Taiwan Today

The object of this uproarious greeting is Bishop James Edward Walsh, charged with being "a U.S. imperialist spy engaged in subversive activities against the Chinese Peo­ple's Republic," and with committing "serious crimes." Without summoning witnesses and without providing the accused a defense counsel, the court found him guilty and sentenced him to 20 years of imprisonment.

The day before, a similar session was held in the same courtroom. Bishop Kung Pinmei of Shanghai and 13 other Chinese priests were tried on similar charges. Kung was given life imprisonment while the others received sentences ranging from five to 20 years.

These recent trials gave the world a fresh reminder of the relentless Communist persecution of Catholicism as well as other religious beliefs on the mainland for almost 30 years. They also indicated that resistance against Red tyranny is still going strong among the various religious groups on the mainland despite an allout effort to eradicate them.

Before 1949, the Chinese Communist attitude towards Christian missionaries was one of open, though local and somewhat disor­ganized, persecution in the territories under their occupation. In the first "Soviet area" of Kiangsi in the 1920's, temples and churches were looted or burned; priests and monks were murdered out of hand. Two Irish priests, Fathers Leonard and Tierney of St. Columban's Society, were among the victims. In the sections of North China occupied by the Communists from 1945 to 1948, at least 57 Catholic priests, including 16 foreigners, were killed.

Change of Tactics

The persecution took a subtle form with the Communist seizure of the mainland. For its plan, its methodical procedure, its refine­ment of technique and the results obtained, the Chinese Communist persecution may be cited as the prototype of persecutions in countries under Marxist rule. The Communist chieftains on the Chinese main­land are more anxious for action than for spectacular demonstrations. Methodically, almost silently, and with clear knowledge of what they wanted, they have effected in the short span of 10 years an immense work of destruction. They have proved themselves past masters at minimizing the bad impression which news of the per­secution produced outside the country. They repeated, in all keys, that the new regime considers it a duty to respect Article 88 of its "Constitution" on the freedom of religion. They insisted that the steps taken were forced on them by a "spontaneous" reaction of the national conscience to an imperialism that hides under the cloak of religion.

Though the same "Constitution" guaran­tees all citizens "freedom of thought, speech, the press, meeting, association, correspond­ence, choice of domicile, travel, religious denomination, procession or other demonstration...," the Statute for Suppression of Counter-Revolutionaries published soon af­terwards put into the hands of the regime the judicial arm needed for a more intense attack on the religions. Under the cover of defending Marxist principles and institutions, the clergy were kept isolated and un­der constant supervision. They were refused permission to travel. The priests and bishops sometimes had to take up the most humble trades to procure the necessities of life. Missionaries were accused of anti-government activities, of spreading superstitution of treason in favor of "American imperialism." Here and there attempts were made to prohibit religious ceremonies which were considered "a waste of time and harmful to the national production."

By degrees the freedom sanctioned in the "Constitution" was torn to shreds. Since 1950, numerous charitable and relief institu­tions were suppressed on ridiculous accusations. The 65th meeting of the "State Council" in December that year ordered a census and the registration of all social, cultural, religious and educational works subsidized from abroad. The evident purpose of this step was to prepare the way for their even­tual confiscation after careful inventory. The Statute for Suppression of Counter-Revolutionaries also sounded the death knell of all Catholic journals and reviews. In July 1951, the Legion of Mary, an organization of Catholic laymen, was outlawed as a "secret and anti-revolutionary" organization.

Some Statistics

Visitors to the mainland were impressed by the churches open and services going normally. Statistics, however, showed that substantial changes have taken place. In 1948, the Catholic Church in China had three universities, 189 middle schools, 1,500 primary schools and 2,243 rural schools with a combined enrollment of 320,000. At the same time the Church was running 216 hos­pitals, 781 dispensaries, five leprosaria, 254 orphanages with 16,000 orphans, 29 printing presses, 55 reviews, one observatory, the largest library in Shanghai, two museums and one ethnological institute. Of all these the only survivor now is a school run by sisters in Peiping for the children of foreign diplomats.

In many instances, these institutions were confiscated only after a long and very ugly campaign of calumny. Hospitals were charged with gross negligence, schools with being hotbeds of imperialism, spearheading the "cultural invasion" of the country. Particularly foul was the campaign against the orphanages. The nuns in control there were accused of mass murder of Chinese babies. Bones were dug up and put on exhibition as evidence. The sisters had to serve jail sentences before being expelled.

