Hong Kong’s cardinal Zen met Pope Francis

HONG KONG: A 90-year-old Hong Kong cardinal who has criticised the Vatican´s dealings with China received a private audience with Pope Francis late on Friday, according to the Jesuit-run America Magazine.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, one of Asia´s highest-ranking Catholics, is being investigated under Hong Kong´s national security law after his arrest last year over a now-disbanded fund that helped pro-democracy protesters.

He is among the scores of democracy campaigners facing legal threats in Hong Kong as China stamps out dissent in the former British colony after huge and often violent protests in 2019.

Zen was at the Holy See to attend the funeral of former pope Benedict XVI, a trip that required special court permission.

His passport had been confiscated as part of the Hong Kong investigation after his arrest for “collusion with foreign forces”.

Zen has accused the Vatican in recent years of “selling out” China´s underground Catholic community after Pope Francis sought to improve ties with Beijing.

He requested a meeting with the pope in 2020 but was turned away. Their last reported private audience was in 2018.

Zen thanked Francis for appointing Jesuit Stephen Chow in 2021 to lead Hong Kong´s Catholic diocese, giving the city “a good bishop”, America Magazine reported.

Zen also spoke at Friday´s meeting about visiting and baptising some prisoners in Hong Kong´s jails, which he had been doing for more than a decade, it said.