News Archive China Recalling Tiananmen Victims, Bishop Zen Defends Freedom Addresses Catholics Before Anniversary Vigil HONG KONG, JUNE 7, 2004 (Zenit.org).- The head of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong urged its members to fight against those who breached the "one country, two systems" principle and threatened freedom of speech. Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-kiun spoke to more than 800 Catholics taking part Sunday in a prayer meeting to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown in Tiananmen Square, in Beijing. The meeting was held in Victoria Park in Hong Kong before a vigil, AsiaNews reported. Bishop Zen said Hong Kong had experienced its very own "June 4" this year, when hopes for full democracy in 2007-2008 were shattered by the National People's Congress Standing Committee's interpretation of the Basic Law in April. "The June 4 we experienced did not shed any blood; there were neither tanks nor machine guns. But in their fierce shape, the so-called guardians of the Basic Law came to lecture us about patriotism, and certain [Beijing officials] claimed some people wanted to achieve independence" for Hong Kong," the bishop said. "Before we had a chance to discuss the issues surrounding universal suffrage in 2007-2008, the committee had already made a decision for us," he lamented. The religious leader was making his second appearance at the annual candlelight vigil. "The authoritarians massacred our patriotic youngsters," Bishop Zen said. "How can we not fight for their vindication? Some people have breached the one-country, two-systems principle one-sidedly by interpreting the Basic Law. How can we not stand up and say no?" The prelate said it had become increasingly obvious that democracy and freedom in Hong Kong were not to be taken for granted. He described some of the people who persuaded the public to be more tolerant and to cherish peace as "culprits" and "helpers of the culprits." "We should pay no heed to them," Bishop Zen said, "because peace without justice can only be the illusion of peace." In recent weeks, the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a U.S.-based watchdog group, reported that two priests of the underground Catholic Church who had been arrested in mid-May in mainland China have since been released. Father Lu Genjun, 42, and Father Cheng Xiaoli, 40, were arrested May 14 in the northern province of Hebei. They were released four days later, the Kung Foundation said. No other details were given. ZE04060701 Vatican Assails Arrest of Yet Another Bishop in China Authorities Give No Reason for Seizing a Prelate VATICAN CITY, APRIL 7, 2004 (Zenit.org).- A Vatican spokesman said the arrest by Chinese authorities of Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo of Zheng Ding was "unacceptable." "We have learned that a Catholic bishop, previously held in prison for 20 years, was arrested again yesterday by the authorities of the People's Republic of China," Joaquín Navarro-Valls, director of the Vatican press office, said in a press statement today. "Once again a member of the Catholic hierarchy has been deprived of his personal freedom without any juridical motives being provided," the Vatican spokesman added. Bishop Jia, 69, of the underground Church loyal to the Pope, was arrested Monday, the U.S.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation reported. His whereabouts are not known. He has been a bishop since 1980. He has been under house arrest many times, and has already spent 20 years in prison. The arrested bishop is head of one of the liveliest dioceses in Hebei, the area around Beijing with the highest concentration of Catholics -- around 1.5 million. AsiaNews sources speculate that the police seized the bishop because of the proximity of Easter. To prevent what they define as "social disorders" -- liturgical celebrations outside police control -- public security officials arrest bishops and priests of the underground Church in the period from Holy Week to Pentecost. Other sources say, however, that last November the government launched a campaign to permanently eliminate all unofficial cults, without differentiating between government-recognized religions -- such as the Catholic Church -- and sects or fanatics. On March 5, underground Bishop Wei Jingyi of the Diocese of Qiqihar was arrested at an airport where he went to meet some foreign friends. The Holy See's reaction was swift. If there are "accusations against the arrested bishop, they should be made public, as happens in any state of law," Navarro-Valls said at the time. Bishop Wei was released on March 14. ZE04040704 Bishop Wei Jingyi Released Last March 14 Beijing, 16 March, 2004 (AsiaNews) Msgr. Wei Jingyi, underground bishop of the diocese of Qiqihar arrested on March 5, was released on the afternoon of March 14. This is what AsiaNews sources in China reported today. According to AsiaNews sources, the bishop had gone to the airport to pick up some