(LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo XIV said he “can’t comment” on Jimmy Lai, the 78-year-old Catholic founder of the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, who last month was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Hong Kong court.
When EWTN News asked Pope Leo on Tuesday if he would comment on Lai’s sentencing, the pontiff replied, “I can’t comment on that. Let’s pray for less hatred and for more peace, and work for authentic dialogue.”
Pope Leo XIV told EWTN News he “cannot comment” on Jimmy Lai, the Catholic founder and publisher of the outspoken pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, who was sentenced Feb. 9 on charges Chinese authorities say violate national security laws. The pope instead urged for peace,… pic.twitter.com/QEgXLPqR9t
— EWTN News (@EWTNews) March 3, 2026
Lai was charged in 2020 with “collusion with foreign forces” in violation of the draconian National Security Law (NSL) that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in June 2020 in order to suppress dissent against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Lai’s tabloid Apple Daily had published criticism of the CCP that led to retaliation by Communist authorities.
The businessman was thereafter sentenced to several years in prison for convictions of organizing and participating in unauthorized assemblies and alleged fraud, convictions that were recently overturned by a Hong Kong appeals court. However, his December conviction of foreign collusion and “seditious publication” and his 20-year sentence stands.
Pope Leo’s intentional silence on Lai’s persecution contrasts sharply with international condemnations by government leaders and human rights organizations.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio decried the sentencing as an “unjust and tragic conclusion” to Lai’s case and said the U.S. is urging authorities to grant Lai humanitarian parole.
“It shows the world that Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong,” wrote Rubio.
The United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, deplored Lai’s sentencing as a violation of the rights of freedom of expression and association recognized by international law.
Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, called the sentencing “egregious,” saying it is “the final nail in the coffin for freedom of the press in Hong Kong.”
Leo’s silence, however, echoes that of Pope Francis when Lai was arrested in 2020 for alleged fraud. At the time, columnist William McGurn wrote that Francis’ silence on China and Lai “bellows up and down the world.” He posited that Francis’ reluctance to speak out was a direct result of the Vatican-China deal, which he noted “gives the Communist state extraordinary say over the selection of Catholic bishops.”
That controversial Vatican-China deal, which has been followed by intensified persecution of Chinese Catholics, remains in place under Pope Leo. Since the approval of the deal, bishops, priests, seminarians, and laity have been arrested, tortured, and imprisoned for not signing up to the Chinese Communist Party-run state church organization, with Chinese authorities reportedly having added extra pressure onto faithful Catholics by saying that Pope Francis supported the state “church.”
Following Lai’s sentencing, human rights advocate Jason Jones called upon Catholics to speak out against the “rotten” Vatican-China deal, calling upon Rome to end it once and for all.
“When it brutally persecutes the Catholic Church in China, driving believers underground and disappearing clergy – including bishops – it does so under a ‘deal’ with the Vatican that grants ‘legitimacy’ to clerics under the ‘Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association,’” wrote Jones in February.
“But now, with international visibility of Lai’s sentencing, which has outraged Western leaders from Britain (where Lai holds citizenship) to the United States…now is the perfect time for the Vatican to unilaterally break its deal with the CCP.”
“And it is once again up to Catholics to bring attention to China’s crimes,” Jones continued, “this time by expressing to the Vatican that we are disgusted by this rotten deal that seems to lead to nothing but worse and worse humiliations inflicted on the Body of Christ.”
Critics have denounced the sentencing, which is the harshest yet imposed under the NSL, as especially cruel given that 78-year-old Lai is likely to die in prison due to his age and health conditions.
His son Sebastian told the BBC that the prison sentence was “basically a death sentence,” and that his father was being punished for defending “the freedoms of Hong Kong.”
Lai escaped to Hong Kong from China as a child and became a self-made businessman on the island, founding in 1995 the pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily, which published criticism of the CCP that won the ire of the Communist authorities. The paper became one of the leading newspapers in Hong Kong but closed its doors in June 2021 when the offices were raided by CCP security personnel and Lai was arrested.
His arrest and subsequent jail sentence caused outrage in the international sphere, with the U.S. State Department issuing an October 2022 statement in which it deplored the Chinese National Security Law’s “systematic dismantling of Hong Kong’s autonomy” and called for a restoration of “respect for press freedom in Hong Kong, where a once-vibrant independent media environment has all but disappeared.”
