HONG KONG (SE): After the white smoke billowed up from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, announcing that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had been elected Pope Benedict XVI [Sunday Examiner, 19 April 2005], and the Thanksgiving Mass celebrated on 25 April 2005 to mark his papal inauguration [Sunday Examiner, 1 May 2005], the Sunday Examiner ran an article on his association, not only with Hong Kong, but also Macau.
The then-new pope had visited both territories in March 1993 when he was still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Hong Kong and Macau were a few years from reverting to Chinese sovereignty.
Father Pedro Chung Chi-kin, the vicar general of Macau, recalled at the time that then Cardinal Ratzinger met with the late Bishop Domingos Lam Ka-tseung the retired bishop of, and also visited some famous places, including the Ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
In Hong Kong, Cardinal Ratzinger spoke at a meeting held by the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences in early March, telling the bishops that the Church’s mission is more a matter of “inter-culturality” than “inculturation.” He coined the new term and urged its use, he explained, to express more precisely “the meeting of cultures” that should take place when the culture of Christian faith encounters other cultures.
Photo: Diocese of Macau
Bishop [later Cardinal] John Tong Hon recounted that he brought Cardinal Ratzinger to meet the then-governor, Christopher Patten, himself a Catholic, at Government House.
He also recalled that the future pope met with the late John Baptist Cardinal Wu Cheng-chung and visited Hong Kong’s Holy Spirit Seminary and Holy Spirit Study Centre.
Vicar general, Father Dominic Chan Chi-ming, had expressed his hope that the new pope would visit Hong Kong again. However, Father Louis Ha Keloon, then-director of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Archives, cautioned that this would be hard to arrange until the Holy See establishes diplomatic ties with China. This remains the case to this day.
During his pontificate, Pope Benedict would elevate Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun and John Cardinal Tong to the College of Cardinals in 2006 and 2012
The only pope to visit Hong Kong was Pope Paul VI who presided at an open-air Mass in Hong Kong Stadium before a crowd of about 15,000 on 4 December 1970.
