HONG KONG: Monsignor Javier Herrera-Corona, the particular Vatican’s unofficial consultant in Hong Kong, delivered a stark message to the city’s 50-odd Catholic missions before finishing his six-year posting in 03: The freedoms they had enjoyed for decades had been over.
In four conferences held over a few months, starting in Oct last year, the 54-year-old Mexican prelate told Catholic missionaries within Hong Kong to prepare to get a tougher future since China tightens the control over the city plus urged his colleagues to protect their missions’ property, files plus funds, according to 4 people familiar with the private sessions, who also asked not to become identified because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.
“Change is usually coming, and you’d better be prepared, ” Herrera-Corona warned the missionaries, according to among the people, who informed Reuters he has been summarising the monsignor’s message: “Hong Kong is not the great Catholic beachhead it was. inch
Herrera-Corona’s information came amid a national security crackdown by Beijing on Hong Kong in the wake up of anti-government protests in 2019, such as the erosion of civil liberties, the detain of dozens of pro-democracy activists, and perceived threats to the independence of the city’s judiciary.
But his concerns went past the ongoing national security clampdown, people said: Herrera-Corona cautioned that closer incorporation with China within coming years could lead to mainland-style restrictions upon religious groups.
On the mainland, Catholics have long been divided between an underground church loyal towards the Vatican and a state-backed official church. The particular Vatican has no recognized representation in Cina after diplomatic connections were cut within 1951 beyond the presence of two unofficial envoys in Hong Kong, who operate from a walled villa in a Kowloon suburb. Herrera-Corona’s alternative as head of the unofficial mission is a result of arrive in the next month.
Even before The far east imposed a capturing national security legislation on Hong Kong within 2020 that banned “collusion with international forces” in the wake up of the pro-democracy protests the previous year, Herrera-Corona and other envoys in the unofficial mission within the city had began discreetly moving cases of archives overseas for safekeeping, according to two people familiar with the transfer.
The particular monsignor’s warnings in the four meetings plus details of the archival transfer have not been previously reported.
Herrera-Corona, who was advertised to archbishop after leaving Hong Kong in March to take up a new post in the Republic of Congo and Gabon, did not respond to emailed questions about the meetings or the efforts to protect the sensitive documents. The Vatican official failed to comment.
The particular Central Government Addition Office in Hong Kong and the State Management of Religious Matters under the State Authorities in Beijing failed to respond to requests to get comment.
Reuters reported in December that officials from Beijing’s Liaison Office in the city had organized an event at which Chinese bishops briefed senior Hong Kong clerics upon President Xi Jinping’s vision of religious beliefs with “Chinese characteristics”.
On a trip to Hong Kong to indicate the 25th wedding anniversary of its handover in order to Chinese rule, Xi on Friday looked after the city’s One Country, Two Systems” style of governance that will grants it wide-ranging autonomy not seen in mainland China, including religious and push freedoms. The system “must be maintained within the long term”, he or she said.
For many years, foreign missionary organizations have operated mostly unfettered in the former British colony, forging a Catholic enclave on the edge associated with mainland China, that is under atheist Communist Party rule.
Often funded plus directed from other countries, the missionary societies in Hong Kong cooperate carefully with the local Catholic church and consider guidance from the Vatican. They concentrate on actions such as poverty relief and education.
Some also keep close ties along with Catholics on the mainland, where religious action is controlled and the work of international missions remains strictly limited by regulation : reflecting staunch federal government resistance to outside interference in Chinese affairs.
RIGHTS BELOW THREAT
The particular monsignor told individuals in the meetings how the rights of religious institutions outlined in Hong Kong’s Basic Law – the particular mini-constitution that has led the city’s relationship with its Chinese sovereign following the handover from British rule in 1997 – could not be relied upon as pressure through Beijing mounted, stated the four people familiar with the situation.
Herrera-Corona said this individual did not have knowledge of any specific policy adjustments, the people added.
The Basic Law states that the government shall not restrict religious freedom nor interfere with religious organisations. Additionally, it enshrines their property and charitable rights, and the freedom to “maintain and develop their relations with spiritual organisations and believers elsewhere”.
Within 2019, when the Vatican envoys began moving the archives, they feared their mission was under close scrutiny by China’s state security apparatus, said three Catholic clerics familiar with the situation. A Reuters analysis in late 2020 revealed that two nuns who worked on the mission had been detained on the mainland among efforts by Beijing to tighten the control of the chapel in Hong Kong. The precise reason for their detention remains unclear.
By the time they completed, more than half a tonne of files in the Catholic church’s activities in mainland China and taiwan and Hong Kong had been shipped to Rome, in part via a helpful diplomatic connection, the three people said.
