Go Home!

"Go Home!"

Protestant denominations have urged most of their missionaries to leave China, but Roman Catholic policy has been for all their missionaries to stick it out as long as they could be useful. Result: the Chinese Communist anti-foreigner campaign has lately been concentrating on the Catholics.

In Hong Kong last week appeared nine bewildered nuns of an order of Sisters of

Charity. Their leader, Sister Superior Maria Loretta, had spent 27 uninterrupted years in China's interior; all the others had served at least 18 years, and expected never to see the U.S. again. Their orphanage, hospital and teaching mission were tucked away in mountainous upper Hunan, far out of reach of electric lights and telephones. But not out of reach of Mao Tse-tung.

The Reds began to apply pressure a year ago. First the nuns were expelled from their hospital and a laboratory assistant was put in charge. Next, the children were cross-questioned to get "charges" against the women. ("Do these foreigners make you study too hard? Do they ever scold you?") At last, they were turned out of their residence and packed off, while former students, patients and friends were assembled under guard to chant: "American imperialists--Asia doesn't want you --Go home!"

Chief subject of anxious speculation among Hong Kong's Catholic refugees last week was the forthcoming trial of Bishop Ford. Fifty-eight-year-old Bishop Francis Ford of the Maryknoll Fathers has worked in Kwangtung since 1918. In 20 years, his flock rose from 9,000 to 20,000. Bishop Ford introduced cement masonry to the Chinese under his care; he built schools, hostels and churches, which he preferred to have designed according to Chinese rather than western standards of architecture. During World War II, he stayed on the job helping Chinese guerrillas and organizing escape routes for downed allied airmen.

For months, Communist authorities kept the bishop under house arrest, unable to communicate with the priests in his charge. Then, last fortnight, apparently convinced that he would not apply for permission to leave, the Communists organized a mass meeting at which his "punishment" could be "popularly and unanimously demanded." The next day, soldiers marched the bishop through the streets before taking him off--presumably to Canton--to await trial. The usual mob of students was on hand with the usual mob cliches: "Down with Bishop Ford! Down with American imperialism!"

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