|
 |
Cardinal Kung Dead at
98
 Cardinal Ignatius Kung, who spent 35 years in prison for
defying attempts by China's communist government to control Catholics through a
state-run church, died Sunday, March 12. He was 98.
Kung died from
stomach cancer at the Stamford home of his nephew, Joseph Kung. He had been
living there since coming to the United States in 1988 for medical treatment,
the nephew said.
"Many people, because of his example, took the risk of defending
the church, of defending the pope and, as a result, literally hundreds, or
thousands, went to jail," said Joseph Kung, president of the Cardinal Kung
Foundation, which documents the ungoing persecution of the "underground"
Catholic Church in China at the hands of the Patriotic Catholic Church
controlled by the Communist government.
Ignatius Kung, born in Shanghai in 1901, was
named bishop of Shanghai and apostolic administrator of the dioceses of Nanjing
and Suzhou only days after the communists founded the People's Republic of
China in 1949.
Instead of following the government's orders, he shunned the
government-backed Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and oversaw the Legion
of Mary. He continued to lead public devotions, sometimes under the wary eyes
of police, Joseph Kung said.
In 1955, he was arrested and brought before a mob in a
stadium, where he was accused of defying the church. When he was pushed to a
microphone to confess, he instead shouted, "Long live Christ the King, long
live the pope," his nephew said.
Kung was brought to trial and sentenced to life in
prison for leading a "counterrevolutionary clique under the cloak of religion."
A
combination of campaigns by human rights groups, Kung's ill health and China's
desire to court the West gained his release 30 years later, in 1985. The
government gave him permission to travel to the United States in 1988 for
treatment of hearing and heart problems.
Pope John Paul II had
secretly named Kung a Cardinal in 1979 while Kung was still in prison. In 1991,
at 90, Kung was formally installed in a Vatican ceremony. Despite his frail
health, he refused the advice of Church officials to remain standing and knelt
before the Pope to receive his red Cardinal's biretta.
Before his death,
after several years in the United States, Kung Pinmei, 98, strove to inform the
world of China's presecution of non-official Catholics, the Cardinal Kung
Foundation said in a faxed statement.
"He remained the inspiration of the nine to
10 million underground Roman Catholics in China and the hated enemy of the
Chinese communist government," the US-based foundation said.
At the Fatima: World
Peace 2000 conference held in Hamilton in October of 1999, Joseph Kung from the
Cardinal Kung Foundation delivered a dramatic speech which documented the
ongoing persecution of the Catholic Church in China. He also spoke of the life
and heroism of his uncle, Cardinal Kung.
The funeral for
Cardinal Kung will be held Saturday, March 18 at 11 a.m. at Saint John the
Evangelist Church in Stamford, CT.
|
Please remember the soul of Cardinal Kung in your
prayers.
Return to
Table of Contents
|
 |
|
|