NEW PERSECUTION HAS BEGUN

Chinese Bishop, clergy and laity are arrested
AT the very moment when parties of foreign missionaries were—to the accompaniment of much publicity—being released this week by the Communist Government of China a new wave of persecution was hitting Chinese priests and laymen.
Fr. Louis Borumburu, a Spanish priest from Shanghai who arrived in Hong Kong at the same time as some of the released American civilians, reported on Sunday that on September 8 the Communists carried through a mass round up of clergy and laity.
To his knowledge, he said, those arrested included a Bishop, 23 priests and between 200 and 300 laymen.
Among the Americans who have arrived in Hong Kong are Fr. John Rigney, S.V.D., former Rector of the famous Catholic University in Peking, Mgr. Frederick Gordon, Fr. Joseph Hyde and Fr. James Joyce. All had been " brainwashed."
Collapsed
Also released was 63-year-old Bishop Alphonse Ferroni, an Italian. Bishop Ferroni arrived on a stretcher and in a state of complete collapse. He had been in a Communist jail since 1951.
For three years he was kept in
solitary confinement. For three months at a time he was in handcuffs.
" You can't change my mind, you can't change my ideas," he kept repeating as, still suffering from the after-effects of brain-washing, he was taken delirious to hospital.
There he continued to mutter about "the lights" and " the loudspeakers " which had apparently been used on him in the brainwashing process.
When he arrived at the Hong Kong Catholic Centre, Fr. Rigney went to confession for the first time for four years.
He told priests at the Centre the last time he made his confession was to another prisoner, a Chinese priest, during a pretended game of cards.
The Communists allowed no prayers, said Fr. Rigney. They gave him a breviary on the day of his departure.
He said that 25 prisoners were crammed into his 12-ft. cell.
On his arrival he still bore the scars on his legs from the shackles which chained him to the prison walls.
Defenceless
Even whilst the release of the foreign missionaries, after six weeks of negotiations between the U.S. and Chinese Governments, was being arranged, Chinese priests and laymen, it appears, were being arrested
The departure of the foreign missionaries may well mark the start of a new period of martyrdom for China's heroic Catholic community. They are no more than one per cent. of the total population and so are now practically defenceless against their persecutors. The timing of this latest, and new, form of attack can only mean that the Communist leaders are in effect telling the world at large and the Chinese Catholics in particular that the new tactic of " sweet reasonableness " towards the West is not for home consumption.
Ruthless
It must not be taken to mean that Communism is going to be any less ruthless in its fight against religion.
It gives point and meaning to the statement by Nikoli Krushchev, first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, made at a Kremlin banquet last Saturday, that anyone who " mistakes our smile for a withdrawal from the policies of Marx and Lenin " is making a mistake.
He added: "Those who expect this will have to wait until Easter falls on a Tuesday." •
It was Krushchev who expounded what should be the Cornrnunist Party " line " on religion in the new situation some 12 months ago.
A notable feature of the Communists' fight against the Church in China has hitherto been that imprisonment and open persecution were—with some notable exceptions—mainly reserved for the foreign missionaries. The excuse for action taken against them was always that they were agents of the " Western imperialists," and that they were being punished for political offences and not because of their religion.
The policy towards the Chinese Catholics was to try to gain their support by means of persuasion, trickery, bribery, coercion, indoctrination and any means other than open persecution.
Grimmer
It would seem that that phase may now end with the departure of most of the remaining foreign missionaries, But with its ending a new, grimmer, and fundamentally more significant one may well be opening up, that of the persecution of the Chinese priests and laymen.
For Christians the meaning of the incident is clear. Despite all the concessions made to the West, and the much publicised appearances of " new thinking " on the part of the Communist leaders, these are no more than tactical moves in support of short-term objectives.
The Communists' fundamental hostility to religion continues. And for that reason so does their per
secution of the Church. D. H.