Br, Joche-Albert Ly

"Christus Vincit!" (III) Br, Joche-Albert Ly
+ Sichang, April 21th, 1951
By
P. Eusebio Arnáiz Álvarez, C.SS.R. 1960
171, Boundary Street, 3rd Fl. HONG KONG
The historical setting
If the Opium War, provoked at the start of the XIXth century by Great
Britain, marked a turning point in the history of China and the Qing
dynasty, it is the bourgeois democratic Revolution of 1911 that put an end
to the monarchical regime which lasted more than two thousand years. Its
leader, Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), overturned the Qing dynasty and proclaimed
the Republic of China after the abdication of the last emperor Pu Yi in
1912. His revolutionary organisation became in 1919 the Kuomintang, of
which Chiang Kai-Shek, on the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925, took the
direction and made an alliance with the communists who founded the Chinese
Communist Party in Shanghai in 1921. Already in June 1900, the members of the secret Chinese society of "Closed
fist", also named "Boxers", rose up against the foreign presence. They
invaded the Catholic missions, besieged the foreign legations and killed
priests as well as the German minister von Ketteler. The colonial powers,
present in China since the Opium War of 1840, also reacted, forcing the
dowager empress Cixi to flee from Peking. In 1937, the Japanese declared a war of general aggression against the
Chinese. Under the direction of the Communist Party, the Chinese army
played a decisive role in the victory over Japan. The War of Liberation led
by the Communist Party against the Kuomintang overturned them in 1949,
forcing Chiang Kai-Shek into exile in Taiwan where he founded the
Nationalist Republic of China. In September 1949, the consultative political Conference of the Chinese
People was held in Beijing. On the 1st October 1949, the foundation of the
People's Republic of China was proclaimed, with Mao Zedong becoming the
President and Zhou Enlai the Prime Minister. The communist government tried
to create a new society, undertaking between 1949 and 1952 reform and
propaganda campaigns: agrarian reform, political purification, alliance
with the USSR, policy of non-alignment. The Maoist socialism touched all
the domains of the life of millions of Chinese. The occupation of Tibet in 1950, the combat between nationalists and
communists on the island of Quemoy (Jinmen) until 1958, the Tibetan revolt
of 1959 pushed China to institute a Chinese military dictatorship. From
1958, Mao Zedong launched the "Great Leap Forward", an economic, social and
political programme which recommended collectivisation in all the domains
of daily life. The withdrawal of Russian economic aid in 1960 weakened Mao
Zedong and brought to power Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping who tried to
redress the country. In order to recover power, Mao Zedong launched in 1966 the Great Cultural
Revolution to revive the revolutionary spirit. The Little Red Book
published in 1966 summarised the thoughts of the "Great Helmsman" who led
the Chinese youth in mass manifestations organised by the Red Guards. The
Cultural Revolution attacked intellectuals, artists, university students,
the framework of the Party being to attain the world of work. Numerous
leaders were deposed and excluded from the Party. On the death of Zhou Enlai and of Mao Zedong who died in 1976, Hua Guofeng
and Deng Xiaoping (the 'Little Helmsman') led the country in a more
pragmatic manner and brought to birth the hope of better times. The new
Constitution, adopted in 1982, announced an opening with the law on the
autonomy of ethnic regions. The arrival of Zhao Ziyang in January 1987 as
secretary general of the Party, came together with a general protestation
demanding more democracy: The days of Tian'anmen in Beijing killed
thousands of civilians. The opening of China to market economy in 1992 and the withdrawal by the
United Kingdom from the British colony of Hong Kong in 1997 prepared China
to enter the new millennium as a great power. Joseph De Meyer fms. The Marist Brothers in China
On the 8th March 1891, Brother Marie-Candide with five confrères went to
found a mission at Peking (China) at the request of the Lazarist Fathers.