foreign friends. But on leaving the airport and paying the toll he and the driver of the car were stopped and arrested. His two foreign guests (both French citizens) were arrested as well, but released just a few hours later. The news of Bishop Wei's arrest provoked strong reaction from the Vatican. The director of the Holy See's press office, Joaquin Navarro Valls, said the Vatican was "worried and saddened" and asked Chinese authorities to reveal their accusations against the bishop "as occurs in any lawful state". "The Holy See, the statement concluded, "has no reason to doubt the bishop's innocence." The next day an indirect response came from Beijing via the country's foreign ministry spokesman, who specified that the prelate was being held "for questioning" about falsifying a document to leave the country. Catholics in the Qiqihar diocese feared the bishop would be released only after Easter in order to avoid unauthorized Holy Week gatherings and festivities. Bishop Wei's sudden release, according to AsiaNews sources, was particularly due to the Vatican's quick and strong reaction and at a time when the National People's Congress was in session. The annual meeting of Chinese parliament found Chinese leaders debating whether to introduce the terms "freedom of faith" and "protection of human rights" into the country's constitution. The bishop's release saves the government from embarrassment, as it is often criticized for stating things in theory but not backing them up in actual practice. Other sources say the fact that foreigners were involved in the arrest facilitated the prelate's release. According to AsiaNews there are currently around 50 bishops and priests detained in jails or prevented from practicing their ministry. About 20 priests are in prisons or labor camps. Bishop James Su Zhimin and his auxiliary, Francis An Shuxin, from the Baoding diocese, have spent the most time behind bars after being arrested one day by police in 1996. Copyright 2003 AsiaNews All rights reserved Beijing says the bishop went abroad illegally The diocese of Qiqihar fears a campaign of destruction and arrests will be waged, as is happening in other parts of the country. Beijing 11 March, 2004 (AsiaNews) - China immediately denied that bishop Wei Jingyi is in prison and says that the underground Church prelate has only been taken into custody, since he is suspected having traveled abroad illegally. AsiaNews sources, however, have confirmed that the bishop is being held at a prison in Harbin. Yesterday Vatican spokesman Joaqin Navarro Valls said from his press office that the Holy See was "worried and saddened" by the news of the bishop's arrest and asked the Chinese government to reveal the charges brought against him "just as in any lawful state." Today Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a weekly press conference that "Public security officials have not taken any restrictive measures against him (Bishop Wei Jingyi) and that "the rumors do not correspond to the facts." When interviewed by Reuters, a director at China's Bureau of Religious Affairs said his office had brought the bishop into custody in order to "speak with him". According the director, the bishop "had traveled abroad" with an ID card bearing his name, but with a photo that wasn't his." An official at the bureau said that the office was looking into the situation. "By Chinese law, we have the right to investigate the matter." Yet he refused to answer the question as to whether Bishop Wei Jingyi was in prison or not. AsianNews sources in the region have confirmed that the bishop is detained in a prison in Harbin. The sources say that if the bishop would have requested a passport to travel abroad, officials would have denied him one. Due to his fidelity to the pope Bishop Wei Jingyi is suspected of having "relations with a foreign state". Meanwhile faithful from the diocese of Qiqihar are said to be "calm", but there is tension in the air. Faithful fear that diocesan institutions (seminaries, churches, etc.) will be destroyed. Months ago Chinese government launched a new campaign against underground communities which refused to submit themselves to government controls. Not being officially registered at the Bureau of Religious Affairs they care considered illegal and often end up being accused of "undermining public order". In various regions throughout China (Fujian, Zhejiang, Inner Mongolia and Henan) a crackdown in underway to search out underground Christians and force them to join the Patriotic Association, the government's longa manus to check on Church activities. The Patriotic Association has the task of creating a Church which is free from obedience to the pope. Those who don't adhere the association end up being imprisoned and their places of worship (in sheds, homes, small chapels etc.) are dismantled and destroyed. A similar procedure occurs with other non-government authorized religious communities. Copyright 2003 AsiaNews "Underground" Bishop Arrested in China Wei Jingyi Is Known for Fidelity to Pope ROME, MARCH 9, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Bishop Wei Jingyi of the Diocese of Qiqihar, of the underground Church loyal to Rome, was arrested last Friday in Heilogjiang, in northeastern China. The bishop had gone to the Harbin airport to meet some foreign friends. He was arrested while paying at the toll booth on his way back from the airport. Further details were unavailable. The U.S.