Death of priest imprisoned for 27 years by communists



Taiwan: death of priest imprisoned for 27 years by communists


Jesuit Father Matthew Chu Li-teh has died at the age of 91 in Taipei. Originally from Shanghai, he was imprisoned for 27 years in communist prisons before finally being released, but had to go into exile in order to become a priest.
Arrested in 1955

Born in 1933 into a Catholic family, he suffered years of persecution in Shanghai beginning in 1951. The terrible demolition machine oppressed the Church that resisted in this city that represents the heart of Chinese Catholicism. Matthew Chu was a seminarian when the violence broke out: on the night of September 8-9, 1955, a wave of arrests sent all the clergy to jail.

Bishop Ignatius Kung Pin-mei and 300 priests were arrested, along with nuns and lay people. Hundreds of arrests followed. In all, more than 1,000 Catholics were imprisoned. The priests were held incommunicado for years and subjected to daily interrogations. Members of the same family were dispersed.

The story of this Chinese priest is particular because it is also the story of his family, who witnessed the arrest of six of his brothers during the raid of September 8, 1955, one of whom was already a priest, Francis Xavier Chu Shu-de, also a Jesuit, who died in prison in 1983. Asianews tells this story of suffering in the name of Christ."His widowed mother, Martina, went back and forth between the six prisons where her children were incarcerated. Shanghai residents nicknamed her 'the sorrowful one': for almost three years, she visited them, walking miles to save even a few cents to bring some things (clothes and food) to her imprisoned children."

Her children recall: "Although she was regularly insulted for being the mother of six counterrevolutionaries, she never gave up, and at every visit, she encouraged us all to go on, to accept suffering and to keep faith in God. Until they were all sent to labor camps in distant provinces: Heilongjiang, Guangxi, Zhejiang, Gansu and Anhui. For more than 20 years, he never saw them again."
Released in 1984

The future Father Chu spent a total of 27 years in prison and doing hard labor. "Finally released in 1984, he was unable to become a priest in China because of his refusal to join the Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics. In 1988, he obtained permission to embark for the United States with his bishop, Msgr. Kung Pin-mei, in what was really an exile," Asianews continues.

A year later, Bishop Kung encouraged him to leave for Taiwan to resume his novitiate in the Society of Jesus. It was not until January 9, 1994, at the age of 61, that he was ordained a priest in Taipei, a ceremony that his mother Martina was able to attend.

 

That year, in an interview published by the magazine of the missionaries of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), Mondo e Missione, he recounted the harshness of life in detention. "Phases of deep trust in the Lord alternated with prostration. My prayer often became a lament: 'Why, Lord, have you given me such a heavy cross?'

"I asked myself countless times whether I was still called to offer Him my life in this state. In spite of everything, remembering my mother's words and example, I simply and obstinately asked the Lord every day for the grace to be faithful to the gift of his call."

And he concludes, "We were sent to the labor camps only because we wanted to keep intact the faith we had received and to fulfill God's will."

Sources: Asianews/cath.ch - FSSPX.Actualités
Image: © Asianews