1931 - Cornelius Tierney

February 28, 1931

Nancheng, Jiangxi

Cornelis Tierney.

Irish missionary Cornelius Tierney was one of the leaders of the Catholic Maynooth Mission at Hanyang in Hubei Province. Born in 1872 at Clones in County Monaghan, Ireland, Tierney was ordained a priest in 1899 and taught at a seminary for the next 12 years. He then served for seven years as the curate at St. Joseph’s Church in Ballyshannon, before joining the Maynooth Mission in 1918. In 1920 he travelled to China with the first group of Maynooth missionaries. Also on board the ship was Timothy Leonard, who was martyred in 1929. After serving at Hanyang in Hubei Province from 1920 to 1924, Tierney was reassigned to the United States, returning to China in the role of Superior of the new mission base at Nancheng in 1928.

At dawn on November 13, 1930, Tierney was captured by two Communist soldiers as the church bell was ringing for Mass. One of the men pinned Tierney’s arms behind his back and said, “You are our greatest enemy.”[1] When John Kerr, a missionary living 17 miles (27 km) away, heard what had happened he immediately dispatched a Chinese believer to carefully follow the missionary and his captors. On the first day Tierney was stripped of his clothes, beaten with bamboo, and given a red soldier’s coat to wear. After reaching their mountain hideout the Communists forced Tierney to write a ransom note for $10,000. For the next three months news of the captured priest faded, as he was taken further into the remote mountains.

On one occasion Tierney was released after the bandits realized they would not be paid the ransom. Malnourished and disorientated, the Irishman stumbled 20 miles (32 km) through the mountains before he was captured by a different group of Communist bandits. Once again Tierney was marched from place to place, enduring incredible physical and mental stress.

Cornelius Tierney died at about two o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday, February 28, 1931, and was buried on a remote mountain. News of his death reached Hanyang in late March. Chinese Christians arranged for the body to be brought back for proper burial. The Irish missionary-priest was dead at the age of 58.

1. Fischer, Maybe a Second Spring, 83.