Catholic teenager who met the Pope arrested in Hong Kong

A Catholic youth who took a selfie with Pope Francis has been arrested in Hong Kong.

Giovanni Pang met the Pontiff when he visited South Korea in August. On Tuesday night he was one of over 100 people arrested at the protest site in the Mongkok district of Hong Kong.

Mr Pang, who works as a member of the liturgy and youth commissions in Hong Kong diocese, went to the protest site to help students as bailiffs removed barriers and arrested leaders of the pro-democracy movement after two months of sit-in rallies.

His friend Henry Chan, a radio DJ, wrote to Pope Francis on Facebook early on Wednesday morning.

“Do you recall Giovanni Pang from Hong Kong who met you twice in South Korea earlier?” he wrote. “May I let you know this issue and bring it to the Vatican’s kind attention?”

Mr Chan said the Hong Kong diocese sent a representative to the police station to check on Giovanni Pang’s situation.

When they met in South Korea Pope Francis avoided answering the teenager’s question about the “control and oppression” of Catholics in China. Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi later said the Pope had decided to avoid political topics during the pastoral event.

The protest movement’s student leaders Joshua Wong and Lester Shum were among those arrested at the scene, according to the Hong Kong Federation of Students and the student activist group Scholarism.