MMORE missionary priests Iviand • nuns expelled from China by the Communists have been arriving in Hong Kong, some of them after serving prison sentences.
Sixteen reached there on Sunday —five priests and a nun by boat from Tsientsin, and three French Jesuits and seven Franciscan nuns by train from Shanghai.
The Jesuits said they had been given only a few hours' notice to leave. They were told they were "unsympathetic to the people."
A Jesuit among a group of seven missioners of four nationalities, who reached there earlier after being delayed four days by floods between Shanghai and Canton. began his priesthood as a prisoner of the Japanese.
Ordained in camp
He completed his studies in the Shanghai concentration camp during the war, and was ordained there by Bishop Cot& a fellow-internee.
He is a Canadian. Fr. Mark Hardy, who has been in China since 1938. The Chinese Communists did not imprison him, but expelled him after reading out a list of charges to which he was not allowed to reply.
The deafness of another Jesuit in the party, an American, Fr. Labranche. supplied the Chinese with their excuse for expelling him. They said his hearing aid was radio equipment used for spying. They confiscated it, put him in jail for 40 days, and finally told him he must leave the country.
Fr. Louis Papilla, S.J., a Hungarian.priest in the group, was, before his expulsion. the only foreign priest left at the Zikawei Jesuit seminary in Shanghai.
According to a report reaching Hong Kong. Fr. Pierre Narhais, the last foreign missionary left in Canton. has been arrested.
Fr. Narbais is a member of the Paris Foreign Missions.