Home News Hong Kong court allows Cardinal Zen to attend Benedict XVI’s funeral

Hong Kong court allows Cardinal Zen to attend Benedict XVI’s funeral

The report said a magistrate ruled that the 90-year-old cardinal is allowed to leave Hong Kong for five days for the January 5 funeral of Benedict XVI

A court in Hong Kong allowed Cardinal Joseph Zen on Tuesday, January 3, to attend the funeral of former pope Benedict XVI, said a report by Agence France Presse.

The report said a magistrate ruled that the 90-year-old cardinal is allowed to leave Hong Kong for five days for the January 5 funeral of the former pope.

Benedict XVI created Cardinal Zen a cardinal in 2006 and selected the cardinal to write the meditations for the papal Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum in 2008, one year before Cardinal Zen’s retirement as bishop of Hong Kong.



Cardinal Zen, who in his retirement has been an outspoken critic of the Holy See’s provisional agreement with Beijing, said that he did not believe that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI should have kept quiet after he resigned from the papacy.

Cardinal Zen is among the scores of pro-democracy supporters facing legal threats in Hong Kong, as China stamps out dissent in the former British colony following huge and often violent protests in 2019.

Magistrate Peter Law ruled at a closed-door hearing on Tuesday that Cardinal Zen could leave the city for five days and that his passport should be temporarily returned, a source with knowledge of the decision told AFP, asking not to be identified.

The funeral for former pontiff Benedict, who died on New Year’s Eve, will be led by his successor Pope Francis in the Vatican on Thursday.

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Benedict elevated Cardinal Zen to the Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals in 2006.

Hours before the Tuesday hearing, Cardinal Zen published an article praising the former pontiff as a “great defender of truth” and for his contributions to the Chinese Church.

“He could not accept any compromise,” Cardinal Zen wrote, referring to a letter Benedict wrote in 2007 asking China’s communist government to respect religious freedom.

In this picture taken on Sept. 11, 2020, Cardinal Joseph Zen, former bishop of Hong Kong, speaks at the Salesian House of Studies in Hong Kong. (Photo by Isaac Lawrence/AFP)

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

The cardinal was among five pro-democracy campaigners arrested last May for “collusion with foreign forces,” an offense under the national security law that carries a sentence of up to life imprisonment.

The group were trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which was set up in 2019 to raise funds to support the legal and medical needs of arrested pro-democracy protesters.

In November, the group were fined after a court found they had failed to properly register the fund.

The trustees have lodged an appeal to a higher court.

While Zen was arrested under the draconian national security law he has not yet been charged with any crimes under it.

Like many of those arrested under that law, or still under investigation, he was forced to forfeit his passport after his arrest.

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