ROME (UCAN) -- In another move highlighting his ongoing concern for the Catholic Church in China, Pope Benedict XVI has chosen Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong to write the reflections for the Way of the Cross at Rome's Coliseum on Good Friday.

By assigning this task to the Shanghai-born cardinal, sources say, the Holy Father is assuring Chinese Catholics they are always in his thoughts and prayers while also expressing publicly his high esteem and full support for the courageous and outspoken bishop of Hong Kong.

Pope John Paul II asked Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to write the reflections for the same event in 2005, and the future Pope Benedict used strong and incisive language to convey his ideas. The text of Cardinal Zen's reflections will not be made public until Good Friday, March 21 this year.

The Italian press broke the news this week, and Cardinal Zen confirmed it when he spoke to UCA News in Rome, where he participated in the March 10-12 meeting of the papal Commission on the Church in China.

The Chinese prelate said he is well aware of the pope's great love for the Catholics in mainland China and his desire that they be able to freely live their faith in peace and tranquility. But he admitted he was taken completely by surprise when Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, communicated to him in January the pope's request that he write the meditations.

"One should have hesitated to take such a job, but I had no hesitation. I understood that the Holy Father wants to have the voice of the Chinese at the Coliseum, so I thought, 'It's wonderful,'" he recalled.

One of the meditations will be read at each of the 14 stations recalling events traditionally associated with Jesus' passion and death, such as his prayer in the garden at Gethsemane, his being condemned to death, his crucifixion and his body being laid in the tomb.

"The Holy Father wants the voice of the Chinese to reach the Coliseum, because this truly is a people that has suffered and is suffering. Many have suffered for the faith," he added.

"In the Way of the Cross, the main actor is Jesus and we all go after him," Cardinal Zen explained. "This time we let the Chinese join too. And not only the Chinese, but all the martyrs of the 21st century, and there are so many."

All those at the Coliseum, where many early Christians suffered martyrdom, "will welcome the living martyrs because the passion of Christ is a living reality on their bodies," he continued.

The cardinal said his reflections center on the passion of Jesus as "an ongoing reality especially in the persecuted Church." He added, "When given an opportunity I make some reference to the Chinese reality, but without ever naming China."

When Christians participate in the Way of the Cross "we have to pray not only for the persecuted, but also for the persecutors," the prelate stressed. "I think the greatest victory of the cross is the conversion of everybody."

Pope Benedict will lead the hour-long ceremony at the Coliseum. It will comprise prayers, hymns, Bible readings and the carrying of a cross around the stations. The Holy Father will speak at the end.

This Good Friday devotion is one of the most deeply moving Holy Week ceremonies in Rome and usually attracts thousands of pilgrims from many countries. It will begin at 9:15 p.m. (Rome time), with live TV and radio broadcasts taking it to an estimated global audience of 2 billion people.

Cardinal Zen said it took him two weeks to write the texts, amid his other work. Asked how he felt now that he had finished and submitted the text to the Vatican, the cardinal had this to say:

"Actually it was very good for me; it was a meditation for me. It was an opportunity to purify my own feelings, because you may not have very Christian feelings about those who make Jesus suffer, and who make our brothers suffer persecution. But then you remember that you may also be a persecutor, and so it was a very good exercise."

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