Cardinal Zen Says… “We Are Not The Saviors”
HONG KONG (AsiaNews) — “We are living in a very tense moment, we are doing everything possible. But it doesn’t matter what we fail to do: We are not the saviors,” said Cardinal Zen, 91, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, in an interview given to the Christian Times, an evangelical newspaper in Hong Kong.
Reporters went to visit him in the Salesian seminary where he resides to ask him for a recollection of his friend Yuen Tin-yau, who passed away on July 16 at the age of 71. The Christian Times reporters say it was supposed to be “two questions” about this great figure, but then it became an hour-long chat on many topics.
Cardinal Zen is described as fatigued by the consequences of the weakening that struck him immediately after his return to Hong Kong in early January, the day after the funeral of Benedict XVI (to attend which he had received special permission from the court as he is still subject to judicial measures) and also having been able to meet Pope Francis. Hospitalized for a few weeks in the hospital, in the interview he says he still moves around in a wheelchair and doesn’t feel safe on his feet. The condition is for him a cause of great worry, because it prevents him from continuing his ministry in prisons, to which he has been constantly dedicated since he left the leadership of the diocese.
He says he has “many old friends in prison, especially those who have been there for more than 10 years” but that he “gained others in the last two years” (after the arrests for the protests — editor): “Some of them are believers in the faith or were baptized in prison. The inmates, even many nonbelievers, are happy to see me and I am very happy to go. But it’s a shame I can’t do it because I can’t walk.”