China, memory of St. Columban missionaries in Nanfeng church

A community in Jiangxi wanted images of the Irish priests who served it between the 1920s and 1950s to appear on the stained glass windows in the renovation of its parish restored after long being a kindergarten. Including a martyr killed by Communist militias, whose grave is still a place revered by local Catholics.

Milan (AsiaNews) – The centenary celebration's of the Council of Shanghai is in recent weeks an opportunity to relaunch reflection on the topic of the face of the Catholic Church in China.

Even in the recent conference held at the Pontifical Urbaniana University, one of the central themes was the question of the relationship between the Western missionaries present in China in the turbulent first half of the 20th century, the colonial powers and local Chinese culture.

This question becomes even more topical given the very strong emphasis placed today by President Xi Jinping on the question of the "sinicization" of religions.

 But outside of readings of history linked to today's political events in Beijing, how does a small Catholic community in a Chinese province actually look at the missionaries who came from Europe who carried out their ministry there until their forced departure in the 1950s?

An interesting testimony in this sense can be read in the latest issue of Far East Magazine, the magazine of the missionaries of Saint Colomban, an Irish institute that has a long history of apostolate in mainland China with ties that continue today.

It is the story of a trip made in recent months by some of these missionaries to Nanfeng, in the province of Jiangxi, where the priests of the institute had been present for more than twenty years.

Here, something apparently small, but important from a symbolic point of view, recently happened: in the renovation of the local neo-Gothic style church - built at the beginning of the twentieth century and returned just about fifteen years ago, after having been used for years as a nursery for children - in the new windows the current parish priest also wanted the three missionaries of San Colombano who carried out their ministry in Nanfeng to be depicted.

“Two years ago, while restrictions on Covid-19 were being eased in the Chinese province of Jiangxi, the Catholics of the parish of Nanfeng developed plans for the necessary renovation of the Church of the Sacred Heart - writes Fr. Dan Troy, who has lived in Wuhan for some years -. Fr Dominic Zhang drew on his experience to negotiate the initial stages of the project with a local builder.

The first phase of the project was the reroof of the church, which had remained intact for approximately 100 years. In addition to the new roof, it was decided to design and install new glazing. Fr Dominic wanted the history of the parish to be reflected in the new stained glass windows.

This involved installing images of three priests of Saint Columbanin the windows. Each of them had served in the parish or in the surrounding area during some of the years from the end of the twenties to the beginning of the fifties" (those - precisely - of the Council of Shanghai and its controversial implementation ed.).

The missionaries in question were Fr. Tim Leonard (arrived in 1928 and died a martyr here a year later), Fr. Jerry Buttimer (also buried in Nanfeng, where he died in the 1948 heat wave) and Fr. Paddy Dermody (who after his expulsion from China continued his ministry in the United States and then in Ireland).

It should be underlined that Fr. Leonard was killed by communist militias: in July 1929 a group of guerrillas entered the church while he was celebrating Mass.

A few days later he was tried and accused of being a foreign spy and of promoting religion: he was killed with a pickaxe. His tomb in Nanfeng - surmounted by a Celtic marble cork with an inscription in Chinese characters - is still a place visited by local Catholics.

“The Chinese people - comments Fr. Troy - has a deep respect for history, whether it is the history of the nation, a district, or the history of a family. Many say their family has written records dating back a few hundred years. The Catholics of the Sacred Heart Church in Nanfeng wanted to include the images of three priests in the new windows, in order to enhance their history. These windows remind Catholics in the area and many visitors that the history of the Church in this part of China is linked to the sincere efforts made by the missionaries of Saint Columba in ancient, unpredictable and challenging times."

“Our visits to the tombs of Fr. Leonard and Fr. Buttimer - the Irish priest continues - were an opportunity to see how they continue to bear witness to a part of the missionary history of the Church in central China. We also celebrated Mass in the Church of the Sacred Heart. With images of three priests of St. Columba looking out at us from newly installed stained glass windows, the gentle echoes of history seemed to unite us in a way that affirmed how God can faithfully connect the history of the Church in China across generations.”

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