Viva Cristo Rey!

The family of Bishop Xueyan "Peter Joseph" Fan, the bishop of Baoding, found his body, in a plastic bag, dumped in the gutter in front of their home, in April 1992.

His emaciated body, with bones poking through his flesh, revealed visible signs of extreme torture. His legs were tied together with a white cloth, very tight and difficult to undo. From the marks on his legs, it appeared that the Communists had broken both. Each had a blackened color that appeared discolored from heat and pressure. His head, swollen from injury on his cheek and forehead.

What had Bishop Fan done?

Chinese Communist officials ordered that he renounce the Pope and become part of the Communist-led national church.

Bishop Fan refused to renounce the Pope, and he also refused to participate in the Three-Self Reform Movement, later rebranded as the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association -- Communist "catholicism."

Because of his refusals, he was first arrested in 1958, and for the rest of his life, he suffered in slave labor death camps, prisons and extreme house arrest until his death, and through all the torture, he remained faithful to God, Church and Pope.

VIVA CRISTO REY!