The last free Bishop in Manchuria, Canadian Mgr. Louis Lapierre, has died in his sec city, Szepingkai, at the age of 72.
After being interned by the Japanese during the war and then suffering privations under the Communists. he had become seriously ill.
A letter received from him last June said: "In the midst of obstacles raised by hell, by bad faith and lies, men are troubled and disarmed. But God is never so. That is our hope and our strength."
Bishop Lapierre was a secular priest in the Montreal diocese for 15 years. He was one of the first mewhers of the Quebec Foreign Mission Society, founded in 1921 by the Archbishops and Bishops of Quebec.