Long captivity ends
01.09.2008
One of his first questions, after the long solitary confinement, was whether his 82-year-old mother was still alive.
Fr Aedan McGrath free after 32 months in Red gaols.
On the first Sunday of Our Lady's month, May 2, the St Columban priest who had endured nearly three years of cruel captivity on the charge of organising the Legion of Mary arrived in Hong Kong. Father Aedan McGrath was free again, was able to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
One of his first questions, after the long solitary confinement, was whether his 82-year-old mother was still alive. He was told she was waiting to welcome him in Dublin.
Arrested and interrogated
Father McGrath came to Bishop Galvin's diocese of Hanyang in 1930. In 1946 he was commissioned ‘to organise the Legion of Mary for all China.' On the night of 6 September 1951 he was arrested by the Communists in Shanghai, and taken to the military police gaol.
His rosary beads and all articles of prayer were taken from him and he was locked in a cell. For the first seven months he was questioned almost daily from three to five hours. After two months of constant questioning he was given a rest period while they sent out his answers to different parts of China to check on their truth. Then he faced the questioners again. Because of the great number of prisoners there were four of them together in a cell; a guard watched over them and they were forbidden to converse.
Accused of espionage
Father McGrath was questioned on all his connections with the Legion of Mary; he was accused of espionage, of sending radio messages to America and foreign countries. The long spells of questioning weakened him and tried his nerves so severely that he could eat very little. The ordeal gave him a swollen tongue and he suffered constantly from what he calls "dry mouth." His whole prison term was a severe test, since he was allowed no reading matter for the first two years. After the long fast from reading, they gave him Communist papers and literature to read. As he says, "after that long absence a man will read anything." Perhaps that accounts for their method.
Interrogation begins again
After seven months at the military prison he was taken to Ward Road Gaol on 9 April 1952, where he was kept solitary all the time. Ward Road is a sort of sanatorium where one gets a rest period without interrogation to build up after the long months of questioning.
In March 1953 the military police gave him three more weeks of solid questioning. He was given the option of "confessing" or go back to the Ward Road severity. He could not perjure himself, so he was sent back to a top-floor cell in Ward Road. The sizzling sun on the tile roof made it an oven in daytime and a Turkish bath at night. Father McGrath said he sweated so profusely that everything in the cell became sodden and damp, bringing on prolonged attacks of rheumatism.
"I don't believe I could have endured another summer in that terrible heat," he said. "Without the aid of prayer and faith the whole imprisonment would have been unbearable."
Preaching in secret
There were consolations in the agony: Father McGrath instructed some and comforted many of his fellow prisoners. Prisoners who have come out have sung his praises. When they were not well, Father McGrath tied his bread to a string and tossed it to the sick in a nearby cell. If the sick man missed catching it he pulled the package back and tossed it again.
A White Russian in for petty thieving was given the task of bringing the food and helping to look after the prisoners. He gladly cooperated in bringing the instruction tracts which Father McGrath wrote on square sheets of toilet paper, to prisoners who wanted to become Catholics.
Imprisonment comes to an end
On 28 April 1954 he was unaccountably called and given a prisoner's haircut and his straggly beard was shorn with the clippers. One of the officials announced that he was to receive leniency and mercy from Mao Tse-tung. He was instructed how to behave and not to ask questions when the judges read out this sentence of mercy. Brought before three judges, one stood up and solemnly read a page and a half of his "terrible crimes" and then announced that he was to receive mercy and expulsion instead of the appropriate sentence.
The document said that he was an international spy; that he was spreading a reactionary organisation among the youth, called the Legion of Mary; and that he burned all the records before they could check all the names. To confirm the Government view of the criminal activity of the Legion of Mary, they announced that the Legion of Mary had blocked the Independent Church Movement and the Three Autonomies in Shanghai.
Father McGrath was asked to sign and thumb-print his sentence of expulsion, was taken to the train and rode away towards freedom.
- Taken from The Far East, July 1, 1954
