T wo decades ago, the Catholic Church in Hong Kong joined half a million people to overturn the government’s plan to implement a national-security law that would threaten the city’s freedoms. Now, with little critique, the Hong Kong government is seeking to pass a new law that threatens religious liberty and bodes a rocky future for Christians in the city. The Hong Kong government, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has announced a security bill under Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law. The bill would ban five types of security crimes, including treason, insurrection, and external interference, and would require that individuals disclose knowledge of treason to the authorities within a reasonable time.

Lam Ting-kwok, Hong Kong’s secretary for justice, indicated that those who know of someone’s criminal acts or opposition to the government but fail to notify government authorities are guilty of “concealed treason,” which carries a sentence of 14 years imprisonment. No exception is made for confessions to clergy. “When the safety of the country is at stake, everyone must strike a balance” between roles and, as a lawful citizen, must “fulfill the obligation” to “pledge allegiance,” he said.

In the Catholic Church, a confession made by an individual before a priest in the sacrament of reconciliation is confidential under a strict rule known as the seal of confession. Although clergy in the Anglican Church and some other Christian denominations that practice the rite in some form might encourage the penitent to report themselves to authorities, under no circumstance can a Catholic priest break the seal of confession. Catholic priests have been excommunicated for violating the rule, while those who do refuse to disclose the content of sacramental confessions have faced persecution by government authorities.

There has been a debate about whether the seal of confession should stand in light of child-abuse cases. While some legal and theological arguments against the seal may merit consideration, cases of child abuse should not be considered parallel to national-security crimes that are vaguely defined by an authoritarian regime to persecute dissidents, crush civil liberties, and violate basic human rights.

The proposed national-security law would force priests to subordinate the penitent’s privacy and the church’s teaching to the party and the state. By breaking the trust between clergy and Christians, the law would create a chilling effect on spiritual counseling as well as on the sacrament of reconciliation itself. Such a move would probably change the culture of Catholicism in Hong Kong and put political pressure on Bishop Stephen Chow, S.J., who was made as a cardinal late last year, to instruct the clergy and the laity on administering and receiving the sacrament according to the proposed law.

Secretary Lam’s remarks shows that the government has no intention to respect freedom of religion or belief and that the future for religious communities in Hong Kong will be challenging. Article 23 would also criminalize acts of aiding and collaborating with “external forces” and would authorize the government, on national-security grounds, to ban any organization. That would affect many of the small to medium-size churches and church groups as well as the Catholic Church and foreign missionaries that have direct ties to foreign bases and the Vatican. Religious groups can be subject to legal prosecution for their relationships with any foreign religious bodies if they are deemed to pose a threat to national security.

Once an organization is prohibited, a person can be charged for representing it, soliciting financial support for it, participating in its activities, or becoming a member. For acting as a representative or officer, an individual could be sentenced to 14 years. It’s questionable whether the Catholic Church in Hong Kong could under the proposed law maintain its connection with the Vatican, whose presence has been muted in mainland China, where Catholic faithful and clergy are required to join the Patriotic Association and take oaths of fidelity to the government.

The proposed law would have an extraterritorial effect for Chinese nationals, including people from Hong Kong now abroad. The recent practice of imposing bounty warrants against overseas Hong Kongers, including myself, by the Hong Kong government illustrates how the national-security law could be used to foster transnational repression. Normal exchanges between overseas Hong Kong faithful and their peers inside the city could be seen as a crime if the authorities deemed such an exchange to endanger national security, a concept broadly and arbitrarily defined for the government’s interests.

A month ago, the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation published a comprehensive report, Hostile Takeover: The CCP and Hong Kong’s Religious Communities, detailing how the CCP is tightening control over religious activity in the city. The report found that Beijing’s Sinicization campaign has affected religion as well as education and social movements. Hong Kong Watch also published a report, “Sell Out My Soul: The Impending Threats to Freedom of Religion or Belief in Hong Kong,” in November 2023. Both reports predicted that the Article 23 legislation would further restrict religious liberty and lead to the persecution of Catholics and other Christians.

The international community and global religious leaders, especially Pope Francis and the Vatican, should speak up and use their platform to help ensure that the new security bill in Hong Kong does not violate religious freedoms. It’s time to break the silence on the CCP’s crackdown on religious communities and on the imprisonment of persons of conscience in Hong Kong.