VIVA CRISTO REY! 萬歲耶穌基督國王!

In October 1937, only a few months after the outbreak of the Second Chinese-Japanese War, the Chinese Communists reached Cho Lu County and the valley of Yang Kia Ping, in northern China.

The Trappist abbey, Our Lady of Consolation, found itself between the two forces: Japanese soldiers to the north and the east, and revolutionary Chinese Communist soldiers to the south and the west.

With the end of World War II, on August 15, 1945, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Japanese forces retreated from their positions around the world, thus withdrawing from China.

The end of the war also ended the so-called truce between the Nationalists and the Communists. The Nationalists, unable to re-occupy northern China, which had come under control of the Reds, could only stand at strategic points along borders, and an all-out civil war between the two resumed in a brutal fight.

But the Nationalists weren’t the only targets during the civil war.

The Communists also started targeting other enemies: counterrevolutionaries, religious believers and landlords.

The Trappist monks were all three.

The Communists made plans to destroy the abbey and its Community, so the persecution began, with revolutionary struggle, torture and death.

The first to die was Brother Bruno Fu (b. 1868). After a forced march, the 79-year-old fell to the ground, never to rise again.

Two days later, on August 15, 1947, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he should have been celebrating the golden jubilee of his solemn and final vows. Instead, the kindhearted old man lay dead.

The Communists ordered that the body of the proto-martyr of the Trappist monks of Our Lady of Consolation be dumped without ceremony in a shallow grave.

VIVA CRISTO REY! 萬歲耶穌基督國王!