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation published the news Monday. It was confirmed today by the Fides agency of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Bishop Wei, 45, has been a priest since 1985, and prelate of Qiqihar since 1995. He has been arrested twice in the past and sentenced to labor camps from 1987-1989 and from 1990-1992. From 1993-1995 he was secretary of the underground Catholic bishops' conference. The Cardinal Kung Foundation reported that Bishop Wei was last arrested on Sept. 9, 2002. Fides called for prayers for the arrested bishop and for an end to "this obstinate persecution of bishops, priests and laity, the faithful of the universal Church." Bishop Wei is known for his fidelity to the Pope and his involvement in evangelization, AsiaNews reported. The Diocese of Qiqihar numbers 50,000 Catholic faithful and dozens of priests and nuns. At least six Catholic bishops of the "underground" Church and some 20 priests are still in prison in China, according to Joseph Kung, president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation. ZE04030906 The Catholic Church in China By Ellis Schreiber Catholic World, July, 1910; Vol. XCI, No. 544 - The evangelization of the vast empire of China has long held a prominent place in the history of missionary labors in the East. Tradition alleges that the Apostle Thomas journeyed there to preach the Gospel, and it appears certain that the Nestorians carried on missions in China in the sixth and seventh centuries with some success, the protection of the Emperor being extended to them. On the withdrawal of the imperial favor, however, this heretical form of Christianity died out. Somewhat later China seems to have again been the scene of missionary effort, as the tablet of Sian fu, a stone discovered in 1625, dated 781, bears an inscription to the effect that in the eighth century missionaries from the West were propagating the Christian religion in the country. It was the determination of that greatest of missionaries, St. Francis Xavier, after the completion of his work in Japan, to introduce Christianity into China, an attempt long resisted by the Portugese authorities in Goa and elsewhere, and finally frustrated by the impediments thrown by them in the way. Hardly had Xavier made known his purpose when he was met by the opposition and even persecution of Alvarez, the resident at Malacca and former friend of the saint, who became the inveterate opponent of his missionary expedition. Harassed and worn out, the saint died when he was at the point of realizing the object of his ambition. He bequeathed, however, his double spirit to Father Matteo Ricci, S.J., who arrived about thirty years later at Macao, where several priests from Portugal were already established with a view of ministering to the needs of the residents, and converting, if possible, such natives as came in contact with them. The Franciscans, Dominicans, and other orders had, in the meantime, not neglected this field of labor, despite the determined opposition of the traders, especially the Portugese, who regarded with the liveliest apprehension the introduction of missionary work which might, from the intimacy with which religious and political life were interwoven in China, cause complications of a serious character, fatal to the interests of commerce, and perhaps end in their exclusion from the empire. Father Ricci is described as "a man of great scientific attainments, of invincible perseverance, of varied resource, and of winning manners, maintaining, with all these gifts, a single eye to the conversion of the Chinese, the bringing of the people of all ranks to the Christian faith." He and his companion, Father Ruggiero, found it difficult to obtain a footing, and they worked their way up to the capital, where Ricci was favorably received by the Emperor, and was elevated by him to a high social rank. During the period which elapsed before, and that which immediately succeeded, his death in 1610, the course of the mission progressed steadily, until in 1645 controversy arose respecting the degree of toleration which was to be extended to the ceremonial and political usages of the converts, and also as to the term to be employed to signify the true God. An appeal was made to the Propaganda in regard to these questions; the decision given was that the presence of Christians in the idols' temples and the sacrifices to Confucius therein were condemned; also the ancestral worship practiced by the Chinese. At a later