Blessed John Paul II’s relic goes to China

(November 11, 2011) A small lock of hair of Blessed John Paul II is expected to arrive in Hong Kong on the weekend as part of celebrations marking the Hong Kong diocese’s Year of Laity. Testimonies from those who met the late pontiff will be heard on Saturday, followed by a prayer meeting and Mass at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception officiated by Bishop John Tong Hon of Hong Kong. The lock of hair will be kept in a monstrance, said Vicar General Fr. Dominic Chan. The priest said he was surprised that the Holy See ratified Bishop Tong’s application for the relics in less than two months. “Maybe because we are a Chinese diocese,” he said. Late Pope John Paul never visited mainland China but had great interest in the Asian nation, keenly desiring to normalize relations with it and the Church there. The closest any Pope got to mainland China was in 1970, when his predecessor Pope Paul VI visited Hong Kong, then a British colony. During the three-hour visit, Pope Paul VI celebrated an outdoor Mass for 20,000 people. China forced its Roman Catholics to cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, shortly after the officially atheist Communist Party took power. Instead, it established the government-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, and persecuted those pledging loyalty to the Pope of Rome.