Religion: Christian Fortitude

Physical heroism was once a conspicuous and necessary quality of all Christians. It is becoming so again in many parts of the world, especially in China. In the current issue of the new Roman Catholic quarterly, Worldmission, under the pen name of Gregory Grady, a Jesuit missionary in the Far East tells of the heroism his fellow Catholics are showing in the face of Communist persecution.

The Chinese, says Grady, are “more than ordinarily brave,” perhaps because of their “constant companionship with poverty and danger, caused sometimes by natural disasters, but only too often by human incompetence and cruelty.” He reports accounts of several martyrdoms, both of missionaries and of Chinese priests and laymen.

“As Long As I Breathe.” Li Hun-jo, a layman, taken by Communist soldiers from his village with some 50 others, had the courage to answer yes when they asked if he was a Christian. He died hooked over the limb of a tree, his arms bound behind his back. Dutch Franciscan Father Leonides Bruns, 35, calmly removed his shoes and socks just before he was beaten to death. “I want to die just as my Lord was at His death,” he told his torturers.

Li Wan-fu, 50-year-old lay leader of the Catholics in his village, was ordered to pluck out his own beard strand by strand. When this process seemed too slow, his torturers burned it off, searing his face with a torch. After severe beatings, “the judge asked Li: ‘Will you still be a Christian and act as head of the community?’ He answered simply: ‘As long as I breathe.’ The judge gestured to a soldier near by, and Li Wan-fu was shot through the head.”

When soldiers pillaged and burned the Trappist monastery at Yangkiaping, writes Grady, the 75 Chinese monks of the community were made prisoners and were led from one squalid mountain jail to another, ”ill fed, poorly clad, roughly treated, along a veritable ‘way of the cross,’ during which 27 of them died, and at the end of which six others were publicly executed.” At the end of his article, Father Grady ists the names of 66 priests, lay brothers and nuns killed in China from 1946 to 1950, and 36 others who died in prison or immediately after their release.

Mixed Effect. The effect of Communist persecutions on Chinese Catholics, according to Father Grady, has been mixed. “As pressure against religion has mounted . . Catholics who live in cities have frequented the sacraments in larger numbers than ever. On feast days, families of the faithful have come in from the countryside to Mass, sometimes walking 15 or more miles in thin cotton shoes over narrow paths and rough roads. An unexpected number of lax Catholics .. . have returned to more fervent and integral service of God …”

On the other hand, there are many defections—just as there were numerous lapses during the first centuries of Christianity, by members who left the church rather than suffer for their faith. But Father Grady is hopeful. Chinese Catholics, he says have “fortitude—the confidence and magnanimity, the patience and constancy—required. Our Lord foretold what would happen. ‘They will lay hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors for my name’s sake . . . and some of you they will put to death (Luke 21:12, 16).’ “