“On this joyful occasion,” Pope Francis said he also wished to express his “spiritual closeness to all those who are going through moments of trial caused by the coronavirus pandemic.”

A leading Australian Catholic and close advisor to Pope Francis, the cardinal had participated in the funeral of his friend, Pope Benedict XVI, just last week.

Pope Francis also flatly rejected that there is a “right to abortion” and hit out strongly against what he called “ideological colonization” as well as gender theory.

Though Cardinal Zen is sometimes considered an adversary of Pope Francis, today’s audience reveals that there is a deeper bond of faith and friendliness between the Hong Kong cardinal and the Argentine pope than many realize.

Pope Francis will preside at the requiem Mass and impart the final blessing before the burial of Benedict XVI at a solemn ceremony marked by simplicity in St. Peter’s Square on the morning of Jan. 5.

Pope Francis’ agenda appears daunting even for a younger man, but, as he has said on more than one occasion, “one governs from the head, not from the knee.”