1951 - Beda Zhang

November 11, 1951

Shanghai

Beda Zhang.

Beda Zhang (Chang) was born at Anding in Jiangsu Province on May 17, 1905. His forefathers had been devout Catholics for several generations. Growing up in this loving and reverential atmosphere, Beda was influenced to believe in God. He partook of his first Communion at the age of six. Sent to attend St. Ignatius Catholic School in Shanghai, Beda was remembered as “a lively and intelligent pupil, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.”[1]

After completing high school he joined the Society of Jesus. Seeing the young man had considerable academic and spiritual gifts, they sent him for further study in France in 1932. He returned to his motherland five years later after obtaining a doctorate in literature. On May 30, 1940, Zhang was ordained a priest and later that same year he was appointed Superior of the St. Ignatius School, where he had attended as a boy. He was duly promoted to principal, and then in 1947 was promoted again to the position of Dean of the Faculty of Literature at Aurora Catholic University.

At the start of 1951 the Communists launched a nationwide campaign to expel Archbishop Riberi, the Pope’s Internuncio to China. The government thought that if they could drive a wedge between China’s Catholics and this representative of the Vatican, they would be able to divide and conquer the Church in China.

Riberi was arrested in July 1951 and endured a public trial and expulsion from China in September of the same year. All the commotion caused by this incident meant that the arrest of Beda Zhang largely went unnoticed. Zhang was one of three priests in Shanghai who had earlier been removed from their posts by the government and charged with being “cultural aggressors.” This change of job did not affect Beda Zhang, and he used his time to speak at meetings around the city and warned the believers to stand firm against the threat of the government-sanctioned church. Zhang was held in great respect by the Catholic community. He was described as

“unquestionably one of the most celebrated and influential Catholic teachers and writers in China. Father Zhang, who had earned his doctorate in literature at the Sorbonne, was rector at St. Ignatius College, dean of the Arts Faculty, professor of literature at Aurora University, and director of the Shanghai Catholic Bureau Sinologique.”[2]

The Communists wanted a new high-profile priest to pick on, believing that spiteful treatment of such a man would cause many thousands of Catholics to lose heart. Beda Zhang was arrested in the first week of August, along with two other educators: Father Yao of Gonzaga College and Brother Alexander of St. Francis College. The trio were charged with being ‘counter-revolutionaries’. During his incarceration, another prisoner saw Zhang in the prison infirmary and later said “he was so dazed that he could utter nothing but his name and age.”[3] Now that he was out of the way, the Communists produced a pamphlet claiming Zhang and another Catholic priest, Joseph Sheng, had agreed to become leaders of the new government-sanctioned Catholic Church in China. Few believed this was true.

On November 11, 1951, prison authorities announced that the 46-year-old Beda Zhang had died. They said doctors had examined the corpse and diagnosed he had died of a brain tumour, but few people believed that too. Beda Zhang’s brother, a doctor, went to the prison to collect the body. He found it “so wizened he could scarcely recognize it.”[4]

Another account said “his entire body had turned black and purple and was furthermore gaunt and emaciated in the extreme. No one could be unaware of how he had died.”[5] Doctors who performed an unofficial autopsy gave the cause of death as: “Ice water and electric shocks…together with starvation.”[6] In announcing Beda Zhang’s death, The Catholic Newspaper stated:

“Zhang had always enjoyed robust health, and he was a prominent leader in the ecclesiastical circles of Shanghai. After three months’ imprisonment by the Communists, his health was entirely destroyed. The name of Father Beda Zhang has already been included in the list of martyrs who sacrificed their lives in order to protect and preserve the light of the true faith.”[7]

The government’s murder of Beda Zhang was designed to strike fear into the hearts of Catholics throughout China, but one historian found that Zhang’s death had

“backfired seriously on the Communists. It struck no fear into the hearts of Catholics, but rather unleashed such a surge of religious enthusiasm that police were rushed from neighbouring cities to head off a rebellion, and they ordered the burial to be held at night, attended only by the priest’s family. They dared not risk a daylight funeral.”[8]

Even the Communist Party’s own Liberation Daily angrily reported that

“The criminal Zhang died of encephalitis before the court could deal out punishment to him…. Imperialists and their running dogs are taking another view. They would have it that this criminal counter-revolutionary is a ‘Saint.’ Such an attitude not only shows their utter stupidity and shamelessness, but evokes the wrath of Catholics and non-Catholics alike.”[9]

The famous Catholic cathedral at Zikawei, Shanghai.

The Communist authorities took Beda Zhang’s body and buried it in a remote location. They ordered the tombstone be marked with the words, “The criminal reactionary Zhang.” Three of his Catholic students who later visited the grave wrote on the headstone, with chalk, the Latin words, Vivo Christo Rei (‘Long live Christ the King’).

All across China the news of the martyrdom of Beda Zhang strengthened and encouraged the Church. Three thousand people crammed into the Zikawei Church for his funeral. At a separate memorial service at St. Xavier’s Church—which normally held 400 people—“2,400 worshippers appeared; 800 of them wedged their way inside, while others knelt in the surrounding streets.”[10] Many rededicated their hearts to serve Christ, praying they might display the same kind of faith and courage as their fallen colleague. In faraway Nanning, the capital of Guangxi, the priest informed the congregation of Zhang’s death at the start of Mass. Despite knowing they were being watched by Communist spies, the whole congregation rose to their feet and sang the ‘Song of the Martyrs’ in his memory. An article in Hong Kong a few weeks after Zhang’s martyrdom stated,

“In death, Father Beda Zhang has become a symbol of Catholic fidelity. He is spontaneously hailed as a spiritual hero and champion by the city’s embattled Catholic faithful. His name is on all lips; his death has stirred the faith of thousands…. Recent arrivals here from Shanghai all report ‘a great victory for the Faith.’”[11]

1. Monsterleet, Martyrs in China, 58.
2. Myers, Enemies Without Guns, 104.
3. Palmer, God’s Underground in Asia, 167-168.
4. Kerrison, Bishop Walsh of Maryknoll, 21.
5. September 8th Editorial Board, Blessings of the Divine Bounty, 76.
6. Kurt Becker, I Met a Traveller: The Triumph of Father Phillips (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1958), 165.
7. The Catholic Newspaper (February 2, 1952).
8. Kerrison, Bishop Walsh of Maryknoll, 21.
9. Jiefang Ribao [Liberation Daily] (Shanghai: November 17, 1951).
10. Palmer, God’s Underground in Asia, 168.
11. Palmer, God’s Underground in Asia, 169.