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Hong Kong — Hong Kong The unofficial representative of the Vatican City, Monsignor Javier Elera Corona, sent a harsh message to the city's more than 50 Catholic missions before completing its six-year post in March.
At four meetings over the months that began last October, a 54-year-old Mexican high-ranking priest told a Catholic missionary in Hong Kong that China had strengthened control of the city. According to four people who are familiar with private sessions, four people who asked not to be identified due to the delicate nature of the discussion, told his colleagues to protect the property, files, and funds of their mission. I urged you.
One of the people who told Reuters that he was summarizing Monsignor's message, according to one who said, "Changes are coming and you should be ready." According to Herrera-Corona warned the missionaries. "Hong Kong was not a great Catholic beachhead."
Herrera-Corona's message is the 2019 anti-government, including the erosion of civil liberties and the arrest of dozens of democratic activists. In response to the protest, it was issued during Beijing's crackdown on national security in Hong Kong. A perceived threat to the city's judicial independence.
But his concerns went beyond the ongoing crackdown on national security, people said.
On the mainland, Catholics have long been divided into Vatican-faithful underground churches and state-sponsored official churches. The Vatican City did not have an official representative in China after diplomatic relations were cut in 1951 beyond the existence of two informal envoys in Hong Kong operating in a walled villa on the outskirts of Kowloon. Hmm. The replacement of Herrera-Corona as responsible for the informal mission will arrive next month.
Even before China imposed a drastic national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, it outlawed "collusion with foreign troops" in response to the anti-democratization movement of the previous year. According to two people familiar with the transfer, the city's mission has begun to carefully move archive cases abroad for storage.
Monsignor warnings at the four meetings and details of the archive transfer have not been reported so far.
After leaving Hong Kong in March to take up new positions in the Republic of the Congo and Gabon, Herrera-Corona, who was promoted to Archbishop, responded to email questions about meetings and conservation efforts. did not. Confidential document. Vatican officials did not comment.
The State Administration for Religious Affairs under the Central Government Liaison Office in Hong Kong and the Council of State in Beijing did not respond to requests for comment.
In December, a staff member of the Beijing City Liaison Office told a senior priest in Hong Kong that a Chinese bishop had a vision of a religion with President Xi Jinping's "Chinese characteristics." It was reported that an event was held to explain to.
When visiting Hong Kong to commemorate the 25th anniversary of China's succession to governance, Xi on Friday introduced a "one country, two systems" style of governance that widely recognizes Hong Kong. Defended. -To the extent not found in mainland China, including religious and media freedom. "The system must be maintained for a long time," he said.
For decades, foreign missionary groups have built Catholic excursions on the edge of mainland China under the control of the atheist Communist Party and have been almost free to operate in the former British colonies. I did.
Hong Kong missionary associations, often funded and supervised by other countries, work closely with the local Catholic Church and receive guidance from the Vatican. They are focused on activities such as poverty alleviation and education.
Some have maintained close ties with mainland Catholics, whose religious activities are controlled and the work of foreign delegations remains severely restricted by regulations.
Threatened rights
Monsigner gives conference participants the rights of religious groups outlined in Hong Kong's Basic Law, the relationship between Hong Kong and the Chinese monarch. He talked about the mini-constitution that led him. The four people familiar with the situation said the takeover from British rule in 1997 was unreliable due to increased pressure from Beijing.
Herrera-Corona said she had no knowledge of certain policy changes, people added.
The Basic Law stipulates that the government must not limit religious freedom or interfere with religious groups. It also enshrines their property and philanthropic rights, as well as the freedom to "maintain and develop relationships with religious groups and believers elsewhere."
When the Vatican's envoy began transferring archives in 2019, they were familiar with the situation, fearing that their mission would be closely monitored by China's national security agencies. The three Catholic priests said. By the end of the Reuters survey in late 2020https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/hongkong-security-churchは、香港の教会の管理を強化するための北京の努力の中で、ミッションで働いていた2人の修道女が本土に拘留されていたことを明らかにした。彼らが拘留された正確な理由は依然として不明である。
, more than 0.5 tons of files on Catholic church activities in mainland China and Hong Kong are friendly. It was shipped to Rome via diplomatic relations. The three said. The
files date back to the mid-1980s and, according to two priests familiar with them, include details of private communication with mainland clergy, missionary work, and persecution of Catholics. , Mainly dealing with mainland China.
