1900 - Antonius Fantosati

July 7, 1900

Hengyang, Hunan

Antonius Fantosati. [CRBC]

Antonius Fantosati was born in St. Maria, near Trevi in the Italian province of Umbria on October 16, 1842. He joined the Franciscan Order as a young man, studying in the novitiate of Spineta. He was ordained a priest in 1862, at the age of 20. Two years later Fantosati accepted an invitation to become a missionary to China. He travelled there as one of nine missionary recruits, arriving at Shiyan County in the extreme north of Hubei Province at the end of 1864.

During the 36 years he spent in China, Fantosati built two beautiful cathedrals, one at Laohekou in Hubei Province, and the other in Hunan Province. Fantosati was a man with much godly wisdom and a gifted leader. He rose through the ranks of the Catholic Church, first being appointed procurator, then Vicar General and Apostolic Administrator of northern Hubei.

Finally, in 1892, Fantosati was elected the Vicar Apostolic of Southern Hunan Province. This new role as bishop required him to travel vast distances to oversee the scattered sheep under his care, as well as being a pastor to the priests who served throughout the area. For Antonius Fantosati, southern Hunan was “a land of struggle and sorrow. In his work of reconstruction and preaching the faith, he encountered a systematic opposition from the authorities and indifference from the people.”[1]

During one itinerant journey in 1900, Fantosati and his co-worker, Joseph Gambaro, were informed that their colleague Cesidio da Fossa Giacomantonio had been murdered and his church burned to the ground. Fantosati fearlessly told Gambaro, “If we have to die, we will die together.”[2] On July 7th, “many fishmongers attacked the bishop’s boat. He tried to calm the crowds, but he was attacked and stabbed in the back with a bamboo stick spiked with steel. He died two hours later. He was 58-years-old.”[3] Another account says the two martyrs were

“seized as they landed in the harbour of Hengyang and were cruelly tortured until they expired. Father Gambaro had his eyes put out; while the aged bishop was pierced with bamboo rods, suffering these tortures for three hours. Some years later the Emperor of China had a memorial or atonement erected on the spot where this outrage was perpetuated.”[4]

1. CRBC, The Newly Canonized Martyr-Saints of China, 102.
2. CRBC, The Newly Canonized Martyr-Saints of China, 102.
3. “The Martyrs of China 1648-1930,” Tripod, 45.
4. Habig, Pioneering in China, 94.