period another appeal to Rome was made by the Jesuits; their contention being that the worship of Confucius was of a civil character, and that of ancestors was merely homage, not real worship, and could, therefore, be practiced without injury to the Christian faith. After a lengthy investigation of the questions in dispute, the Pope decreed that all participation of Christian converts in such rites was to be prohibited; and the word Tien Chu, to signify God, was approved of, in contradistinction to the term Tien (the Supreme Emperor). Meanwhile recurrence had been had to the Chinese Emperor, who gave a contrary verdict. The missionaries, of course, obeyed the Pope, and this setting aside of the authority of their Emperor incensed the Chinese to such a degree that an edict was issued forbidding the propagation of Catholicism in the country, and only allowing a few missionaries to remain who were required for scientific purposes in Peking. Some obeyed the edict requiring them to depart, but others remained, carrying on their work in secret. In writing about 1724, Captain Brinkley remarks (China, Its History, Arts, and Literature, Brinkley, Vol. XI., p. 140, 1904): "At no time were there fewer than forty priests in the country. The presence of these men must have been known to thousands upon thousands of people outside the circle of their converts. In traveling to and from their stations, in their religious ministrations, in their daily lives, however secluded, it is impossible that their identity can have been concealed. Yet, with exceptions so rare as to prove the rule, the people never betrayed them. On the part of their converts fidelity might have been expected. But that men and women whom they called `pagans' should have refrained from betraying them, indicates a spirit very different to the bitter anti foreign sentiment now shown by the Chinese nation. The fact already deduced from independent records is thus strongly confirmed, that outside the narrow areas where the abuses of medieval trade and the violence of medieval traders created an atmosphere of passion, no animosity was harbored against foreigners." And speaking of a later period, the same writer says that "while the people in and about Canton and Macao were calling foreigners `devils,' and stoning or bambooing them whenever opportunity offered, the people of districts in the interior treated them with courtesy, respect, and even friendship." The Chinese are a proud people, who have always entertained a supreme contempt for every other country and nation. Their inborn hatred of foreigners has been roused and intensified by the high handed, offensive, and cruel conduct of the European traders who came to their ports. Disguised as natives, the priests penetrated into the interior in order to disassociate themselves from the mercantile classes of foreigners, and there worked unobtrusively and inconspicuously at their various stations, living a life of truly apostolic poverty. In hardly any instance has a traveler reached a point where he has not found that a member of the Catholic clergy had gone before him. "The missionary in China," it has been said, "must denationalize himself," and this the Catholic priest does. People at home have little idea of the sacrifices men of culture and refinement, often of noble birth, make for the furtherance of Christianity, and the hardships and privations they heroically endure. Travelers tell of one who, though comparatively young, falls a victim to starvation and fever; of another who has seen no European, except perhaps a fellow priest at long intervals, for the space of thirty years; of a third driven from his station and forced to fly for his life. The anguish of such absolute loneliness and isolation alone would be intolerable without the sustaining power of divine grace. European customs, habits, luxuries, are all abandoned from the moment they set foot on the shores of China; parents, friends, and home are in many cases heard of no more, and they know that their graves will be far away from the land of their birth. When they left la belle France they left it without any hope of return. No work is too hard for them, no living too poor; they are not deterred by epidemic of sickness or threatened massacre; they have simply devoted themselves to the propagation of the faith and nothing can turn them from their purpose. They wear the dress of the Chinese, eat their food, conform to their customs and habits, shave their heads, and adapt the pig tail, identify themselves with the natives as far as possible. "The great mortality amongst the missionaries," says a writer on China, "cannot be attributed to the climate, for diplomats and consuls bear their residence in China well enough; it is to be explained by the hard lives they lead, especially the Chinese food, the want of medical help, and the privations of every kind to which they are exposed; the indescribably filthy state of the towns and houses, the lack of real privacy and