1960 - Aloysius Ao

November 23, 1960

Prison, Qinghai

Women of the Catholic Maryknoll mission in the 1930s.

One of the closest friends and co-workers of the martyred American Bishop Francis Xavier Ford was a Chinese priest named Aloysius Ao who was the pastor at Xingning—a town just south of Ford’s home in Meizhou, northeast Guangdong Province. Ao, whose ancestral family had settled in the Malaysian city of Penang, was loved and respected by his congregation.

In 1951 the Communist forces in Xingning issued a notice that the Catholic church should shut down and all religious activities cease. Ao chose to ignore the warning. To avoid trouble, the Sunday morning Mass times were scheduled much earlier than usual, in the hope the authorities would not be out of bed by the time the Christians had finished worshipping each week. One Sunday a Communist soldier barged into the church during the sermon. The soldier

“threateningly walked in the side door of the church, hand on gun. He eyed the congregation cautiously and advanced directly to the altar rail…. Father Ao, with characteristic courage, approached the soldier and quietly invited him outside for a few words…. As the priest left the sanctuary the Christians silently and sadly slipped away. It was the last Mass they were to hear, for their pastor was taken prisoner and placed in a labour squad.”[1]

After one year the government released Ao from prison, hoping his bitter experiences would force him to change heart and register his church as part of the new state-controlled Catholic Church that was being promoted throughout China. Ao was no longer allowed to pastor God’s flock, and to survive he was forced to render manual labour. Letters from him were occasionally smuggled out to Hong Kong. In 1958 he gave a depressing picture of his life in Red China:

“Every day I walk to a market place about six miles [10 km] away, to carry firewood, coal or beans. I am able to balance about 100 pounds [45 kg] with a pole on my shoulders and I make about 50 cents in local currency for each trip. Not much…and it is very hard…but the toil and effort are far outbalanced by the spiritual gain…. I am suffering from haemorrhoids and my teeth are giving me a lot of trouble…. Please say a prayer for me now and then.”[2]

A few months later a more disturbing note from Ao reached Hong Kong:

“I shall hang on as long as I possibly can; I cannot leave my flock. I feel so oppressed; I am really physically sick…. Be assured that we will be faithful to Christ and would rather choose death than do anything that would cause another sword to pierce his Sacred Heart…. There is no sign of easing off…it seems they are determined to squash the Church.”[3]

Aloysius Ao asked his colleagues in Hong Kong to notify his family in Penang if he should be killed. Once he managed to smuggle a note to the nuns as he walked past the mission. It read, “Christ hid for nine months in His mother’s womb, and thirty in the small village of Nazareth. What does it matter if we are hidden and suffer here?”[4]

In February 1960, Ao was again arrested for refusing to cooperate with the new government-sanctioned Catholic Church. This time he was sent to far away to the northwest province of Qinghai, where only hardened criminals were dispatched by the Communists. The following year news reached Hong Kong that Aloysius Ao had died in the prison labour camp in Qinghai on November 23, 1960.

1. Donovan, The Pagoda and the Cross, 185.
2. Donovan, The Pagoda and the Cross, 207.
3. Donovan, The Pagoda and the Cross, 207-208.
4. Palmer, God’s Underground in Asia, 235.