THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RELIGIOUS PERSECUTIONS IN CHINA CONTAINED IN THE PRISON DIARY OF AN EXPELLED NUN.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010013-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2012
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: September 1, 1966
• Content Type: REPORT

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010013-4
1 September 1966
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RELIGIOUS PERSECUTIONS IN CHINA
CONTAINED IN THE PRISON DIARY OF AN EXPELLED NUN.
It was the last stronghold of Christianity in the immense expanse
of China. Eight nuns gripped by terror, under the thx?eat of persecution
-- cut off from the rest of the world. The expulsion that brought them
to Hong Kong, after eight days of hunger and sleeplessness, was not the
Worst thing. They could have ended by being tortured, massacred, as many
Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary were -- the Congregation founded in
1877 by the French Elena Chappotin de Neuville -- which, from 1866 to now,
has endured its most difficult apostolate in-China itself.
They established the first missions in the coastal provinces -- and,
with the years, went into the interior. Almost immediately, they were
subjected to the atrocities of martyrdom. In 1900, during the flaring
up of the Boxer Rebellion, an entire mission in the Taiyuan-fu Province
was massacred. The authorities had posted this edict in the streets of
the chief town: "The stench of Christians reaches the sky. That is why
it no longer rains ar snows." Among the victims, there were seven
Franciscans -- two of them, Italian: Maria Chiara Nanetti, from Rovigo,
and Marianna Giuliani, from Bolsena.
And the persecution did not abate. With the passing of the years,
the Franciscan Missions witnessed more and more the destruction of the
good works that they had been able to accomplish. Three other nuns --
Chinese converts -- were killed in Changlo Province. In the years prior
to the Communist revolution, the Franciscan Missions had sixty-three
Houses and two hundred nuns -- distributed throughout a vast territory.
They suffered the loss of another victim in 19+7, when the Spanish nun,
Maria Teresa Lina, became the hostage of a horde of marauders. And then
there was the breaking up of the Missions. With the Communists in power,
every order was subverted. The religious orders -- especially the Catho-
lic -- were exterminated. The history of the persecutions that had per-
sistently been inflicted on the Christians who had landed in China --
since their very first arrival in the seventh century -- was repeated
with raging cruelty. The story of barbarism, against which the Mission-
aries throughout the centuries have had to fight,
They were prisoners.
The last to give
up were
the
eight Franciscan missionaries who were
recently expelled.
In 191+,
the
Congregation .had founded an international
school in Peking and this is'
what
made it possible for them to somehow sur-
vive. Thanks to the interest
of
some Western diplomats who needed instruc-
tion for their children, the Institute was tolerated by the Government. The
eight nuns -- including the Italian,Rosa Millefanti, Sister Maria Luisa,
who is now sixty-six years old -- and another nun, a Chinese, who had re-
cently joined and of whom all trace has been lost -- kept the Institute
going.
(Persecutions Cont.)
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010013-4
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010013-4
But their life was not easy. They were prisoners, explains the
Secretary of the Congregation in her interview with me at the Mother
House in Rome, where the other nuns live in anguish over the fate of
their sisters, Constantly under surveillance, almost within sight,
with no possibility of making contacts with the Missions which in the
meantime, have sprung up in Macao, Hong Kong, and Formosa. These Mis-
sions were established through the efforts of other Francisce,n-nuns
who had previously been expelled from Peking and are a refuge for
thousands of refugees who have succeeded in escaping from the regime.
The Secretary of the Congregation gave me an exceptional document
to read: the prison diary of a nun who was forced to spend nine months
in prison before expulsion was decreed. It is an account of the life
at close hand with common criminals, in a medieval prison, described by
Sister Crisante some years ago, at a time when the government was again
persecuting the Missions -- and later destroyed the evidence. A diary
that leaves us disconcerted. Let us trace the most important parts.
The introduction is the farce of the court procedure.
"Escorted by armed guards (Sister Maria Crisante and other women
who were arrested for the most varied reasons) were led to the
,judge's chambers. In one brief sentence, he announces to us that
we have acted contrary to the law and he points to a door. I ask
what law it is that we have violated, and he repeats the same sign.
