Making use of freedom

The following is an excerpt from the diary of Gertrude Li Minwen, a young Chinese Catholic imprisoned for her beliefs and one of the personae of this blog. After being released from prison Gertrude was ordered to enroll in an indoctrination course in order to free her from her 'old ideas'. In some ways this could be a greater ordeal than being in prison because the courses and the interrogations went on inexorably and the accused were made to defend themselves in public before large crowds. The questions of the committee and participants were designed to trap the accused and get them to implicate others:

'On the afternoon of August 15 the course committee forced Giovaanni Liu and me to go up onstage to declare our attitude publicly. We obeyed. Those attending were free to interrupt with their objections. The prefect of the course leveled several accusations against me and asked me to reveal, without deceit, the reason for my last visit to Father Giovanni. I tried to excuse myself, saying that I was not prepared to answer questions like that. Those present began to rail against me and to curse me. Many times the committee tried to force me on to the stage, from which I had come down. Since I was resolved more than ever not to go back up, the girls from the school were mobilized against me and dragged me by force onto the stage. With rebellion in my heart and greatly agitated, in front of about a thousand people, I declared: "During these days of indoctrination Comrade President and all the rest have been very helpful to me... But I must admit that, unfortunately, my mind has not made any progress, that I do not feel capable of obeying the order to join the reform and to denounce the Catholic Church, and I refuse to respond to what the president has just asked me".
"But why did you go visit the European?"
"Because I intended to make use of my freedom."'

The Red Book of Chinese Martyrs, Edited by Gerolamo Fazzini and translated by Michael Miller, San Francisco 2009, pp.274-5.

Let no-one be in any doubt about the willingness of ideological atheism to use whatever means it deems necessary against those who wish to 'make use of their freedom' and remain wedded to their principles and the maxims of their faith.

Atheist crimes

Yesterday the obituary of Bishop Yao of China appeared in L'Osservatore Romano. Originally of the Zhangbei region, Leo Yao Liang was ordained to the Catholic priesthood on the 1st August 1948 at the age of 25. He died on the 30th December aged 86. Almost the whole of Father Yao's priestly ministry was marked by the intense and brutal atheism of the Chinese state.

After his ordination Father Yao worked as an assistant parish priest but was stopped from functioning as a priest and in 1956 condemned to forced labour for the 'crime' of refusing to cooperate in the movement to separate the Catholic Church in China from allegiance to the Pope. For this so-called 'crime' he was sentenced to life imprisonment and spent nearly 30 years in prison. He was ordained a bishop in 2002 but after four years (by now in his early eighties) he was arrested again and spent two and a half years in prison. After his release he was kept under close surveillance by the authorities.

It is a sign of the paranoia of the Chinese civil authorities that after the death of Bishop Yao they banned Catholics from using the title of 'bishop' to refer to him and exhorted them to use the title 'illegal pastor' instead. It seems that in the officially and deeply atheistic state of China some things have not changed.