You’re listening to part three of a Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China interview with Father Robert Sirico, on the arrest and trial of human rights activist, Jimmy Lai. To listen to the other parts of this episode, please check the links in the description.

Fr. Siroco: I think his Catholic faith has sharpened the clarity of his view on this. I think that in his constitution, as a businessman who’s used to thinking outside the box, he has that temperament. But I think what his spirituality has added to it is a kind of naming of it, a kind of reinforcement of it through prayer. And the artwork that you described at the beginning that he was sending out of that prison – I have a Crucifix which he did that for me – that is an indication of the depth of his spirituality. Cardinal Zen told me that he was also reading the Summa Theologica, which is not an easy read.

Bill Saunders: You mean Jimmy is reading that in prison?

Fr. Siroco: Yes. 

Bill Saunders: His faith and his courage, it almost renders you speechless, because it’s really the man against the Leviathan. The Chinese Communist Party is, in my opinion, the greatest threat to human rights in the whole world, both because of what they do to their own people, but what they kind of model and export in terms of the surveillance state for the rest of the world through their technology. This is one man kind of standing up to that.

Fr. Siroco: Let’s remember this. I don’t believe in optimism; optimism is just how you look at things. I believe in hope, and here’s my hope. The objective value of human life and of human freedom that’s being exemplified and embodied in Jimmy Lai. There are a lot of weaknesses in China right now. When we look at their capabilities, we’re frightened by the danger we see. But people had that kind of attitude just prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are things on record three weeks before the collapse of the Soviet Union, where economists were saying that the Soviets have a very solid economy and all of this. 

Just what I saw in Hong Kong tells me that there’s an economic shakeup. The effects of COVID-19 are affecting them like it has to everybody else. But I’ll tell you, the inexorable thing that they can’t get out of – they made this mess themselves – is their demographic winter that they’re facing. They don’t have the people. They’re lying about the numbers. We’re seeing a lot of these collapses for the building projects that they have. A lot of the insurance stuff and the banking stuff is bankrupting whole families. This all comes as a result of the demographic winter they’re facing, because they don’t have anymore people. Then there are a number of other things, such as the disaffection in the military that requires President Xi to replace top military officers in very sensitive positions. 

Just today, you may have heard on the news that they are not allowing President Xi to hold the Communist Party Conference, whatever that’s called. He will not continue the tradition of holding a press conference, as they do not want him subjected to questions about the economy. I don’t say all of that to say, “Oh, it’s nothing, we’re going to win.”, because at any moment, they could do something with Taiwan. However, that could be the end of them if they moved that imprudently.

Bill Saunders: Yeah, those are great points. I tell my students in my master’s program that they can’t understand what it was like in 1988, when all the pundits were saying it was probably going to be a 100 year stalemate between East and West. Then a year later, the Berlin Wall came down; it was incredible. Just almost overnight, the world changed because one country, then another, and another; practically everywhere in the end except for China. The other thing is about the demographic problem, and I want our listeners to connect this back to Guangcheng. The reason the Chinese Communist Party gave him a show trial and put him in prison and that house arrest and everything was because he exposed the forced abortions under the One Child Policy. China has aborted hundreds of millions of people. But I agree their economy is just very weak so there is hope. I agree with you. Obviously, Jimmy agrees with you, too.

Fr. Siroco: The problem that blinded them [The CPP] to these kinds of things, that blinded them to the danger of the One Child Policy, that blinded them to danger of forced abortions is this Communist ideology that has an economic philosophy which fails to see the human person at the center of it. It sees historic forces as pushing the ultimate triumph of the proletariat over the capitalist. It fails to see that, and I’ll use St. John Paul II’s phrase, “That man’s greatest value is man himself, that the human person is the resource of greatest resort.” That’s where wealth comes from: human minds. Human minds like Jimmy Lai.

Bill Saunders: Yep. I just remember John Paul II also saying that the fundamental error of totalitarianism is anthropological. The system is based on an untruth, so eventually, it’s going to collapse. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Fr. Siroco: It’s just how many people does the CPP take with it.

Bill Saunders: Exactly. Each person counts infinitely, so we don’t sacrifice anybody today for a better world tomorrow. Jimmy Lai standing up to them emphasizes that. I also want to mention for the people listening that, again, Guangcheng is friends with Jimmy Lai. Gaungcheng said that when he came to America, Jimmy Lai was trying to help him because he had a miraculous escape from China around 2012. When he kind of came to America, he came out of a certain sense of obscurity in a rural part of China, and then he’s in the glare of everything in America. So he’s good friends with Jimmy Lai and we have always been strong supporters of the Umbrella Movement. There was so much hope there with the demonstrations and the Umbrella Movement in China; however, I think COVID-19 really gave the Chinese Communist Party an opportunity to crack down on the democracy movement.

Fr. Siroco: I think that’s right. But even then, that has come back to bite them now, because of the extreme reaction to the COVID policies that we saw a year and a half ago. All of that is still there, it’s all still right under the surface. So, let’s pray and hope.

Bill Saunders: Yeah. Father, we’re in Lent right now. Do you have any thoughts or reflections for people listening? Jimmy Lai, he’s there in prison awaiting the end of the whole legal process during Lent. Would you like to offer any insight or spiritual direction during this time?

Fr. Siroco: Well, I think this really goes to the core of what we’re talking about. The core of Jimmy’s strength, of where he is deriving his strength from. You see, if you don’t believe in God, if you’re a materialist in the way that the Communists profess to be, the only thing that matters is the material, the physical world in which we live. Jimmy doesn’t see the world that way; he sees it from the lens of transcendence. What that means is that he already sees the end of this struggle, and the fuel that he derives from is the fuel  that we can derive for our own individual Lenten disciplines.

Lent asks us to confront limitations, to confront hardships; to voluntarily give of ourselves, of our comfort, of our control, of our wealth, and of our time in order to bring about something that will be redemptive as the result of that suffering. This is why I don’t think it’s any coincidence why the majority of the artwork that Jimmy has produced has been of the Crucifixion, because what the Crucifixion did in history was convert the ignominious symbol of capital punishment in the most painful way possible into the sign of triumph. That’s what redemptive suffering is about. That’s what Lent is about. That’s what Jimmy is going through. I can’t think of a better source of reflection for each of us in this holy season of abstinence and self-abnegation than to think about the struggles, the real struggles that this billionaire has fully and freely accepted to undergo for the redemption of his own soul. I think if he was here, he would say that it’s also for the redemption and salvation of his people of China and of Hong Kong.

Bill Saunders: That’s very true. I hope people will reflect on it, pray for Jimmy, and pray for the Chinese people who suffer under this terrible totalitarian regime, particularly the abuses that are going on now in Hong Kong. Father, thank you for joining us on this podcast. I think Jimmy is a great example for all of us.

Fr. Siroco: He is. Thank you. Great to be with you.

Bill Saunders: Thank you, and join us next time for another podcast of the Barefoot Lawyer Reports. Thank you, Father, we appreciate it.

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