Fisher & More in China: June 2024

The Catholic Thing

We honor St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More as models of lonely courage during "Religious Freedom Week," which comes to a close today. As Kipling would put it in another context, they kept their heads "when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you." Fisher and More kept their heads spiritually and morally. They lost them literally in 1535 on Henry VIII's orders; Fisher first on 22nd June, their joint feast day, and More on 6th July. Yet even as we honor them, their example is difficult for us to fully appreciate. What made Fisher and More's fidelity stand out was precisely that it was lonely; the vast majority of their peers went along with Henry's usurpation of Rome. Fisher was the only English bishop who resisted. More was singular amongst his friends and colleagues; even his family doubted his stand. Had we lived in the early sixteenth century, we would have seen that bending to Henry's will was the norm. It was Cardinal Thomas Wolsey of York, Lord Chancellor, who was England's senior cleric, not Fisher, the bishop of Rochester. Wolsey was vigorous in advancing "the king's great matter" before Henry lost confidence in him. Fisher only got the red hat of a Cardinal when already imprisoned; Henry greeted the news by observing if the pope sent the red hat to London there would be no head to wear it. Our experience of tyranny in the last century is not principally that of the lonely witness, but tends toward the white-robed army of martyrs. We are more likely to know about confessors of the faith, not collaborators with the regime. Consider the honor roll of the twentieth century, only counting Cardinals: Sigitas Tamkevičius of Lithuania, Blessed Stefan Wyszynski, primate of Poland, Adam Sapieha of Kraków, Kazimierz Swiatek of Minsk, Blessed Aloysius Stepinac of Zagreb, Josyf Slipyj of Lviv, Josef Beran of Prague, Alexandru Todea of Romania, Jozef Mindszenty, the primate of Hungary, Ernst Simoni of Albania, Francis Xavier Cardinal Nguyen van Thuan of Saigon, and Ignatius Kung of Shanghai, to whom we shall return. Those are only the most prominent red-robed prelates. Entire national episcopates stood firm. Groups of martyrs from Mexico, Spain, Italy and Poland have already been raised to the altars. The prominent collaborator, as played by Wolsey and later Thomas Cranmer, has not been our recent experience. While detracting not at all from the lions of the last century, they had, in large measure, the encouragement that comes from solidarity with others. Courageous Chinese witnesses today are undermined by their peers who go along with the regime. There is the heroic Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong publisher and faithful Catholic. Jailed since 2020 under China's new "national security" law, Lai's trial is currently underway. There is little doubt about how it will end. Lai made his billions in retail before turning to journalism, and could easily have gone abroad when Beijing started turning the screws on Hong Kong. He is not one to flee the storms; he remained, a man for all seasons. Lai, like More, knows the added pain of being persecuted a regime that has the cooperation of his fellow Catholics, John Lee and Carrie Lam. Lee is chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; Lam is his predecessor in a role which now consists of enforcing Beijing's erosion of civil liberties in Hong Kong. No doubt Lai's jailers taunt him with the fact that his fellow Catholics have seen their way clear to support the very regime that is incarcerating him. Jimmy Lai was baptized in 1997 just as the British handed Hong Kong back to China. He was baptized by Joseph Zen, the new coadjutor bishop of Hong Kong (wisely appointed by St. John Paul the Great before Chinese control took effect). Zen would become bishop of Hong Kong in 2002 and was created a cardinal in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI. Zen plays the role of Fisher today. He has not been imprisoned, but his strong voice against collaboration with the Chinese Communist r...