written by the head of the Attic Institute asking Cardinal Sen to stay in Rome, because of the risk he could face upon return to Hong Kong. And in response, I wrote a letter of reply to [the] Wall Street Journal trying to see from [the] perspective of both a scholar and a layman to try to explain [that] it seems that Cardinal Zen will appreciate this call.
But he decided to return to Hong Kong to follow the police bail, and to continue to stay with the people in Hong Kong. And this letter that I wrote explained it from the words and deeds of Cardinal Zen in the past two decades. The reasons why he would stay with his flock in Hong Kong rather than staying in Rome for the rest of his cardinalship.
W: So listeners to the program will remember that we’ve had Father Sirico on the podcast before with [a] three part series with him talking about the trial of Jimmy Lai. And he… So just for the listeners, just to recap again, he wrote that Cardinal Zen, when he came for the funeral of Pope Francis, he recommended that he defect. Is that correct?
E: I would say Father Roberts’ lecture was, of course, out of his goodwill and he was right to see the problems in Hong Kong. The draconian National Security Law has made many people vulnerable to continue to exercise their fundamental rights and continue to fully express their rights of religious freedom in Hong Kong, including Cardinal Zen, if I can quote some examples.
Since 2022, the Catholic Diocese in Hong Kong was unable to host any votive masses commemorating the Tiananmen massacre, unlike in the past 30 years that the diocese has done it every year at many parishes in Hong Kong. And now, because of the silencing and environment in Hong Kong, the churches were unable for public worship on this specific votive’s specific intentions.
And on top of that, there was many instances to show, in the past, the Church has been active in engaging in local social movements on the grounds of defending social justice following the Catholic social teaching of the Church. And in June, for example, it was the anniversary of the anti-extradition protests, and back six years ago, the Catholic Church leaders including the bishops, the clergy and the lay people, have been very active to support nonviolent protests during that time. But now, all of these discussions are no longer allowed in Hong Kong. And even prayer meetings, public worship, on these public issues were prohibited.
So in this sense, I would say Father Roberts was right in the analysis. But from my witnesses towards Cardinal Zen’s words and these [examples], Cardinal Zen has many reasons to stay in Hong Kong. Especially when we see after he retired from [being] the Bishop of Hong Kong, he never ceased to visit the prisoners, to help the sick and to continue his pastoral ministry through different ways of life.
And even after he got arrested, we can find in local news media, once, when he was healthy, he could still visit the prisoners. And that is something reported to the local newspapers. And we have seen because of his evangelical work, there were quite a number of prisoners in Hong Kong [who] got baptized because of his work.
So there are many good reasons for Cardinal Zen to stay despite this unfavorable environment.
The Catholic University of America’s Center for Human Rights has published a documentary on the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The documentary features world class human rights experts, from former State Department officials to ambassadors and human rights activists. It can be found on our website at humanrights.catholic.edu.