The movement for "triple autonomy" (i. e., self-government, self-support and self­-propagation) was launched in January 1951, to pave the way for the eventual establishment of a schismatic church on the main­ land. In March the same year, Antony Riberi, former apostolic internuncio, became the object of violent attacks in the Communist press. He had put the bishops on their guard against the "reform" movement. On June 26, he was put under house arrest. Less than three months later, the Red military authorities in Nanking ordered his expulsion. The order was speedily carried out without the slightest respect for common diplomatic practice.

In 1943, there were 3,300,000 Catholics; 5,788 priests, of whom 2,698 were Chinese; and 7,463 nuns, of whom 5,112 were Chinese. Of the foreign missionaries, all but four or five have been forced to leave the mainland. And these few, like Bishop Walsh, are languishing in Communist prisons. It is impos­sible to get the exact figures of the Chinese priests killed or jailed. However, it is fairly certain that they can be counted by the thousands. Of the loyal Chinese priests still outside prisons, not a single one has anything like the minimum of freedom to do his priestly work.

Of course, there have been collaborators among the Chinese priests. It is these few who helped set up the "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association." Headed by Arch­bishop Pi Shu-shih of Shengyang, this pup­pet body was founded in Peiping in July 1957. All Catholics on the mainland are expected to join and its purpose is quite sim­ple: to make the Catholic Church a tool of the Red regime's policies. The persecution may be taking new and more subtle forms. It shows no sign of easing or ending.

Early Stage

Peiping's campaign against the Catholic Church may be divided into two stages. From May, 1950 until September, 1955, the purpose was to eliminate foreign missiona­ries and destroy their influence over their congregations.

The first public attack came in the Hsinhua Jih Pao of Nanking on May 13, 1950, in the form of a letter signed by a "Mr. Liu" who described how his child had died in the Nanking Sacred Heart Home, a Catholic orphanage. It set off a nationwide campaign of false charges against the 254 orphanages, at the end all of which were taken over by the regime. The two nuns in the Nanking home were each given a ten-year sentence.

Finding no resistance from the helpless sisters, the regime then turned its attention toward those higher on the ecclesiastical ladder. In the years that followed, hundreds of foreign missionaries and Chinese priests were jailed on ridiculous charges, thousands more put under house arrest or other forms of surveillance, and scores of them died as a result of the persecution. While many did not live to tell the story, and none of the 2,700 Chinese priests escaped from the Bamboo Curtain, the relatively few foreign missionaries who were finally expelled gave the world an inkling of the Communist cruelty and the devious means they used to exact "confessions" and collect "evidences of crime."

Take the example of Archbishop The­odore Buddenbrock of Lanchow, a member of the Divine World Society, who was put under house arrest at that Northwestern city in Sep­tember 1951 after months of being harassed by the Communists. So was Father Ludwig Senge on the same day. They were led to their separate rooms with a guard assigned to watch them. The windows were pasted with paper so that they could not see out­side.

On a cold day toward the end of November, 300 workers came into the mission grounds. The archbishop and Father Senge were brought out under guards and ordered to take picks and spades and start digging where accusers said there was a cache of aviation gasoline. A Communist photographer was al­ways present for occasions like this to snap pictures of the "spies." It is grist for their propaganda mill and news copy in the campaign to get rid of foreign "imperialists."

The workmen pitched in to help dig up the plot which was a cemetery before the mission bought the land. The former owner preferred not to disinter the ancient remains as the mission urged him to do, but simply levelled off the grave mounds. Now he was brought to accuse the foreigners of heinous crime. He claimed that the priests prohibited him from coming to pay respect to his dead. The diggers found no gasoline but they found human bones. These were arranged on dis­play with the two clerics behind them for a propaganda picture, showing their crime of disrespect for the dead, and it was published in the local paper to incite general feeling against the Catholic Church.