quiet. In most instances the missionary occupies a Chinese house, with mud floor, a straw bed, paper windows, devoid of every kind of comfort." "I recollect one priest in a most remote village," writes Mrs. Archibald Little in The Land of the Blue Gown (1902), "showing me - half excusing himself, half proudly - his one great luxury, a little window with glass panes he had put in near his writing table so as to write and read till later in the evening. He showed me a set of photographs of his native village in France, but I noticed that he dared not glance at them himself while we were there. What this expatriation means to a Frenchman is enough to indicate the immensity of the sacrifice he voluntarily makes without any expectation of ever again re visiting his beloved country. Yet not a single Frenchman has ever left this post. `Pas un! Ni pour cause de maladies, ni pour affaires particulières, ni pour aller a Peking. Pas un seul,' says the Procureur somewhat proudly." In 1824, under pressure from foreign rowers, an Imperial edict was promulgated granting entire toleration of Christianity throughout the Empire. By this act Christianity was placed on a different plane from the other foreign religions, Buddhism and Mohammedanism, to which China of its own accord extended complete toleration. Christianity is, therefore, associated in the minds of the Chinese with the humiliation of the Empire - coercion on the part of the hated foreigner - a calamity yet fresh in the memory of the present generation. Subsequently to the war carried on in China by the English in 1860, in which France joined on account of the torture and beheading of one of her missionaries in Kwangsi, a treaty was concluded in which it was agreed that the religious and charitable institutions, the churches, colleges, cemeteries, houses, and all other possessions confiscated from the Christians during the persecution of 1724, should be restored; and the protection of foreign Christians in China was formally assumed by the French, to whom thus belongs the honor of inaugurating the new era of religion in that country. Unhappily the Catholic Church has, in consequence, been associated with what appears the aggressive policy of France, a power which is suspected by the natives of employing the missionaries as political and even military spies. "After the cross, the sword; first the missionaries, then the gun boat, then the land grabbing; such is the process of events in the Chinese mind," says one who wrote in 1901. It is, indeed, deeply to be deplored that the outcome of the intercourse of the Christian nations with China should have been that, as lately as the opening years of the present century, she stored up a fund of the deepest resentment towards them; and that during that intercourse missionaries - those more especially of the Catholic Church, because under French protection - should be regarded with distrust and hatred; not because they taught the "worship of the Lord of Heaven" (the Catholic Faith), to show the Chinese how to attain to the "better land" in the next world; but because they were the brethren of the "foreign devils," only anxious to deprive them of the land and the wealth they possess in the present one. A memorial drawn up in 1905 shows clearly that the deepest cause of aversion to Christianity is not the religion as such but its close connection with the so called Protective Powers. That China distrusts them, and returns hatred and aversion for their violent encroachment upon her most intimate domestic affairs is not to be wondered at in so proud and exclusive a nation. When she sees that the mission has recourse to the armed force of Protective Powers, the distrust and aversion are extended to the Church and Mission also, and since the edict of toleration, fear of foreign aggression has led to violent outbreaks of hostility and terrible persecution of missionaries and Christian converts with every fresh scare of interference and encroachment on the part of foreigners. Perhaps, also, the consciousness of having the political Protective Power behind them makes some missionaries - Protestants chiefly - overlook certain delicate considerations in their dealings with the native authorities, the neglect of which wounds beyond measure the Chinese, who in this respect are very sensitive. "Hence, in the edict of toleration, proclaimed in 1886, the Imperial Government deems it necessary to state that Chinamen who may embrace Christianity are entitled to protection from their own Government, to which alone they owe obedience. The promulgation of this edict followed immediately upon the decision of the Pope to send a Papal Legate to the Court of Peking, to represent him as the sole foreign power interested in the Chinese Roman Catholics, thereby disclaiming all political protection from France." Prior to this, the same principle had already been enunciated by a French missionary, Père Louvet, who says: "The efforts of the missionaries must be directed to