Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-shing, auxiliary bishop of Hong Kong, says Beijing should face the truth of June 4, 1989, which was a wound to the people.
He said this at a prayer meeting with more than 800 Catholics at Victoria Park, Hong Kong Island, June 4, for the victims of the Tiananmen Square event.
The prayer meeting was held before a candlelight vigil, which gathered some 130,000 people.
At the prayer meeting, Bishop Ha, a Franciscan, said that the voice of commemoration should continue, even if this voice in Hong Kong might be small in a country of 1.3 billion people.
“Let us make this voice heard to the family members of the victims,” Bishop Ha said. “We want to tell them: You are not alone, we are here to be with you.”
“We also want the authorities to hear this voice of conscience, telling them that the wound needs to be healed,” he said. “The 26-year-old wound has turned to be a moral burden of a rising nation.”
At the end of the prayer meeting, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, retired bishop of Hong Kong, linked the struggle of democracy in China to that of Hong Kong.
Cardinal Zen asked the faithful to continue to fight for a true democratic election system in the city, while Beijing is trying to impose more restrictions on a possible suffrage in 2017.
Cardinal Zen will lead the Way of the Cross for democracy in Hong Kong on June 13, days before the local legislators vote on an electoral bill.
