H.E. Joseph Cardinal Zen, Ph.D.
His Excellency Dr. Joseph Cardinal Zen is a retired Cardinal of the Catholic Church and a vocal proponent of human rights in Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China. Called the “New Conscience of Hong Kong,” he has criticized the Communist Party’s crackdown of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and the brutal treatment of the Falun Gong spiritualist movement. Zen remains an influential voice for freedom in China and has led pro-democracy protests and demonstrations in Hong Kong since 2002. He received his L.Th. and Ph.D. at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome. He is a 2019 recipient of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom.