When Pope Leo prays the Angelus this coming Sunday, he should pray publicly for Jimmy Lai and his family. The 20-year prison sentence imposed on one of Hong Kong’s leading pro-democracy campaigners and most prominent lay Catholics is both an egregious travesty of justice, an assault on human rights and dignity, and an affront to the Church, and the Pontiff should say so.
Jimmy Lai is a 78-year-old British citizen who has been imprisoned for more than five years already and has spent most of that time in solitary confinement in a small cell with no natural light and in extreme heat. As a diabetic with a heart condition, Mr Lai’s health has deteriorated significantly and he has suffered dramatic weight loss. He is permitted less than an hour a day for exercise in a confined space. Most significantly, as a devout Catholic he has been denied the right to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion for most of the past five years.