There is nothing to do but to submissively follow the armed guard,
who leads us to the iron door of the prison. Women .of all ages are
seated on the ground, in a circle, crowded together in a dormitory.
In a corner, there is a half barrel with two handles at the sides,
which serves as a lavatory and that must be emptied every morning,.
The set of rules is attached to the wall. Above all, one must not
cry. In the center of the room, there is a sort of fan -- the
'fondsgan' -- which consists of apiece of cloth stretched on two
wooden strips that two women prisoners -- in half-hour shifts -
activate by hand when the whistle of the supervisor blows. Since
there are no regular washing facilites, the prisoners pass a large
spittoon from one to the other. Among the prisoners near me there
is a cranky, syphilitic woman, a blind beggar who has tuberculosis,
an old woman with breast cancer, several traffickers in opium.
After a meal, everyone washes in public on one small basin, the con-
tents of which are the color and consistency of mud.. The lack of
air, the pestilential stenches, and weakness cause frequent fainting.
The fainted person is then pinched, to the point of bleeding, on the
neck, on the nape of the neck, and on the arms. A small form of
torture among a thousand others -- including the impossibility of
cutting one's nails. Day by day we see them grow, until they become
claws. The other prisoners succeed in ripping them off or in rubbing
them against the floor. But what is most wearing are the long indoc-
trination sessions. They keep us immobile on the ground. The pris-
oners are made to concentrate, to examine their consciences, to
humbly acknowledge their faults, to submit to re-education -- and
2 (Persecutions Cont.)
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010013-4
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010013-4
laughing, crying, singing, speaking out loud, and thinking about
one's awn affairs are all prohibited. Tt is true brainwashing.
We spend the first week of every month blaming ourselves personally?
With humility and frankness, each person has to give an account of
the slightest non-adherence to, and infraction of, the set of rules,
as, for example: having mentioned one's sentence, being preoccupied
with one's fate, having broken silence, having thought of one's
family, having cried,~having dozed during the indoctrination ses-
sion.
"Then, every once in a while, there is the farce of the photo-
grapher who comes to take our pictures while we carry out our duties
--'without protest'-- especially during the catechist sessions. For
same days, they have not been distributing rice any more -- but only
stale bread. I cannot swallow more than half a meal. They accuse
me of using the bottom of my bowl of boiled water to wash the vege-
tables, instead of drinking it all, according to the rules. Up to
now I had-not cried. But in my state of suffering and weakness, of
exhaustion and. of filth, tears ran down for no reason at all, ir-
resistibly, sometimes just because I did not want to cry."
Thus it was for months -- up to the time of the sham trial that
decreed the expulsion of Sister Maria Crisante -- and the recent expul-
sion of the remaining eight nuns. We continue to read in the diary of
the prisoner: --
"Finally-they bring me to the judge along with two other 'guilty'
persons: a Canadian doctor and a young Protestant missionary. There
is a crowd of men and women students, wearing their typical caps. The
photographer gets ready to immortalize the scene. Turning to all
three of us, without specifying any definite sentence, the judge in-
forms us that, if we wish, we may enter an appeal within four days.
I think that probably we will be shot in the meantime. Then we sign
our expulsion document. The whole trial took place without our having
said a word."
Sister Maria Luisa and the seven nuns who were recently expelled from
Peking can consider themselves more fortunate. They did not :have to endure
long suffering in prison before expulsion. But, at the same time, they were
the last to witness the total destruction of the Mission. Years of strug-
gle reduced to nothing, with just the weak hope of being able to begin again
some day. In China, the era of-the catacombs is still in progress, espe-
cially now that Mao's "uncliained" persons, drunk with fanaticism, rebel
against anything that has a Western flavor. Until when? This is another
topic.
And who will be the supreme commander
of this immense army?
A large butterfly --
Graceful, light, and flying about.
In brief, someone who delights in swimming. Could the verses that Tu-Fu
bequeathed to us twelve centuries ago be prophetic?
3 (Persecutions)
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010013-4