The files out dated back to the mid-1980s and mostly handled mainland China, including private communications along with underground mainland clerics, missionary activity and details of persecution associated with Catholic faithful, according to two priests acquainted with them.
Pursuing the monsignor’s warnings, at least three missions possess started moving files overseas, including some through protected diplomatic shipments, two missionaries and a diplomat mentioned. They declined to identify the missions designed for security reasons.
Responding to Reuters queries, a Hong Kong federal government spokesman said the fundamental rights and freedoms of the city’s residents were guaranteed underneath the Basic Law and the national security legislation also stipulated that human rights will be protected and highly regarded.
SECURITY CRACKDOWN
Hong Kong is home to approximately 50 foreign Catholic missionary societies and religious purchases, according to the diocese’s recognized directory, hosting more than 600 priests, brothers and nuns exactly who serve as parish clerics and in schools plus hospitals.
Representatives from most of Hong Kong’s missionary organizations were briefed by the monsignor during the conferences. Three Western diplomats said they were also aware of his concerns.
During his meetings, the monsignor expressed fear factors could deteriorate in part because Chinese regulators had identified various prominent Catholics as leading figures in the pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019 and critics of the national safety law, said the four people familiar with the meetings.
The arrest in-may of prominent former Hong Kong bishop, 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, heightened the sense of urgency to consider steps to protect the church in Hk, six missionaries plus a diplomat said. Zen was detained as part of a police übung into foreign collusion over a legal support fund for those caught in the protests.
An assistant to the cardinal, who has been released on bail pending charges, mentioned he would not comment.
A publication last year – modified by researchers Chen Jingguo of the Chinese Academy of Interpersonal Sciences, a leading authorities think-tank, and Zhang Bin of Jinan University – singled out Hong Kong’s Catholics for criticism on the 2019 anti-government protests.
The publication examined the latest development of religions within Hong Kong and southern mainland China — a region known as the Greater Bay Area that will both Hong Kong and Chinese officials are keen to incorporate.
Hong Kong’s political environment had “continuously deteriorated” because the handover, in part because of religious groups plus major figures associated with influence such as Cardinal Zen, the document said. Catholics were more involved in the city’s politics than various other Christians and its “affiliate teachers and students are more radical”, the particular document, seen simply by Reuters, says.
Like other from the academy’s so-called Glowing blue Books, the record has been circulated to mainland academics, central government bodies and some state media, according to Hong Kong scholars familiar with this. The state-backed Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao featured the job on its release in August, describing it as the initial comprehensive study of religions in the Better Bay Area.
Neither Chen, Zhang, the academy, nor Jinan University immediately responded to Reuters’ demands for comment. Responding to Reuters’ questions about missionary concerns over the document, a Hk diocese spokesperson mentioned it had “constant communications with local missionary societies. We exchange views with each other on different problems from time to time. ”
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE
The national protection law allows professionals to target anything they deem to be subversive foreign interference and gives them expanded powers associated with surveillance as well as the capability to freeze the assets of any person appealing before formal costs are laid.
Both Chinese and Hong Kong government officials have said the law was needed to assure stability in the city and that prosecutions were deduced on evidence, unrelated to people’s background or occupation.
Some Catholic missions own large attributes in some of Hong Kong’s wealthiest areas, including villas, retreat houses and a hospital, that would be valued on billions of Hong Kong dollars, according to Reuters’ estimations based on recent market activity for similar assets.
Pursuing the monsignor’s guidance, a few missions are considering steps ranging from placing their property holdings under nearby ownership to localising their boards and corporate registrations to be able to protect them through any crackdown, which includes tighter restrictions upon foreigners, say five people familiar with the situation.
Such techniques would create an extra layer of distance between foreign objective headquarters and local operations given the particular national security law’s focus on collusion with overseas authorities and its particular power to seize possessions, they said.
The monsignor also informed the missions to be prepared for achievable curbs on long-standing programmes, such as foreign missionaries serving as parish priests in local churches, mentioned the four individuals familiar with the meetings.
Father Pierre Lam Minh, the missionary who minds a local Vatican-established council that oversees men’s missions, said in a statement that Herrera-Corona’s message was the prelate’s “own advice”. “We are carrying out our own missionary work as normal, ” he said, adding that the quests did not see any kind of restrictions on religious freedom.
Can certainly council head Sr Joanna Marie Cheung said her organization had discussed Reuters’ questions with the men’s group and “we share the same opinion”.
The spokesman for the Hong Kong diocese said that, as no diocesan members were present, he could not comment on the meetings. He added that will religious freedom had been guaranteed to Hong Kong occupants by the Basic Law and the 2020 nationwide security law hadn’t affected the pastoral missions of international missions in Hk to date.
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