keeping their work clear of politics. From this point of view I, for one, can only deplore the intervention of the "European Powers." As an eminent expert in Chinese affairs, Père Joseph Gonnet, S.J., insisted decades ago, "the models, even in this respect, must be the missionaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who conformed in every possible way - in language, dress, manners, customs, forms of social intercourse, etiquette - to the peculiarities of the Chinese, and spared their national susceptibilities with punctilious care." "The French hostilities of 1883 had, moreover, some effect," we learn from Professor Parker, "in concentrating upon the Roman Catholics most of the odium which was formerly shared in equal measure by Protestants." The first Protestant missionary to China was the Reverend Robert Morrison, who arrived in 1807. There was so strong a feeling against all Europeans that he was unable to carry on evangelistic work and occupied himself with translating the Bible into Chinese. The first version of the Gospels was made by an unknown Catholic missionary as early as the seventeenth century, and this Mr. Morrison used as the basis of his translation of the New Testament. Later on, when English missionaries, together with some American ones, gained a footing in Macao, and after the Nanking Treaty of 1842, when Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain, were able to penetrate into the interior, their great and primary object was to effect indiscriminate circulation of the Scriptures, sending out agents to scatter them broadcast among a people to whom, without explanation or elucidation, they were simply unintelligible. Nay more, since Christian ideas cannot well find terms in the Chinese language to convey them aright, and the allusions to rites and customs diametrically opposed to those of the Chinese gave rise to scandal and persecution, the sacred books were either flung aside in contempt, or were put to the use of wrapping up parcels or making the soles of boots and shoes. Thus it became apparent, even to those who distributed them, that the Scriptures were useless as a means of conveying revealed truth to the Chinese, and served rather to retard the progress of Christianity amongst them. Moreover, the different terms adopted to designate the one true God in literature and preaching - the Jesuits employing Tien Chu (Lord of Heaven), the American Protestants Chen Shen (True Spirit), the English Shang ti (Supreme Lord) - confused and bewildered the natives; yet more so the multiplicity of sects and their internecine warfare. In 1906 there were no less than eighty-two distinct societies of diverse creeds and practice working in China, and all mutually antagonistic. In one matter they were united; in hostility to the Catholic Church. The life of the Protestant missionary also brings religion into contempt. Social and family cares occupy his attention to the exclusion of weightier matters, as a writer ironically remarks: "The birth of a babe excites more interest than the conversion of a heathen." The married clergyman cannot be expected to inhabit a native house, to sit on the floor, sleep on a mat, eat from a plate of plantain leaves, and dispense with the books, furniture, musical instruments of his country: there is little about him of the grace of self denial and self sacrifice, which the Chinaman appreciates. Every great religious teacher in the East who has made his mark has been a rigid ascetic, and celibacy constitutes an important element of self sacrifice in the eyes of the Chinese. "A priest," they have been heard to say, "and yet married!" The Protestant missionary is, moreover, often a man of low birth and narrow horizon, who displays intolerant scorn of native customs and superstitions, as if he imagined the evangelization of an ancient, highly cultivated race was to be effected by imperious commands instead of tactful prudence and sympathy. "I will have no convert who permits his wife to cramp her feet," said one; and this speech illustrates the mental attitude of the majority. All this tends to enhance the contempt and hatred felt for the foreigner; but the greatest, most formidable impediment to the success of the Catholic missionary is the unchristian lives of the European traders and military officers. The Chinese, irritated by the offensive airs of patronage and superiority assumed by these unwelcome invaders of their country, exasperated by inexcusable acts of high handed violence, injustice, and wrong, see in our efforts to gain a commercial footing in China nothing but a lust of gain, a determination to exploit the resources of the country for their own enrichment. As late as 1867 excesses of the most ruthless kind were perpetrated in abundance: the Portuguese initiated these villainous proceedings and other nations followed. The intercourse with these people can scarcely convince the Chinese of the doctrines they profess, "it has been such," says a writer on the