Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun speaks at the Asianews Conference at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome (Credit: Bohumil Petrik/CNA)
Hong Kong's retired prelate Cardinal Joseph Zen said that amid decades of communist rule in China, human values are at stake in all of Asia and can only be salvaged by fervidly preaching the gospel.
What threatens the continent most today, said Cardinal Zen, “is a humanistic atheism; people who oppose God-to-man, man-to-God”.
By looking to the history of China, it's clear “that communism has destroyed all human values. So to save human values we have to work hard to spread the good news of Jesus Christ,” he said last week during a symposium on the Church in Asia, entitled “The mission in Asia: from John Paul II to Pope Francis.”
He also touched on how Pope Francis is received in China, saying that although it is likely that the whole world has some sympathy and respect for what the pontiff is doing, the Chinese government is not ready to change anything in terms of their religious policy.
Pope Francis “has to work very hard,” the cardinal added, saying that if the Pope chooses to visit China right now, “I don’t see any probability of a success because they will surely manipulate him, because there is no sign of any good will on the part of China.”
The Pope’s ongoing push for dialogue is something key for the Asian Church and for modern times in general, Cardinal Zen observed.
Full Story: What's the biggest threat to Asia? Atheism, this cardinal says
Source:Catholic News Agency
