1815 - Louis Dufresse

September 14, 1815

Chengdu, Sichuan

Louis Dufresse.

Louis Gabriel Taurin (also known as Joannes) Dufresse was born in Lezoux, France, on December 8, 1750. At the age of 24 he was ordained a Catholic priest before departing for China as a member of the Missions Etrangères de Paris.

Dufresse’s arrival in China coincided with a time of persecution, so after spending a year studying Chinese in the Portuguese colony of Macau, he disguised himself and secretly started the long overland journey to Sichuan Province in 1777.

Over the years Dufresse’s ministry in China was fraught with many trials and tribulations. He was arrested during the nationwide persecution of 1785 and condemned in Beijing to life imprisonment.[1] This sentence was later commuted to exile in the Philippines, but after arriving there the missionary immediately made plans to return to China without the authorities being aware of it. Dufresse successfully slipped back into Sichuan in 1789 under the name Xu Dexin. For the next decade he continued his ministry by being smuggled from one location to another by Chinese believers. In 1800 Dufresse was made an auxiliary bishop, and became Vicar Apostolic of Sichuan in 1801.[2] He also set up a seminary at Yipian County, and arranged to send the most promising students to more advanced seminaries in Macau and Malaysia.

After years of ministry Dufresse found the 40,000 Christians under his care to be generally shallow in faith and ignorant of many of the basic tenets of Christianity. Consequently, Dufresse organized the Sichuan Synod of 1803, where two foreign priests and 13 Chinese priests instituted the general principle: “No adult may be baptized, except when sufficiently instructed.”

Dufresse was honoured by the Vatican for his long service, and was given the titles of the Bishop of Trabraca and the Vicar Apostolic of Sichuan Province. One historian notes,

“In spite of the persecutions that had gone on since 1805, the vicariate under Bishop Dufresse counted some 2,000 adult baptisms yearly. From 1810 on, the bishop himself directly administered the Chongqingzhou community near Chengdu. This became the center of a flourishing Christian community. (The large church that can still be seen today, though damaged during that Cultural Revolution, is still an imposing structure).”[3]

Finally, after managing to survive for 38 years in China, Louis Dufresse was captured in the countryside near Xinjin and transferred to Chengdu. Thirty-three Chinese Catholics were arrested with him. Dufresse was thrown into a dungeon for several months before being hanged near the city’s North Gate on September 14, 1815. His executioners hung his head on the gate for three days as a warning to other Christians.

The local Catholics grieved at the loss of their beloved pastor, whom they considered a true father figure in the faith. Most of the 33 arrested Chinese believers escaped death, but were exiled to Ili in distant Xinjiang—the furthermost reaches of the Chinese empire. One account says, “one or two of the Chinese priests died in prison, and at least one catechist was killed.”[4]

1. See Gabriel Thaurin Dufresse, “Relation de M. Dufresse, Missionaire Apostolique en Chine,” Nouvelles des Missions Orientales (Paris: November 1785), 192-228; and Gabriel Thaurin Dufresse, “Lettre de M. Dufresse, Missionaire Apostolique en Chine, Comencée a Canton au mous de Février, et Achevée a Manille au Mois de Juillet 1786,” Nouvelles Lettres Edifantes (Paris: Vol.II, 1819), 279-334.
2. See Adrien Launay, Les Cinquante-deux Serviteurs de Dieu Français, annamites, chinois, mis à mort pour la Foi en Extrême Orient de 1815-1856 (Volume 2, Paris, 1893), 203-230.
3. CRBC, The Newly Canonized Martyr-Saints of China, 20.
4. Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China, 178.