subject, "as to store up a fund of the deepest resentment towards them." Can they be expected to feel respect for the Christianity which their arrogant oppressors profess, by the principles of which they claim to be guided, and which so many of their compatriots have come to teach? "Nay more," as the Rev. A. Williamson, a Protestant missionary, observes, "the Chinese are learning evil faster than they are learning good. They are adding foreign vices to their own, aping foreign free living and evil habits; in and around our centres of commerce they are less honest, less moral, less receptive to divine truth than formerly by a long way. From contact with drunken sailors, swearing sea captains, and unscrupulous traders they constantly learn new lessons in the school of duplicity and immorality. Western civilization is proving no blessing to the Chinese." And speaking of official and military residents Major Knollys (English Life in China, 1885) remarks: "The majority of our countrymen seem to have left their religion behind them in England." The fact that the Chinese visit on the head of the Catholic missionaries the offences of the English and Americans, accounts for the frequent risings of the natives against them. In 1891 a serious riot took place in I chang, when the Jesuit mission was burned and the graves violated; two Chinese Sisters connected with the mission were accused of drugging the children, in order to stupify them and take away speech and hearing, that they might steal them and send them to Shanghai. The rioters destroyed everything of a foreign nature on which they could lay their hands. In 1895 there were riots in Sz'Ch'wan. The Catholic bishop, after rough handling from the mob, managed to escape. Over forty stations were destroyed in that province, the missionaries having to fly over mountain passes and untrodden paths to find a refuge. "The history of the Tz Coo Mission," says Mr. Cooper (Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce, 1871) "may, from the date of its establishment, be traced in the blood of numbers of brave and noble minded priests, who have fallen by poison or the knife in the cause of their religion." During the Tibetan revolt in 1905 four French priests were murdered. "The establishment of an orphanage," says Sir H. R. Douglas (Europe and the Far East, 1904, pp. 134 5), "under the care of the Sisters of Mercy at Tientsin, a port opened in 1858 to foreign trade, had aroused considerable ill will on the part of the people, who credited the Sisters with the horrors at times charged against the missionaries. In 1871 a peculiarly fatal epidemic broke out in the orphanage, and the rumor spread abroad that the Sisters were murdering their charges wholesale. An angry mob surrounded the house and demanded admission. The Sisters invited five individuals to enter and inspect the premises. At an ill moment the French Consul drove the inspectors out of the building, with the result that he and his clerk were beaten to death. The infuriated mob set fire to the cathedral before wreaking their vengeance on the Sisters, eight of whom were murdered; their Superior was bound to a post, and the assailants inflicted on her all the tortures in which they are so terribly skilled, finally cutting her body into small pieces. The remaining Sisters were first outraged, then murdered, their home and church set on fire, and their mangled bodies thrown into the flames." The story of the Boxer rising in 1900 is too well known to need repetition here. It represented the wrath and hatred of sixty years' growth. The habit of concealment is natural to the Chinese, and grievances may exist and grow unsuspected beneath their blank, expressionless faces, until some trifle lets loose the storm of fury, fed by a thousand mutual misunderstandings and genuine causes of complaint. Thus it was in 1900. "I think," said Mgr. Favier (whose Vicariate was Pe Tche li, in which Peking is situated) to Mrs. Archibald Little, "12,000 Christians lost their lives in that rising; three of our European, four Chinese, priests, and many of our Sisters. One priest hung on a crucifix, nailed, for three days before he died." Mgr. Hamer, Vicar-Apostolic of Mongolia, was delivered over to the mercy of the soldiers, who took him for three days in the streets, everybody being at liberty to torture him. All his hair was pulled out, his nose, fingers, and ears cut off. After this they wrapped him in stuff soaked in oil, and hanging him head downwards, set fire to his feet. His heart was eaten by two beggars." Thirty four hundred native Christians were besieged in the cathedral and reduced to the starvation point; yet not one evinced the slightest disposition to yield to reiterated invitations to surrender. The orphanages, or more strictly asylums, of which there are sometimes six or seven in a single mission, managed by the members of different religious orders, are for the reception of infants who would otherwise be destroyed. Although infanticide is