Modest and laborious beginnings. Few students at first and very slow
progress. Discipline was failing and what influence could these newly
arrived have in a country whose language they were struggling to learn, in
a pagan environment that was full of mistrust of anything that was not
Chinese?
The brothers lived poorly in a house basically furnished and earned just
enough for their modest subsistence. "Each one has his chair," writes the
Brother Director, "and, according to need, takes it to the different rooms
where he is called."
In 1895, Brother Marie-Candide died of typhus. The following year, Brother
Elie-François who replaced him also died from the same disease. Their
successor, Brother Jules-André, would have an even more tragic end.
However, despite these very difficult beginnings, the Marist work extended
bit by bit. In 1900, the insurrection of the Boxers broke out. From the
13th July to the 15th August, the district of PéTang, in Peking, was
besieged. The brothers of Chala-Eul had sought refuge there with their
orphans; Brothers Jules-André, Joseph-Félicité, Joseph-Marie Adon and the
postulant Paul Jen, were killed.
On the 25th February 1906, the five brothers of the community of Nan-Chang
were murdered because they were Christians. A mandarin, sub-prefect of the
Province, committed suicide in the mission. The populace accused the
brothers of murder.
From 1949, it was the communist persecution. The Marist works were closed
little by little. The bamboo curtain fell on China. The foreign
missionaries were all expelled, without being able to take a single book or
a page of personal notes. The Chinese brothers could not leave their
country. Most of them were arrested and many were tortured and submitted to
forced labour. Brother Joche-Albert, arrested on the 6th January 1951, was
shot on the 21st April by the communists at Sichang. Many Chinese brothers
died without anybody knowing how or where.
The communist persecution beat down on a vigorous Marist Province that had
a full future ahead of it. In 1948, the last statistics before the closing
of the borders, it included two hundred and ten brothers, of whom one
hundred and six were Chinese. An admirable harvest for the pioneers of
1891: in a little more than fifty years, a Province that was in the
majority Chinese was born! A good example of inculturation long before the
term existed. How many old missionaries expelled after forty or fifty years
of presence, without returning to their country of origin, had taken on the
manners and even the physical traits of their country of adoption! The
photographs bear this out.
Before 1949, about forty Chinese brothers were able to leave the country to
join other Marist communities. The sixty-odd brothers who remained in
inland China had to endure the rigours of persecution. Eight are still
alive; the youngest (sixty-seven years old in 1999) was only a postulant
during the tragic events. Some have been able to leave China recently. With
what emotion they visited the places of our Marist origins in France and at
the General House in Rome! Two of them were present at Rome to attend the
canonisation of the Founder in April 1999.
Waiting for China to open once more, the Province of China maintains the
Marist flame with courage. Alain Delorme fms
Word of Introduction
This book presents a true martyr, an appealing martyr, a Marist martyr,
Brother Joche-Albert Ly. His setting was the immense China and the Marist
Province of this country that always prospered greatly from the number and
the quality of its brothers and schools. If Brother Joche-Albert is the flag bearer, other brothers also appear who,
like him, are martyrs and who knew prison, hunger, forced labour, public
judgements... They are present more in the annexes. All of these brothers
arouse pride and admiration in our Marist hearts. These brothers, particularly Brother Joche-Albert, had to face firstly
virulent communism, which was imposed on China by the armed force;
everybody came into its sights, particularly through what is known as
"brain-washing", the change of mentality. If that failed, there remained
prison, public judgement and sentencing to death. When you read the book, you realise its historical value. The first draft
was dated 1953, only two years after the martyrdom; the final edition, in
Spanish, was in 1960. The book was written by someone who had lived with
Brother Joche-Albert and who had gathered testimonies from a lot of people
who had lived a long time with the martyr, had been in prison with him and
shared the difficulties and dangers of such a situation. There is
especially a large presence of those who were close to him during the last
period, that of the martyr. The book, easy to read despite a style that is a bit quaint, has the worth
of revealing to us saints from our own ranks who are admirable. Though we
are often unaware of them, once they are known they