Cardinal Joseph Zen met privately with Pope Francis on Friday after attending Benedict XVI’s funeral.
Newsroom (09/01/2023 12:46 PM, Gaudium Press) — The Hong Kong authorities temporarily released the passport of the 90-year-old cardinal, who was arrested last year under the city’s national security law, to allow him to travel to Rome.
According to America Magazine, Cardinal Zen met Pope Francis in the afternoon on Jan. 6 in the Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse.
“It was wonderful. He was so very warm!” the Chinese cardinal told America Magazine.
Cardinal Zen, formerly the Bishop of Hong Kong, arrived in St. Peter’s Square dressed in red vestments and walking with a cane to concelebrate the funeral Mass of Benedict XVI on Jan. 5.
On Jan. 6, the feast of the Epiphany, the cardinal visited the tomb of Benedict XVI in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica before leaving Rome on the morning of Jan. 7, America reported.
“Our beloved Pope Emerito Benedict XVI, please continue to pray for us in heaven,” Cardinal Zen wrote on Twitter on the morning of Jan. 7.
The cardinal also posted photos showing him embracing Benedict XVI’s closed coffin and greeting Pope Francis in front of Michelangelo’s Pietà on the morning of the funeral.
A magistrate ruled on Jan. 3 that the Chinese cardinal would be allowed to leave Hong Kong for five days with his previously confiscated passport temporarily returned to him.
Cardinal Zen reflected on Benedict XVI’s legacy following pope emeritus’s death on Dec. 31, 2022.
The cardinal wrote on his blog that Benedict XVI was a “great defender of the truth” who took “extraordinary” actions to support the Church in China, despite many setbacks.
“As a member of the Chinese Church, I am immensely grateful to Pope Benedict for things he has done that he did not do for other Churches,” Zen wrote.
Speaking to America magazine, Card. Zen – a remarkably frank figure in his disagreement with the Provisional Agreement on the Appointment of Bishops signed by the Holy See with Beijing and renewed last October – spoke of friendly talks with Pope Francis.
While keeping the contents confidential, he thanked the pontiff for giving “a good bishop” to Hong Kong (Msgr. Stephen Chow Sau-yan, appointed in 2021).
He also told the pope about his pastoral ministry among inmates in Hong Kong prisons, a pastoral work he has been doing for over ten years. He also recounted that he has baptized several inmates over these years and continues this ministry.
Pope Francis then showed Card. Zen a statue of Our Lady of Sheshan – the Marian image venerated in the Shanghai shrine – received as a gift on the day of his election and which he keeps in his room.
Card. Zen – who is a native of Shanghai, from where his family fled after the advent of Mao’s Communists – replied to him, “I hope that one day you will be able to visit the shrine.”
Meanwhile, significant testimonies continue to arrive from Mainland China of the affection with which Chinese Catholics have remembered the figure of Benedict XVI and his love for their country.
In the historic city of Xi’an, in Shaanxi State, Bishop Anthony Dang Mingyan – successor to the great rebuilder of Catholicism in China, Msgr. Anthony Li Duanwhom, Pope Ratzinger himself invited to attend the Synod on the Eucharist in 2005 – held a solemn Mass of suffrage at St. Francis Cathedral (see photo 3) on the day of his funeral at the Vatican.
The Chinese Catholic website xinde.org reports that all celebrants bowed three times before the image of Pope Benedict. “He faithfully fulfilled his mission,” Msgr. Dang Mingyan said as he called the faithful to prayer. In memory of Benedict XVI, suffrage celebrations were also held in churches in other dioceses in Shaanxi.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from NCR and AsiaNews.it
