Early Life and Career
Joseph Zen was born in Shanghai to devoutly Catholic parents, Vincent Zen and Margaret Tseu. He studied in a church school during the Second Sino-Japanese War, but was sent to an abbey after his father suffered a stroke.
Zen fled to Hong Kong from Shanghai to escape Communist rule at the end of the Chinese Civil War. After entering the Salesians at the Hong Kong novitiate, he was ordained to the priesthood on 11 February 1961 by Cardinal Maurilio Fossati. Zen obtained a licentiate in theology (1961) and a doctorate in philosophy (1964) from the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome. Since 1973, he has taught in the Holy Spirit Seminary College of Hong Kong – 1976 to 1978 of Macao Salesian School (Instituto Salesiano) （澳門慈幼中學） as principal; In 1978, he became the Provincial Superior of Salesians (which includes mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan), then resigned in 1983. He was a lecturer in the seminaries in China, centres of studies acknowledged by the Communist party, between 1989 to 1996. He was appointed the coadjutor Bishop of Hong Kong in 1996 by Pope John Paul II.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Zen
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or career:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“There a captive sat in chains
Crooning ditties treasured well
From his Afric’s torrid plains.
Sole estate his sire bequeathed,—
Hapless sire to hapless son,—
Was the wailing song he breathed,
And his chain when life was done.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I restore myself when I’m alone. A career is born in public—talent in privacy.”
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)