One of the most senior leaders of the Catholic Church in Asia will visit Australia next month to deliver public lectures in Sydney and Melbourne on the topic of “bridge building”. Source: Catholic Outlook.
Hong Kong Bishop Cardinal Stephen Chow Sau-yan SJ will be in discussion with fellow Jesuit Fr Frank Brennan SJ at the Cloister Hall of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Parramatta on Friday, May 16, as part of the “Bishop Vincent Presents” public lecture series. On Monday,19 May, Cardinal Chow will deliver the Helder Camara lecture at Newman College in Melbourne.
Cardinal Chow grew up in Hong Kong during British colonial rule, joining the Society of Jesus in 1984, and studied education and psychology before becoming a high school teacher.
In 1994, he was ordained a priest and over the next 12 years undertook postgraduate study, culminating in a doctorate of education in human development and psychology from Harvard University in 2006.
He has been supervisor of several Jesuit colleges in Hong Kong, an honorary professor of education at the University of Hong Kong and a guest professor at the Holy Spirit Seminary in Hong Kong.
For three years from 2018, he served as the provincial superior of the Chinese province of the Society of Jesus, which encompasses Jesuit communities and apostolic works in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
He has been Bishop of Hong Kong since 2021, and in 2023 Pope Francis made him a cardinal.
At Boston College in 2024, where he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws, Cardinal Chow delivered the college’s commencement address in which he told students that one of their biggest challenges in the face of a world divided and degraded was to have a hope “that stems from sincere and audacious human efforts in collaboration with the faithful love of God”.
This meant rejecting the “dominant narrative” that says only one side can be right, and allowing meaningful dialogue between opposing ideas.
He said this was most evident in the Catholic Church’s “bridge-building mission for the Church in Mainland China” and in the recent Synod of Bishops in Rome, where participants had to move past their own differences to find a common path.
Details and registrations: https://parracatholic.org/events/cardinalchow/
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Bridge-building cardinal to visit Parramatta (By Antony Lawes, Catholic Outlook)
