The Catholic Humanitarian Committee has written a letter condemning the unjust imprisonment of Hong Kong Catholic businessman Jimmy Lai by Communist Chinese authorities.

The letter addresses Catholic educators, urging them to consider organizing a prayer campaign for Jimmy Lai as “a Lenten student project that teaches valuable lessons about the universality of the Catholic Church” and “being a Christian witness.”

“Mr. Lai is a 75-year-old Catholic businessman in Hong Kong who, inspired by his Christian faith, has peacefully advocated democracy and respect for human rights,” the letter states. “Because he expressed concern for the least of his brethren, Mr. Lai has been jailed by Communist Chinese authorities since December 2020.”

Lai “will not get his day in court to fight the most serious charges until September 2023, when he could be imprisoned in mainland China for the rest of his life,” it adds.

The letter’s nine signatories include four former U.S. Ambassadors, namely Sam Brownback, Joseph Cella, Mary Ann Glendon, and Jim Nicholson. The other signers are Thomas Farr of the Religious Freedom Institute, Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society, Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute, Father Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute, and George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

File/Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who founded local newspaper Apple Daily, gets into a car after being arrested by police officers at his home in Hong Kong, Monday, Aug. 10, 2020.  (AP Photo)

“We write to you as fellow Catholics who — despite our varied careers in education, government, and ministry — have a shared commitment to upholding the dignity of the human being, especially the most vulnerable who have no voices,” the letter states.

Jimmy Lai, “persecuted simply for advocating human justice and compassion,” is “overseas in a jail cell” and “should not be forgotten,” it declares.

The letter also notes that a bi-partisan U.S. commission nominated Lai this year for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing Lai’s “bravery and determination in the face of repression.”

We are “simply asking for your students to prepare a spiritual bouquet for Mr. Lai, a corporal work of mercy to life the soul of a prisoner and let him know that fellow Christians are praying for him,” it asserts.

The letter closes with a quotation from Saint John Paul II, who described the freedom of conscience as “the basis and foundation of all other human rights.”

“There is a suffering of the soul, such as we see in those who are isolated, persecuted, imprisoned for various offenses or for reasons of conscience, for ideas though dissident are nonetheless peaceful,” John Paul wrote.

Thomas D. Williams is Breitbart Rome Bureau Chief and the author of The Coming Christian Persecution.