Cardinal Joseph Zen - a long-standing critic of the Vatican’s accommodation with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) - has now has his trial date set for September 19, following his earlier arrest under China’s national security law. He and four others face charges of failing to properly register a now-defunct fund to help anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.
As Ed Condon argued in the Pillar in May: “According to senior Catholics on the ground, it is widely believed that the authorities will charge that many of the 621 Fund’s donations come outside Hong Kong, and can be tied to non-state actors linked to the U.S. government.” This could see Zen convicted as a foreign agent.