A company of diggers was back with the searchers again next month. This time they dug up the mechanic shop floor and the whole farmyard of an acre and a half. Some eager bea­ver had dreamed that the weapons and radios supposedly to be hidden by the "saboteurs" were there and gave the authorities a tip-off. They found nothing underground. But the brother mechanic who shod mules and repaired or built farm tools had a pile of scrap in the shop. This was a find! Among the junk was one rusty knife, a knife handle, an ancient pistol, the handle of a sword, and even a flat iron handle. These made up the evi­dence for "secret weapons." Each of the items of the junk pile was carefully numbered and labelled as parts of a radio transmitter; over 500 parts in all.

A few days before Christmas 1951, an exhi­bition of what the Communists had found and other evidence that they had planted, like bul­lets etc. was prepared. The Communist propaganda artists had drawn up lurid posters of hundreds of unholy acts incriminating the priests. Officials, journalists and high school students were invited as guests to the exhibition the first day. Next morning thousands came pouring in. When everything was ready the "criminals" were brought from the house where they were confined and placed behind the tables loaded with "evidence." Cameras clicked, rabble-rousers lectured and the crowd sang Communist songs and shouted Commu­nist slogans.

It was a motley bunch of articles they lined up for the camera men and crowd: elec­tric variable transformers, pictures from the mission photo albrary, medicine with crossed bones label, weather vane, bullets, field glasses, knives and piles of other junk which the Reds had labelled.

Some years ago, the agent for the German firm Kunst & Albers died at the mission. In the baggages left by the dead man were his war decorations. All these were pinned on Father Senge's chest for the picture. They wanted the archbishop to hold the field glasses to his eyes, but his shaky hands and stubborn resistance made this picture impossible. Another priest summoned to the scene swung the weather vane and the picture was labelled "sending radio messages."

On February 11, 1953, the Kansu Jih Pao formally reported that: "On the demand of all circles of the population, the People's Court of Kansu province on February 10 passed sentence in open court on 10 imperialist spies and wreckers who were disguised in the cassocks of priests of the Catholic Church. Six of them are Germans: Theodore Bud­denbrock, archbishop of the Lanchow Diocese; Ludwig Senge, archdeacon of the Lanchow Diocese ...

"These imperialists' agents arrived in China sometime between 1905 and 1935 and carried out espionage under the leadership of Theodore Buddenbrock for fascist Germany, Japan, Italy and the American imperialists. After the liberation of the Northwest, in 1949 they intensified their criminal activities against the Chinese people. They organized a branch of the counter-revolutionary corps, the Legion of Mary, directing its activities for the support of the war of aggression unleashed by the American imperialists .... They forced backward, Chinese Catholics to oppose measures of the People's Government, to beat up cadre workers and to collect information on military, political and economic matters. They organized counter-revolutionary elements with the aim of overthrowing the people's regime."

The Communists were lenient enough to expel Archbishop Buddenbrock along with the other foreign missionaries after convicting them on "espionage" charges.

Another such story was told by the Rev. John W. Clifford, S.J., who was deported in 1956. He was arrested at about midnight on June 15, 1953 in Shanghai. The Communists dragged him from his bed and charged him with being a "saboteur and imperialist." Without being allowed to speak to anyone, he was whisked to a failthy prison cell, forced to sit on the floor without moving or talking or reading for 15 hours a day, and fed a few bowls of plain rice at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. After three weeks he was called upon to confess his "crimes." There was no lawyer, no jury, no evidence, no specific charges against him. Aside from the judge and the accused, the only person present was a soldier with a drawn pistol. He was told he was guilty, his arrest proved that.

Since Father Clifford had no crimes to confess, and brutal threats and gross insults could not intimidate him, he was sent to another prison to "meditate" on his crimes for seven months. During this period the other prisoners in the cell were directed to "reeducate" him by indoctrination, petty per­secution, crude insults against his nationality and religion. They were officially told in his presence their own cases would be handled more quickly and leniently if they cooperated with the regime in breaking him down.

When he refused to give in, he was forced to stand at stiff attention without moving a muscle for six or seven hours a day while they lectured him. They bragged that they needed no evidence, no proof, no witnesses. All such nonsense is part of the capitalistic non-scientific and reactionary society, they said.

At the same time his cellmates were made to hasten along his breakdown in every possible way. Each day he had seven or more hours of standing when he would not even be allowed to satisfy the needs of nature. He had to stand in his own urine and excre­ment. In the night he would sometimes have to sleep with his head directly under the "bucket" while others kicked him in the face with impunity. Fr. Clifford remained in jail until his deportation four years later. He is now in Taiwan.

