Catholic Church reassures Hong Kong flock over secrecy of confession despite security law

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Hong Kong’s Catholic Church has sought to reassure believers that confessions will remain confidential even after the Chinese territory approves a tough new security law.

Legislators are fast-tracking a broad national security law that is set to impose penalties of life imprisonment for treason and increase sentences for sedition. The bill has added to concerns that civil liberties are under threat as the territory increasingly aligns itself with Beijing.

Under the proposed law, people can face up to 14 years in prison if they breach the “requirement on disclosure of commission by others of offence of treason”.

The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong said on Friday that the legislation would not “alter the confidential nature of Confession (Sacrament of Reconciliation) of the Church”. It acknowledged that “citizens have an obligation to ensure national security”.

The church’s statement comes after Ronny Tong, an adviser to city leader John Lee, said priests failing to report admissions of national security crimes during confession could face charges under the new law.

Paul Lam, the territory’s justice minister, told lawmakers last week: “If someone confesses that they are planning to assemble an army tomorrow and subvert the Hong Kong special administrative region or attack the country, these are very extreme scenarios . . . [but] it is difficult for us to make exceptions.”

Beijing introduced a wide-ranging national security law in 2020 in the wake of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong the year before. The city is also required to introduce its own security legislation under the Basic Law, the mini-constitution introduced when the territory was handed to China from Britain in 1997.

Of Hong Kong’s 7.5mn population, roughly 392,000 are Catholic and 268 are priests, according to the diocese. While religion is not as strictly state-controlled as it is in mainland China, the church has trod a careful line since Beijing’s political crackdown on the city in the wake of the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

The diocese has not held commemorative masses for the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre for the past two years. Many of the city’s leading democrats are Catholic, including media mogul Jimmy Lai, who is on trial for alleged national security crimes, barrister Martin Lee and Joseph Zen, former bishop of Hong Kong.

City leader John Lee, a former police officer and security minister who helped quash the 2019 protests, has also publicly said he is Catholic.

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UK advocacy group Hong Kong Watch has warned that the law presents a “profound and grave” threat to religious confessions. A Hong Kong government spokesperson said the group was “anti-China” and deliberately misleading the public.

“The offences of treason and misprision of treason . . . do not target religious personnel or followers, and have nothing to do with freedom of religion,” the spokesperson said. “In any case, freedom of religion is not for protecting anyone who has committed serious offences from legal sanctions.”

Many of the territory’s Catholics are pro-democracy, said a Catholic researcher and longtime church-watcher in the city. But given “they do not think they are wrong”, they will not necessarily bring up political matters in confession, the person noted.