ROME – Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, the former bishop of Hong Kong, has become seen in recent years as something of a Confessor — one who has suffered but not (yet) died for the Faith.
He has had well-documented difficulties with China’s Communist authorities, which have seen him in recent years charged under new security laws and held under house arrest, as well as his well-known struggles with the Vatican over their Ostpolitik approach to Beijing.
Now he has felt forced to speak out in defence of the Faith in the face of the Synod on Synodality. He joined four other cardinals in signing two sets of dubia that were sent to Pope Francis, seeking clarification on points of doctrine ahead of the meeting. Although a standard practice for gaining doctrinal clarity, under this papacy the dubia have been widely read as questioning the orthodoxy of the Pope rather than the nature of orthodoxy.