Tool of Imperialism

Stories similar to those of Archbishop Bud­denbrock and Father Clifford were too many to be recounted here. In order to keep the record straight, however, it should be noted that officially it was not the Catholic Church that was being persecuted. On the contrary, the Peiping regime had professed from the begin­ning a sanctimonious concern for all religions, including the Catholic Church. It was so concerned with its welfare that it must pre­vent the Church from being tainted with "imperialism."

In the eyes of the Chinese Communist regime, "the Catholic Church in China, just as the Protestant Church, as well in her organization as in her system, finance, ideo­logy and institutions, is completely dominated by imperialism," according to Red newspapers. A cleaning-up job was called for. For "no sincere believer can in any way tolerate that the Church he belongs to be utilized by imperialism as a tool."

Catholics were told not to be unduly alarmed at the expulsion of foreign mission­aries. Editorialized a Communist paper then: "Doubtless it is necessary to make a distinction between revolutionary activities of the special agents that are to be found in the religious societies, and the religious societies as a whole. The Christians must form for themselves an exact and precise idea about those two ques­tions, which are quite distinct from one another. They must not consider the repressive measures taken by the government a­gainst all counter-revolutionaries as being an oppression of religion; these repressive measures are completely foreign to the religious question and must evidently receive the warmest support of all patriotic Christians."

By "patriotic Christians" the editorial writer had in mind both Catholics and Protestants. For as early as July, 1950, a group of 40 Protestants conferred with "Pre­mier" Chou En-lai to seek a way of "peaceful coexistence" with the regime. A manifesto was issued at the end of the conference, and a "Christian Reform Committee" was born, with Wu Yao-tsung, former executive secretary of the National Y.M.C.A., as chairman. The "reform movement" was launched on the platform of "triple autonomy"—self­-government, self-support and self-propagation. Whether these Protestant leaders knew what they were getting themselves into was another question. The "Reform Committee" and hundreds of local branches established later were certainly made a political tool by the Chinese Communists.

On the whole, during that stage of their campaign, the Communists had more success with the Protestants than the Catholics. The attitude of the Catholic Church toward the "triple autonomy movement" was this: these broad principles were welcome to a certain extent as they were understood by the Cathol­ics. Self-support—naturally the Universal Church ould welcome the day when her daughter in China can look after her own financial needs. Self-propagation—already nearly half the priests in China were Chinese. And the same for self-government. There were Chinese bishops since 1926. By 1948, there were about 22 Chinese bishops, including a cardinal, in China. However, there is a minimum of allegiance which Catholics, be they of Chinese or any other nationality, must give to the Pope. Without that minimum they are no longer Catholics. Until it became clear that the proposed self-government would al­low for this essential allegiance, the Cath­olics in China would have nothing to do with it. They did not, and the "reform movement" had no Catholic follower in the first months of its existence.

Faked Manifesto

Things dragged on like this for some time. The People's Daily of Peiping pointedly kept reminding all "patriotic Catholics" to follow the example of the Protestants. Final­ly on December 13, 1950, newspapers all over the mainland announced that Father Wang Liang-tso of Kuangyuan, Szechuan province, with 500 of his flock, had issued a manifesto calling for the setting up of a "Reformed Catholic Church." Catholic sources said Father Wang immediately denied that he signed such a manifesto. It was further reported that he was arrested and died in jail.

Nevertheless, the official Chinese Com­munist press played up the "patriotic" lead of Father Wang and his brave 500. Everywhere, the local Communist Party and regime swung into action, and a number of "Catholic Reform Committees" were formed. The exact number was never published. According to Catholic sources, active supporters of the "reform movement" never exceed 2 percent of the 3,000,000 Catholics in the country. Out of some 2,700 Chinese priests, perhaps 30 to 50 yielded to the pressure and joined the "Catholic Reform Committees."

