SW News: Cardinal Joseph Zen, the bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, had a meeting with Pope Francis in Casa Santa Marta on Friday, January 6. The nonagenarian top prelate was in the Vatican to attend the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

US-based Jesuit magazine “America” quoted the cardinal as saying that the visit “was wonderful”, adding that “Pope Francis was warm”. Cardinal Zen was arrested by police under the new draconian national security law. However, he was granted permission to leave Hong Kong to fly to Rome to attend the funeral of the former pontiff. He was told to fly out of the country on January 4, the eve of the funeral of Benedict XVI, and return four days later.

The Hong Kong cardinal, who is a vocal critic of the communist government in Beijing, was made a cardinal by Benedict XVI in 2006. On January 3, a local magistrate gave the verdict that the confiscated passport of the former bishop of Hong Kong be returned to him so that he can fly to the Vatican. He has been granted permission to be outside the country for five days.

According to sources, the 90-year-old cardinal’s application of altering the bail condition with regard to his travel documents was approved by the West Kowloon Court recently in a closed-door hearing. The Department of Justice did not object to it.
It was Pope Benedict XVI who made the prelate pen the meditations for the papal Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum in 2008.

The cardinal was arrested in May last year after being charged with conspiracy to jeopardize national security by way of collusion with foreign forces. He was among the five trustees of the now-defunct 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund and was accused of failing to register it. He became the bete noire of the Hong Kong government for his public support to pro-democracy activists and the anti-Beijing agitations that rocked the city.