Heart, mind and soul.
Ten years ago, I was received into the Catholic Church by Myanmar’s first-ever cardinal, Charles Bo, in St Mary’s Cathedral, Yangon, with Lord Alton of Liverpool as my sponsor and St Charles Borromeo as my patron saint.
It is perhaps no coincidence that I write this just after launching the first report on threats to religious freedom in Hong Kong. The report, titled “Sell Out My Soul” – a take-off of the great metrical Magnificat “Tell Out My Soul” – conveys the increasing compromises Christians and other religious believers in Hong Kong are having to make as the Chinese regime dismantles the city’s freedoms.
From day one, my faith journey has been intertwined with the fight for freedom, interlinked with politics and interwoven with Asia.
My Christian journey began much earlier. My first glimpses of church were through my devoutly Anglican maternal grandparents. The day my grandfather had a stroke, and then died, he insisted on going to church despite heavy snow, and wrote in his diary John Donne’s words: “Ask not for whom the bell tolls – it tolls for thee.”
Donne’s poem begins with “No man is an island, entire of itself,” and later Donne writes: “for I am involved in mankind”. Throughout my adult life, that has proven true for me. I lived and travelled across the world, from China and Hong Kong to East Timor, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Malaysia, Indonesia, North Korea and Taiwan, to war-torn Nagorno Karabakh, and more than 50 times to Myanmar (Burma). In part as a journalist, in part a human rights activist, in part a student, teacher or traveller, and in large part a pilgrim.
In 1994, as an undergraduate, I learned of an ecumenical mission on my university campus, led by the distinguished Methodist preacher Dr Donald English, called “Making Sense”. I went to almost all of the events. At lunchtimes, Dr English would debate with academics on Christianity and science, politics and history – the “head stuff”. In the evenings, he would do the “heart stuff” – with preaching, music and testimonies.
Any journey of faith should involve head and heart. Too much head and it’s dry and dead; but all heart and it’s not anchored and rooted. By the end of that week, I had fallen in love with Jesus Christ. It made sense. I prayed a prayer of commitment, then turned to the Anglican chaplain, Dr Christopher Cocksworth – now Dean of Windsor – and asked what to do next. “Come for coffee on Monday morning,” he replied. For the next year, I was his disciple.
From then on, for 19 years I worshipped in evangelical Anglican churches. Subconsciously though, two decades on I was getting itchy. Evangelicals are fantastic at sharing the Gospel and sparking the fire of faith, but as I matured, I discovered a hunger for a deeper sense of mystery, majesty, history, sanctity, liturgy and spirituality.
One night, a simple conversation with Cardinal Bo over dinner in Yangon opened up an entire new chapter. Seemingly out of nowhere, I asked him what someone who is already a Christian would do if they wanted to become a Catholic. I don’t know why I asked this, as I was not considering such a move at the time, but he answered with beautiful simplicity: “When someone is ready to accept the teachings of the Catholic Church, they’re ready to become a Catholic.” But he added words I didn’t expect: “If you ever find yourself in that situation, I would receive you into the Church here in Yangon.”
That had a profound impact. I thought that if I want to take his invitation seriously, I need to explore this fully.
So for two years I went on a journey of exploration. I read the entire Catechism, the Compendium of Social Doctrine and papal encyclicals, especially by Pope Benedict XVI and St John Paul II, as well as works by GK Chesterton, Malcolm Muggeridge, George Weigel, Thomas Merton, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Scott Hahn. At the end of this journey, I went on an Ignatian retreat with Fr Nicholas King at Campion Hall, Oxford.
My spirituality is truly Catholic. I was inspired and received into the Church by a Salesian, Cardinal Bo, and two of my other heroes are Salesians: East Timor’s courageous former bishop Carlos Belo and my friend Cardinal Joseph Zen, Hong Kong’s inspiring Bishop Emeritus. But my formation has been Jesuit-influenced, with several Ignatian retreats. I have also made retreats in Benedictine monasteries, and have Dominican friends. And there are other, smaller movements, such as Cardinal Bo’s order of the Sisters of Saint Paul and the amazing East Timorese Sister Lourdes’s Institute of Brothers and Sisters in Christ, which shaped my life.
When it came to choosing a patron saint, initially the choice was unclear. Having been named Benedict at birth, I thought I had a rather good saint and 16 popes already on side. But in honour of my friend Cardinal Bo, I chose his saint, Charles Borromeo.
Two years ago, while on holiday in Italy, I visited St Charles Borromeo’s birthplace in Arona, and climbed the Monte San Carlo to the “Sancarlone”, a giant statue of the man himself. I prayed in a nearby church dedicated to him, visited his family’s castle on Lake Maggiore, and last year visited his tomb and relics in Milan.
I learned that St Charles Borromeo, a leader of the Counter-Reformation, sold one of his estates and gave the proceeds to the poor; he visited plague victims and stripped himself of his own possessions to assist them; he survived an assassination attempt while praying in his chapel; he was tireless in caring for his flock; and, as he lay dying, asked for a picture of Jesus praying in Gethsemane to be placed in front of his bed.
There have been martyrs whom I have known personally who have influenced my journey. Every time I am in Rome, I go to the Basilica di San Bartolomeo all’Isola, where my friend Shahbaz Bhatti’s personal Bible is displayed. Each time I spend a few minutes in prayer, and light a candle.
I knew Shahbaz, a devout Catholic, well; we worked together when he was a young, brave activist in Pakistan. We travelled together, spoke several times a week, and once missed a bomb together by five minutes. Shahbaz became Pakistan’s Minister for Minorities, and in 2011 was assassinated, because he dared to propose reforms to Pakistan’s unjust blasphemy laws.
My journey has given me a love for the universality and diversity of the Church, and a determination to speak the truth, in love, with humility, in pursuit of justice, guided by the Church’s teaching on human dignity, liberty, truth, peace and justice.
Yet I have also witnessed with sadness the compromises the Vatican sometimes makes. I have grown up with Pope Francis, elected 11 days before I was received into the Church. He has spoken out often for Myanmar, for which I applaud him.
His deal with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however, and silence on the genocide of the Uyghurs, atrocities in Tibet, the crackdown in Hong Kong, forced organ harvesting, threats to Taiwan and the persecution of Christians in China, breaks my heart.
Last month, the Bishop of Shanghai – appointed by Beijing without the Vatican’s approval, in breach of the Sino-Vatican agreement – said Catholic teaching must “align” with CCP ideology. To my knowledge, the Vatican has not corrected him.
On Palm Sunday a decade ago, as I stood in the cathedral in Yangon, I thought I was joining the Catholic Church, not the CCP. I intend to keep it that way. I found and embraced the fullest expression of the truth. That is what motivates me to defend freedom for everyone to pursue their conscience. That is a right for everyone, everywhere, which no one should ever take away.
It’s an affair of the heart, mind and soul.
Benedict Rogers is co-founder and chief executive of Hong Kong Watch.
(Photo: Getty – Cardinal Charles Maung Bo poses with relatives.)
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