Beginning from 1951, the eager Com­munists launched a bitter attack on the Pope and clamored for a break with the Vatican. The late Pope Pius XII was reviled daily in public utterances. He was depicted in cartoons as an agent of American imperialism, with a dollar sign in both eyes. While this kind of propaganda may seem crude to a foreign audience, it is hardly more incredible than the charge of germ warfare against the United States during the Korean war. The tide of vilification of the Catholic Church reached a peak in September that year with the expulsion of Monsignor Antoni Riberi, then Papal Internuncio, from Nanking

In the three years following 1950, the tightening of the screws persisted so that almost all the Catholic churches in rural areas and provincial towns were closed. All Catholic institutions—universities, schools, hospitals, orphanages and others—in the big cities also passed into the hands of the Com­munists. There was, of course, no compensa­tion. In many instances these institutions were confiscated only after a long and very ugly campaign of calumny. Hospitals were charged with gross negligence, schools with being hotbeds of imperialism, spearheading the "cultural invasion" of the country. And of course, the campaign against the orphan­ages which accused the Sacred Heart Orphanage of Nanking alone with murdering 2,000 babies.

In the larger cities, development of the "reform movement" was slow. In Shanghai, Father Beda Tsang, rector of the Zikawei Middle School, was arrested on August 9, 1951 for being an "enemy of the people, saboteur of the government, deceiver of youth, reactionary, and running-dog of im­perialism." Three months later, he died at 46 in prison, much to the embarrassment of the regime. The Catholics of Shanghai venerated Father Tsang as a martyr. Thousands crowded the Zikawei Cathedral at the solemn requiem mass for him. The Communist newspapers made haste to publish posthumously all the dead man's crimes and tried to convince the public that the death of Father Tsang had been a natural one, of no relations whatsoever to the treatment he received while in prison. They hinted that it was an evil thing to wear mourning for Father Tsang or to bring flowers to his grave, an unmarked plot with no tombstone.

Cleanup Campaign

More arrests followed as Peiping went about its task of kicking out every foreign missionary on the mainland, by force if neces­sary. On June 15, 1953, seven of them were thrown into jail in Shanghai—two French, two Belgians and three Americans. There were the routine accusations, the routine proofs of weapons, radio sets and similar evidences, and routine talk about imperialism "hiding under the cloak of religion."

The People's Daily of Peiping published an editorial a few days later, entitled: "Clean Up the Imperialist Elements Hiding in the Catholic Church." It started by giving a list of Catholic priests "espionage organizations," from Shengyang to Canton, and reported the discovery of a Catholic youth organization "organized as a murder gang." The paper, official organ of the Central Com­mittee of the Chinese Communist Party, was shocked to find that after the efforts of so many years, "the patriotic spirit was not yet fully developed in the Catholic Church, and that many members of the Church were still unable to recognize the imperialist elements."

In the same year, the battle against the Legion of Mary was fought again in Canton. It was charged that the Legion was founded as a "reactionary, fascist secret society" to serve as tools of bishops and priests. Its members committed such "crimes" as protecting landlords and counter-revolutionaries during the campaign for the suppression of such elements, listening to the Voice of America, and conducting various sabotage against the regime. One French and two Irish, priests active in Canton were subsequently expelled.

By 1954, Peiping could look at the result of its persecution of foreign missionaries with real pride. According to the Mission Bulletin, published by the Catholic Church in Hongkong, by December that year, only 61 foreign priests out of some 3,500 still remained on the mainland, and 21 of them were in prison. Chinese priests fared even worse. For the only difference between native and foreign clergymen was that eventual freedom at Hongkong awaited these latter, while for Chinese priests there were only three choices: the slave labor camp, the jailor the firing squad. The Hongkong publication reported that, of 143 dioceses in China, at least 400 Chinese priests were in prison in late 1954.

Despite the pressure, the Chinese clergy still resisted the Peiping regime, and some even went underground to perform their sacred duties. The leading collaborator, Vicar-General Li Wei-kuang of the Nanking Diocese, complained about priests "who do not fulfill their patriotic duties" in a speech before the first session of the First "National People's Congress" in September, 1954. Lo Jui-ching, "minister of public security" at that time, disclosed to the second session of the First "National People's Congress" in July, 1955 that: "Counter-revolutionary elements were still working under the cloak of religion. Between May 1953 and April 1954, close to 200 dugouts, some large enough to accommodate 100 people, had been discovered. These had been used by secret organizations under the name of the Catholic Church in the Hsien-hsien and Yungnien counties in Hopei province."