Following Monsignor's warning, at least three missionaries have begun to move files abroad. This includes those by protected diplomatic vessels. Two missionaries and one diplomat said. They refused to identify the mission for safety reasons.
In response to Reuters' question, a Hong Kong government spokesman said that the basic rights and freedoms of the city's residents are guaranteed under the Basic Law, as well as the National Security Law. Human rights are protected and respected.
Security crackdown
According to the parish's official directory, Hong Kong has about 50 foreign Catholic missionary associations and religious orders, with more than 600 priests working as parish priests. We are accepting brothers and nuns. And at schools and hospitals.
Representatives of most missionary groups in Hong Kong were briefed by Monsignor during the meeting. Three Western diplomats said they were aware of his concerns as well.
Monsignor criticized national security during the meeting as Chinese authorities identified several prominent Catholics as key figures in the 2019 democratization demonstration. He stated that things could get worse. The law was said by four people familiar with the conference.
In May, the arrest of a prominent Hong Kong bishop, Cardinal Chen, 90, made it more urgent to take steps to protect the church in Hong Kong, with six missionaries. The diplomat said. Zen was detained as part of a police investigation into a foreign collusion over a legal aid fund for those arrested in protest.
The Cardinal's assistant, who was released on suspicion of pending bail, said he would not comment.
Last year, a publication edited by Chen Jingguo, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a major government think tank, and Zhang Bin at Xinan University published a 2019 Catholic in Hong Kong. Criticism of the year's anti-government protest.
This publication explores recent religious developments in Hong Kong and southern mainland China (a region known as the Greater Bay Area). The region is eager to integrate both Hong Kong and Chinese officials.
The document states that Hong Kong's political environment has been "continuously deteriorating" since its delivery, in part due to major influential figures such as religious groups and the Zen Cardinal. .. Catholics are more involved in urban politics than other Christians, and their "related teachers and students are more radical," Reuters said in a document.
Like other academies' so-called "blue books," this document has been circulated to mainland scholars, central government agencies, and some state media. The state-sponsored Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao featured the work, released in August, and described it as the first comprehensive study of religion in the Greater Bay Area.
Chen, Zhang, Academy, and Jinan University did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment. In response to Reuters' question about missionary concerns about the document, a Hong Kong parish spokesman said, "There was constant communication with the local missionary association." We sometimes exchange views with each other on various issues.
Foreign Interference
National Security Act allows to target anything that authorities consider to be destructive foreign interference. It gives the ability to expand and freeze oversight of stakeholder assets before formal claims are made.
Government officials in China and Hong Kong have stated that laws are needed to ensure the stability of the city and that the prosecution is based on evidence unrelated to people's background and profession.
Reuters estimates based on recent market activity that some Catholic missions own large assets in some of Hong Kong's wealthiest districts, including villas, retreat houses and hospitals. Worth billions of HK $. For similar assets.
Following Monsignor's guidance, some missions place their assets under local ownership to protect them from crackdowns such as tightening regulations, so directors We are considering a variety of steps, from localizing meetings and corporate registrations. As for foreigners, we say five people who are familiar with the situation.
Given that the National Security Act focuses on collusion with foreign authorities and the authority to seize assets, such a move is between foreign mission headquarters and local operations. They said they would make an extra distance.
Monsignor also told the ministry to prepare for the curbs that could occur in a long-standing program, such as a foreign missionary who is a parish priest in a local church, four people familiar with the conference said.
Father Herrera Corona's message is prelate in a statement by Father Pierre Lam Min, a missionary who leads a council established in the local Vatican that oversees men's missions. He said it was the priest's "own advice.""We are doing missionary work as usual," he added, adding that there were no restrictions on religious freedom in the ministry.
Joanna Marie Chan, chair of the Women's Council, said her association had discussed Reuters' questions with a group of men, saying "we share the same opinion." rice field.
A spokesman for the Parish of Hong Kong said he could not comment on the meeting because he had no members of the parish. He added that basic law guarantees religious freedom to Hong Kong residents and that the 2020 National Security Act has not previously affected foreign missionary ministry in Hong Kong. (Report by Greg Torode, additional report by Clare Jim in Hong Kong, edited by Daniel Flynn)
