Augustine
Zhao Rong, is one of a group of 120 Catholics, among many more who were
martyred between the years 1648 and 1930 in China.
Having come
to China through Syria in the seventh century, down through the
centuries Christianity has in turn thrived or gone into hiding,
contingent upon the relations of China with the outside world.
Of
the 120 martyrs mentioned above, eighty-seven were Chinese, ranging in
age from nine to seventy-two, and four of them were priests.
Thirty-three were foreign-born, mostly priests or women religious.
Though the missionaries and religious tried to distance themselves from
foreign policies, the Chinese government did not differentiate and saw
them all as westerners.
The martyrdoms of China are most moving,
each person having died heroically though many of them suffered torture
and cruel deaths. Fr. Francis Li, grandson of a Chinese martyr,
describes his grandfather going to his death joyfully saying to his
brother and son, “Let’s go, we are going to heaven today!”
Zhao
Rong was a bailiff of a county jail. During the persecution of 1772, he
was moved by the words of Fr. Martinus Moye to his fellow Catholic
prisoners, and, ultimately converted. He later became a priest, and when
in 1815 another persecution broke out, he was arrested and tortured,
and being aged, died of the ill treatment.
The group of 120
martyrs celebrate today headed by St. Augustine Zhao Rong was canonized
by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000.
Friday, July 9, 2021
St. Augustine Zhao Rong and Companions
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