1973 - Sylvester Qian Zhuochao

August 17, 1973

Langxi, Anhui

Sylvester Qian Zhouchao.

One Catholic arrested in the purge of Shanghai during September 1955 was Qian Zhuochao a faithful and fervent member of the Honggou Sacred Heart Church. He had received the name Sylvester at his baptism. Public Security officers arrested Qian on September 26th because he had refused to acknowledge that Bishop Gong was a traitor and counter-revolutionary. In July the following year Qian was sentenced to “educational rehabilitation.” Qian’s son, Joseph Qian Haohan, recalls what happened to his father:

“It started with the opening of the conference, as the chairman of the tribunal began by asking, ‘Will all those who support the Chinese Communist Party’s rupture with the Vatican imperialists, and the demarcation of lines between the enemy and ourselves, raise their hands!’ …. Practically everyone, because of timidity and fear, felt obliged to raise their hands. But my father, Sylvester, received the aid of special grace from God, and did not raise his hand. The chairman of the meeting immediately followed this question with the following one, ‘All those who do not support the Chinese Communist Party, who do not wish to observe the line of demarcation against the Vatican imperialists, raise their hands!’ The atmosphere of the entire conference room immediately became so tense that it practically smothered every one. So many of them were intimidated and frightened, and they looked at each other wordless…. Precisely at that moment, one man stood out, and this was Sylvester, my father. He had received from the Holy Spirit a superhuman courage, and so he raised his hand.”[1]

This spiritual brave-heart had taken a stand that would cost him dearly. For a start, his wife and six children would be without an income provider for years to come, and suffered untold hardship and misery. The chairman of the meeting was enraged at the insolence of Sylvester Qian Zhuochao. He was dragged to the front of the room and interrogated at knife point. “Why do you refuse to support the Chinese Communist Party?” the Chairman screamed. Sylvester calmly yet firmly replied, “Because the Communist Party are atheists who do not believe in God. I do believe in God.” He was sentenced to three years imprisonment.

On June 13, 1960, Qian was rearrested after the government concluded he had not changed his position at all. This time he was sentenced to another seven years in prison at the Baimaolong Prison Labour Camp in Langxi County, Anhui Province. He spent most of those years seriously ill, coughing up blood. His symptoms suggested tuberculosis, although it was never officially diagnosed because he was denied any medical care. At the end of his sentence the authorities again concluded he had not reformed, so they retained him at the labour camp indefinitely. These years were ones of vicious treatment for Qian. Because he refused to abandon his faith in God,

“He was repeatedly subjected to attacks by the people surrounding him, to mistreatment, and to persecution, right up till the moment of his death. In this inhuman open-air prison, he would encounter struggle sessions and mental and moral devastation for three whole days and three whole nights.”[2]

Once, during a debate on the merits of Christianity, his opponents were so enraged that they smeared a poisonous liquid over Qian’s body. Immediately after this incident his health deteriorated, and he was diagnosed with incurable cancer. Finally on August 17, 1973, Sylvester Qian Zhuochao went to be with the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he had faithfully loved all his life.