Second Stage

With foreign missionaries now largely out of the way, the second stage of Peiping's per­secution was characterized by concentrated effort to break the resistance of Chinese priests toward the "patriotic movement." The arrest on September 8, 1955 of Bishop Kung Pin-mei of Shanghai and his followers started the campaign with a real bang.

Those arrested formed the largest group of religious leaders ever rounded up by the Chi­nese Communist regime. Twenty three priests and some two or three hundred of the leading Catholics of Shanghai went to prison with their bishop. Among them were Father john Li, superior of the episcopal residence; Father Mathew Chang, parish priest of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Church; Father Louis Chin, S.J., rector of Zikawei Major and Minor Semi­nary; Father Joseph Chen, S.J., philosophy professor at the seminary; Father Vincent Chu, S.J., parish priest of Christ the King Church; Father Thomas Mei, S.J., responsible for the three parishes of St. Ignatius, St. Peter and Christ the King; Father Louis Wu, lecturer at the seminary; Father Philippe Ting, S.J.; Father Joseph Chow, S.J.; Father Thaddee Tsai, S.J.; Father Joseph Fan, S.J., director of the Zikawei Minor Seminary; Father Ignace Chiang, S.J., director of the Probatorium; Father Stanislas Yen,S.J., also of the Zikawei Seminary; and Father Joseph Lu, professor of Chinese literature and Latin at the Minor Seminary. In the news announcing the sen­tencing of Bishop Kung to life imprisonment last March, it was charged that the bishop drew together these men "to form the nucleus and set up a traitorous counter-revolutionary clique, and carry out a series of traitorous activities in an organized and planned way through the religious institutions under their control."

It seemed that similar arrests occurred all over the country at about the same time, co­ordinated by the "Bureau of Religious Affairs" in Peiping, under Ho Cheng-hsiang. Because on September 11, Radio Peiping said that a large group of Catholics, among them a Chinese priest, had been arrested locally. Three days later, it warned that: "If Chinese Cath­olics do not withdraw from the Legion of Mary and from all similar counter-revolu­tionary activities, they will be very severely punished." On September 15, it announced that four persons were arrested in Fukien, and three more in Chekiang province, "who had infiltrated Catholic organizations in order to carryon counter-revolutionary activities."

It was also reported on September 14 that Communist police in Tsinan, Shantung province, uncovered an organization called the "China Democratic Party," whose principal aim was to attack the Communist Party and among whose organizers were "Catholics, land­lords, refugees and those under surveillance." Others were jailed in Pengpu, Anhwei prov­ince.

Bishop Kung's arrest was not officially announced until three months later. In December, 1955 an editorial in the People's Daily commented on the case, and charged the Chi­nese bishop with opposition to the "patriotic movement," openly taking an attitude to the "land reform" campaign and to the war in Korea. During the campaign for "suppression of counter-revolutionaries" in 1951, he had protected people in danger. The editorial still spoke of "freedom of religion": "The People's Government suppresses counter-revolutionaries cloaked in a religious habit, but this is no obstacle to religious freedom." It added threateningly: "There are still in the Catholic Church secret counter-revolutionaries who have not yet confessed to the Government or repented.... We give this warning to such counter-revolutionaries: All your stubborn­ness and cunning is useless; it only aggravates your sins!"

It was interesting to note that the arrest of Bishop Kung coincided with the arrest of the writer Hu Feng, alleged "rightist" ring-leader of literary circles on the mainland. It followed also the purging of Kao Kang and Yao Shu-shih, Communist bosses of Northeast and East China in the same year.

Patriotic Association

The next step on Peiping's time table is the establishment of a national Catholic Church completely subject to Communist Party dominance. With all resistance crushed, the regime considered the time ripe for such a move. On July 26, 1956, Chou En-lai invited 38 Catholic priests and lay leaders to a meet­ing called the "preparatory conference for the Preparatory Committee of the Catholic Patriotic Association." Four bishops took part in the meeting which lasted six days: Bishops Wang Wen-cheng of Nanchung, Szechuan province; Chao Chen-sheng of Hsienhsien, Hopei province; Li Po-yu of Chouchih, Shensi province; and Yi Hsuan-hua of Hsiangyang, Hupei province. There were also nine vicars­-general, twelve priests and eleven laymen.

