1960 - Aloysius Wang Rensheng

December 2, 1960

Baihu Prison, Anhui

Aloysius Wang Rensheng.

Wang Rensheng was raised a non-believer in Christ. When he attended Shanghai’s St. Ignatius High School in 1924, the school was divided into classes for Catholics, and classes for non-Catholics. Wang attended the latter. The principal of the school was an Italian priest. Wang frequently argued with him, not in a bid to be contentious, but in order to obtain a clearer understanding of the truths of Scripture. God’s light gradually broke through his darkness and Wang put his trust in the Son of God. At his baptism he took the Christian name Aloysius.

In 1928 Wang Rensheng entered the Jesuit seminary. For more than 20 years Wang served as a priest, helping people with both word and deed. After Beda Zhang was martyred in Shanghai on November 11, 1951, Wang held a memorial service at his St. Peter’s Church. He told the packed audience, “‘The way to Christ is through His Cross.’ For doing this he was denounced in the Communist press as praising ‘the criminal Zhang.’”[1] Wang was arrested on July 7, 1953, and sent to the prison labor camp in Baihu, Anhui Province. Also imprisoned in this dire place was Francis Xavier Zhu Shude. The two men were to seal their commitment to Christ with their own blood.

Christians who refused to renounce their faith were treated spitefully at Baihu, and Wang was subjected to many cruel tortures. As a result of his beatings and subsequent illness, he passed away on December 2, 1960.[2] One account says that “Aloysius Wang’s body had swollen all over, beginning first in his feet then gradually spreading up his body. He literally died of hunger; he was hungry but had no desire to eat. He had in fact gone beyond the possibility of being able to eat.”[3] One summary of Wang’s life remembered how

“He received the faith as a convert from unbelief. Born into a family with no religious convictions, he was untouched and totally undefiled by the dirt and mud surrounding him. He possessed the bravery and determination to overcome all the obstacles raised by his family, the first of his kin to enter the Catholic Church. Furthermore he renounced the wedding contract arranged for him, since he was determined to follow the religious vocation and enter the Society of Jesus. Within this prestigious Society, he continued relentlessly and without a stop along the pathway of holiness and sanctity. Finally, he received what he desired most—the splendid crown of martyrdom.”[4]

1. Palmer, God’s Underground in Asia, 168.
2. Some accounts give December 22 as the date of Wang’s martyrdom.
3. Teresa, If the Grain of Wheat Dies, 42.
4. September 8th Editorial Board, Blessings of the Divine Bounty, 88.