Posted on 09/09/2023 3:58:50 PM PDT by ebb tide
On the evening of Sept. 8, 1955, public security officers of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a mass arrest of Catholic clergy in the city of Shanghai. Among them was the first native-born bishop of the city, Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei. By the end of the month, over 1,200 priests and lay faithful were arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned.
This carefully orchestrated event was the culmination of a multiyear process by the CCP to break Catholic resistance in the city and to bring the Church under the control of the state.
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Bishop Kung Laid Groundwork for Underground Church
Pope Pius XII, as was the case for many of his predecessors, considered communism as not just a political ideology but a new religion. Responding to the rapidly deteriorating situation in China, in Ad Sinarum Gentem (“To the Chinese People”) he excoriated the establishment of a national church, which “could no longer be Catholic because it would be the negation of that universality or rather ‘catholicity’ by which the society truly founded by Jesus Christ is above all nations and embraces them one and all.”
Bishop Kung knew he would be arrested, and to maintain the long-term survivability of the Church he needed to prepare the laity to pass down the faith. Kung, with the help of many priests and faithful Catholics, built up an impressive network in Shanghai that allowed the Church to continue operating. This took the form of clandestine catechism groups (an initiative first spearheaded by the priest Beda Chang, who is considered the first Catholic martyr of the Church in Shanghai) and preaching sessions.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
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Ping
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Thank you.
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