At the same time, however, the policy of "let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend" got out of hand. It claimed every attention of the Peiping regime which finally calmed things down and launched immediately afterward the campaign against "rightist elements."

On February 12, another preparatory conference for the "Catholic Patriotic Associa­tion" was called in Peiping, under the personal direction of Ho Cheng-hsiang, director of the "Bureau of Religious Affairs." Fifty five persons attended, including Archbishop Pi Shu-shih of Shengyang. However, only five of the 25 Chinese bishops residing on the mainland took part. Bishop Wang Wen-cheng, the "progressive" leader, was elected the chairman, and Vicar-General Tung Wen-lung of Tsinan the vice chairman. The conference obediently adopted a resolution to establish the "Catholic Patriotic Association" in the second half of March. This date was later postponed to July.

Meanwhile, a thorough indoctrination campaign for Catholics was launched in all major cities on the mainland in 1957. For example, in Taiyuan, capital of Shansi prov­ince, 51 Catholic priests were called together by the "Provincial Bureau of Religious Af­fairs" began an 80-day political indoctrination course on April 26. In Huhehot, capital of Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, 26 women catechists were summoned to take part in a 20-day "collective learning." Similar indoctrination courses lasting two or three months were reported in every province. In Shanghai, a series of five such "group learnings" were conducted between July 1957 and September the following year. The syllabus for these courses consisted of the Communist Party document, "Again on the Historical Experience of the Proletarian Dictatorship," published on December 28, 1956, Chou En-lai's "Report on the Work of the Government," and the policy of the "patriotic movement." In Shanghai, sometime as many as 400 Cath­olic leaders were forced to participate in one indoctrination class.

The establishment of the "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association" in Peiping in July, 1957 marked for the Peiping regime the "success" of its long campaign to domi­nate the Catholic Church. After that, while the faithful had to bent their heads to the "east wind," the regime was free to do what it pleases to the 3,000,000 Catholics on the mainland. New bishops were "elected" by Catholic conferences after March 1958. The climax of its persecution so far was the sentencing of Bishops Kung Pin-mei and James E. Walsh in March 1960.

Last Stronghold

Shanghai was the last stronghold of the Catholics who refused to bow to the new "patriotic Church." After the sentences for Bishops Kung and Walsh were announced, the "Municipal Bureau of Religious Affairs" of Shanghai called the first session of the "First Representative Conference of Shang­hai Catholics" from April 23 to April 26. According to the New China News Agency, a total of 683 priests and lay folks attended the meeting, with 172 others as observers. Arch­ bishop Pi Shu-shih, chairman of the "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association," Bishops Li Wei-kuang and Chao Chen-sheng, vice chair­men, came by "special invitation."

The conference was described as being "called after the major victory achieved by the Shanghai Catholic circles in their pat­riotic struggle against imperialism." Claimed the NCNA: "In their group and plenary session discussions, the representative excit­edly hailed the victory of the Catholic Church in the anti-imperialist, patriotic campaign. Many Catholic representatives, fathers and sisters also condemned U.S. imperialism for colluding with the Vatican and using the Catholic Church to carry out subversive activities against our country. The repre­sentatives unanimously agreed that Shanghai Catholics, like all Chinese Catholics, must be free of all control by the Vatican and run the Church independently. They pledged that henceforth they will all the more firmly uphold the Chinese Communist Party leadership, follow the socialist path, intensively carry out the anti-imperialist patriotic campaign under the brilliant illumination of the general line for the socialist construc­tion, and join the people of the whole coun­try to contribute to the socialist construction of the motherland."

Father Chang Chia-shu was "elected" the bishop of the Shanghai Diocese. The "Shang­hai Catholic Patriotic Association" was also set up, with Hu Wen-yao as its chairman and four vice chairmen: Yang Shih-ta, Chang Chia-shu, Joseph Tan li-tao and Lu Wei-tu. It was apparent that the bishop takes the back seat to the chairman of the "Catholic Patriotic Association."

Even though the backbone of Catholic resistance against Red persecution was bro­ken, the battle is by no means lost. For there still are hundreds of thousands of faithful Catholics on the mainland who would readily follow the path of Bishop Kung. Their silence must not be mistaken as acqui­escence and they may yet roar their defiance when the right moment comes.