Vice President Chen Chien-jen and his wife attended a concert celebrating the 80th birthday of Pope Francis Dec. 21 at the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taipei City.
Concert attendees included Francois Chih-chung Wu, deputy minister of foreign affairs, Msgr. Sladan Cosic, charge d’affaires A.I. of the Apostolic Nunciature to the ROC, and John Hung S.V.D., president of Taiwan’s bishops’ conference.
“The Catholic Church has been providing welfare services and humanitarian aid in every corner of Taiwan for a long time,” Chen said. “And the universal values of freedom, peace and human rights promoted by the Catholic Church have become the core values of Taiwan and the basis from which the country has developed into a free, democratic and open country.”
Co-organized by the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See in Taipei, the occasion doubled as a charity event, with donations collected from concertgoers going to the St. Martha Institute in eastern Taiwan’s Hualien County. Established in 1960, the institute is a Catholic group providing aid to the needy.
A devout Catholic, Chen was made a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem in 2010 and a Knight of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great in 2013. In September, he met the pope during an official visit to Vatican City for the canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
There are about 240,000 Catholics in Taiwan today. The Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Holy See have enjoyed cooperation in many areas since the two sides established diplomatic relations in 1942.
From Feb. 5 to May 2, for example, the National Palace Museum in Taipei staged “Treasures from Heaven: A Special Exhibition of Artifacts from the Holy See.” In 2011, an agreement was signed by the two sides on higher education collaboration, and in 2014 the Vatican-based Sistine Chapel Choir performed its first Taiwan concert in Taipei City. (OC-E)
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