More Kowtowing to China as Senior State Bishop Visits Hong Kong as Guest of Cardinal Chow, by Benedict Rogers

This week Beijing’s Archbishop Joseph Li Shan, who is President of China’s state-controlled Catholic body, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), visits Hong Kong for five days. This comes just a week after more than 10 Catholic bishops from around the world called for the release of Catholic pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai, who has been in jail in Hong Kong for almost three years and faces the prospect of the rest of his life in prison.

The response of the Hong Kong authorities was to rebuke the bishops who signed the petition, describing their action as “misleading and slanderous” and accusing them of “blatantly undermining” the rule of law and meddling in Hong Kong affairs. The signatories to the letter included New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Bishop Robert Barron, US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ president Archbishop Timothy Broglio, Southwark’s Archbishop John Williams, archbishops and bishops from Ireland, Lithuania, Australia, Canada and Nigeria, as well as India’s Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal. …

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