You’re listening to part one of a Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China. Interview with Father Robert Sirico, on the arrest and trial of human rights activist Jimmy Lai.

Bill Saunders: I’m Bill Saunders, Director of the Center for Human Rights at Catholic University, where Chen Guangchen is a distinguished fellow. Today on our Barefoot Lawyer Podcast, we are really happy to welcome Father Sirico. He is the founder of the Acton Institute and is very much a figure in the media about Catholic things. I was happy to see that he got a Master’s degree at the Catholic University of America where we are. Welcome, father.

Fr. Sirico: Thank you. It’s good to be back at my alma mater, even if only virtually.

Bill Saunders: Yeah, it’s great to talk to you because the people listening in may not be aware, but about ten days ago we had an event at Catholic University of America, at which we received a drawing that Jimmy Lai had done of the crucified Christ. That was given by Bill McGurn and his wife, Julie, to the Catholic University of America, and specifically to the Bush School of Business. Father Sirica was there and we got to chat a little bit. He agreed to come and talk to us. Father, I really would like to turn it over to you, and have you tell people about your relationship with Jimmy Lai, as well as some of your involvement in his situation now.

Fr. Sirico: Well, I met Jimmy really at the suggestion of Bill McGurn, who at the time was the editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal. He suggested it because of my work with the Acton Institute, which is largely dealing with economics and faith. So we do a lot with business and business people and help them understand their work as a vocation, not just as a kind of utilitarian enterprise. Bill said to me, “I have met this man. I’ve gotten to know him. And, in fact, he was just baptized a Catholic. He’s a Chinese businessman and now the editor of the largest newspaper in Hong Kong, Apple Daily. And I think the two of you would hit it off.” Well, we did. We met in a restaurant in one of those very tall hotels in Hong Kong. It was an Italian restaurant, as I remember. The papal nuncio, who now is Cardinal Filoni, but at the time was the representative of the Vatican to all of the Asian countries that didn’t have their own embassies, was also there. We got to know one another, and a friendship was just struck up. I shortly thereafter met Theresa. They wanted to go to Rome. I remember they went to Rome, and I was in Rome, and they said, well, can you show us around? And I sure did. We went down to Pompeii, which is where my family has its origin, and ate much too much good food throughout Italy, which is not a difficult thing to do. So all of that is to say that I got to know Jimmy very well, immensely respect his integrity, and knew that even then there was tension with the government.

Because, as you may recall, Jimmy is a serial entrepreneur, really. He had begun a clothing line called Giordano. When Tiananmen Square took place, he printed t-shirts with Tiananmen Square on it and was selling them in China. Well, they would have none of that. So they forced him to sell his company in China. It still exists in China and in Hong Kong; you can see it all over the place. So he turned his attention to media. In those days when I spoke to him, we talked about trade with China and sanctions. That was a big debate at the time; most favored trade status of China. We interviewed him for a documentary that we did way back then about 20 years ago now called the call of the entrepreneur. He was one of  three business people in it. It was very moving, the way he spoke about his vocation, his love of freedom, and his acquaintance with the writings of people like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. I could tell a lot of other anecdotes; a lot of them would involve good food, Chinese and otherwise, and great conversations with interesting people at his home and then back in the United States as well.

Bill Saunders: You know, Father, I want to mention this so that we don’t forget; I want people listening to know this. The Acton Institute did this wonderful film about Jimmy Lai called the Hong Konger, which we premiered about a year and a half ago at Catholic University of America at the Bush school. For anybody who hasn’t seen it, they should look for it. We’ll find it and watch it because it’s a very good film about this man. I also want to mention, Father, that I’m also one of the people who is on the board and a founder of the Catholic Prayer Breakfast we have in Washington. Again, about a year and a half ago, we recognized Jimmy Lai with a Christe Fidelius Lacy Award for his faithful Catholic witness.

Fr. Sirico: Yes.

Bill Saunders: We were talking and when you spoke at Catholic University of America, you mentioned where you had seen Jimmy his wife last. Can you tell us about that?

Fr. Sirico: Well, the previous time I had seen Jimmy, I’d seen him and been to Hong Kong in 2018 and of course had dinner with Martin Li, Jimmy Lai, Cardinal Zen, Teresa, and Audrey Dillithorne, who’s a very interesting person. People who are interested in all things China. People really need to read her book. I’m sorry that I don’t recall the name of it right off the top of my head, but it’s a fascinating book about her life growing up in China as a child under Anglican missionary parents. She eventually converted to Catholicism.

She was very instrumental in helping me with contacts when I went on a trip in the year 2000 to mainland China, up the Yangtze River, to meet one of the bishops who was the last bishop who was appointed by Rome and recognized by the Chinese government together. That’s a whole interesting story in and of itself. Anyways, that was the last time I saw Jimmy free, other than virtually when we gave him an award, the Faith and Freedom award, before his arrest. Then we produced this film because we saw what was happening, we saw what was coming, and we thought, we need what is desperately needed is a film that will speak about freedom. And  what better lens to project that message through than the life of Jimmy Lai? So we took clips of different places that he had spoken and of the demonstrations that went on.

Remember, there were 2 million people on the streets of Hong Kong in the middle of the Umbrella Uprising. We put that together, and we interviewed Lord Alton and Chris Patton, who was the final governor of free Hong Kong. Bill McGurn was in it and a number of other people as well. We put that film out and last Aprilwe found out that the Hong Kong police had demanded that Google take it down from YouTube, because we put it out as a film available to anyone on YouTube. Just about the time that the Hong Kong police called it treasonous and demanded that it be taken down, which Google ignored, TikTok also took three clips that we had put on TikTok off the web. They said they were violent. Well, the violence was the demonstrations.

So when the editorial, I think of. As the Wall Street Journal and several other editorial writers objected to this, they put them back up, but they wouldn’t put the talking heads on. They said that was violent. It was just the people talking about the philosophy of China. Anyway, we produced this, and with all of the news, it has been viewed by more than 3 million people already and has received numerous film awards.. So in December, here I am thinking I hadn’t been to Hong Kong or to China since 2018, and I was looking for my old passport. My passport had changed, so I looked to see if my visa was still active to get back in. Of course, my good friends really advised me not to do this; this was not a wise idea. They said, “with the extradition, treaties, they could move you.” Even as we’re speaking now, they’re amending the National Security Law to make it tighter and to fit. But I really felt I needed to do more. I mean, I’ve spoken out like others, writing and doing a lot of interviews. We produced this movie, but I felt something personal. This is a personal thing to me; it’s not just a political commitment. In December,  I couldn’t find the old passport. So, I just googled, “What kind of a visa do I need to get into Hong Kong?” And found out that Americans don’t need a visa to get into Hong Kong. So I thought, “Well, I’m going to go to Hong Kong.”

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 catholic.edu/chr