forbidden by the law, thousands of newly born babes -- almost exclusively girls - are either smothered by their parents or exposed in the streets and waysides to perish. Women unblushingly own to having killed four or five of their offspring, or even to having buried them alive. "A Roman Catholic priest, who had lived twenty one years in Peking, told me," writes Miss Fielde (Pagoda Shadows, 1890, Adele Fielde) "that during the year 1882 seven hundred little castaway girls had been gathered up alive from the ruts and pits of the street, and brought in by the messengers sent out on such service from the Roman Catholic Foundling Asylum of that city; and that during the previous ten years over eight thousand infants had been thus found and sheltered by the same institution." Baron Von Hübner, writing in 1871 (A Ramble Round the World. Translated by Lady Herbert, Vol. II., p. 197), speaks thus of his visit to one of these houses. "We were taken to the orphanage, the Salle d'asile of the babies brought to the Sisters by their families or picked up in the street. These poor little creatures, all girls, who when they arrive are just bundles of skin and bone, devoured by vermin, and generally full of disease and wounds, are baptized, clothed, their wounds dressed, and if they survive, brought up in this house, and married to their co religionists, or else placed as servants in Christian families. We went into one of the large rooms. It was spacious, beautifully clean, and well ventilated. All along the walls are ranged cradles, each containing two children. A number of Sisters, leaning over them, were tending them with the utmost care. Only yesterday these poor little creatures were thrown out on a dungheap, left to be devoured by pigs, or to expire in a slow and horrible agony; today they have found mothers, who, to save them, have come from the uttermost parts of the earth on the wings of God like charity." The girls remain in the orphanages until their eighteenth or twentieth year. The majority marry, and become model wives and mothers, edifying all who come in contact with them, and handing down to their children the virtues acquired during their training by the Sisters. Bridegrooms are not wanting for them, because the families of converts have more boys than girls. A small number prefer to remain unmarried, to devote themselves to the care of the children in the orphanage, and when more advanced in age to assist poor and sick women and baptize dying children. Yet the Sisters "foreign barbarians" -- who carry on this good work are accused of kidnapping young children to take out their hearts and eyes for sale to foreign merchants to make chemicals and medicines (Human Publications. Translated 1892). Nor are these suspicions confined to the lower orders. We are told that "the famous General 'Tseng Kwo Fan was talking one day with an English doctor on the subject of this babies' eyes fraud, when he suddenly said: 'It is of no use to deny it, for I have some of the dried specimens,' and he pulled out a packet of gelatine capsules used for covering castor oil and other nauseous drugs." All this hatred, distrust, and persecution is the Nemesis of a long course of oppression and unscrupulous injustice on the part of Western nations, actuated only by the desire of temporal advantage. Many pages might be filled with the testimony of non-Catholics to the work of our missionaries in China. We give the two following. Sir Robert Hart, speaking at Leeds, says: "The ability, energy, self denial of the Roman Catholic missionaries demands our hearty admiration and attracts our sympathy. They have done a great work both in spreading the knowledge of one God and Savior and in teaching every kind of useful knowledge." "The Jesuits," says Professor Parker, "who compel veneration and respect in China by the sheer force of their erudition and self denial, have the good sense to discern that the Chinese intellect demands their very best men. In the province of Kiangnan alone they have nearly four hundred priests, seminaries, schools, orphanages, two observatories, a natural history museum, a printing press, workrooms, and workshops." "The Franciscans," writes Mr. Consul Alabaster, in his report on the trade of Hankow for 1883, "confine their chief operations to the neighborhood of the port, where they now have a strong position; the prudence of their directors, their noble charities avoiding, on the one hand, sources of irritation and winning for them the respect and kindly feeling both of authorities and people." The number of Catholic priests in China, as given by Father de Moidrey, S.J., in his report for 1909, is as follows: Bishops, 45; Priests, European (including about five Americans), 1,379; Priests, Chinese, 631. The following statistics on Catholic Missions are given by Hilarión Gil: Missions, 44; Seminarists, 1,215; European Lay Brothers, 229; Native Lay Brothers, 130; European Nuns, 558; Chinese Nuns, 1,328. back to index of Chinese articles