1992 - Steven Liu Difen

November 14, 1992

Kuancheng, Hebei

Steven Liu Difen was born in 1912 into a devout Catholic family in the village of Biandukou in Renqiu City, Hebei Province. From the time he was a young boy Liu had his heart set on becoming a priest. In 1932 he entered the large Furen Catholic University in Beijing, and was ordained a priest in 1939, having graduated from the university with outstanding grades. Liu returned to Hebei Province where he served for most of the remainder of his life. He also commenced medical studies. During World War II Liu accepted a position as Dean of studies at Wuhan in Hubei Province, but returned to Hebei in the late 1940s.

Not long after assuming power the Communist government established the Catholic Patriotic Association in a bid to control Catholics in China. Liu Difen saw the real motives behind this new political organization and refused to cooperate. He was subsequently arrested in 1951. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) Liu was allowed to stay in his home, suffered continual barbaric treatment at the hands of the diabolical Red Guards. In 1980 he returned to his post, spending all his time spreading the gospel.

In 1988, when he was aged 66, Liu was appointed Bishop of Anguo Diocese. This appointment by the Vatican angered the Chinese government, who equated Rome’s actions as hostile interference in China’s domestic affairs. Liu was placed on a ‘wanted’ list. In December 1990 he was secretly abducted by the police and taken into custody. Nobody knew what had happened to him until almost two years later on November 2, 1992, when the director of the local Religious Affairs Bureau, accompanied by several other officials, came to Bishop Liu’s home village and told his nephew: “Your uncle is unwell, his legs are infirm, his blood pressure high, and his mind is confused. He himself has expressed the wish to return home in order to convalesce. Do you agree to receive him back?”[1]

Liu’s family were both surprised and overjoyed, for it meant they would not only see their beloved relative again, but he would be able to provide much needed spiritual leadership to the Catholic community in the area. News spread like wildfire around the region, but ten days later there was still no sign of his return.

On the morning of November 11th, the director of Religious Affairs returned to the village and promised the bishop would be returned by five o’clock that same afternoon. The relatives knew this was a sinister lie, however, as they had received information that Bishop Liu was gravely ill and in a hospital at Kuancheng, several hundred miles away at the other end of Hebei Province.

Three of the bishop’s nephews immediately hurried by train to Kuancheng, arriving the next morning to find Liu in a coma. The nephews asked permission to take their uncle home to die in peace. To do this, the hospital would have to provide oxygen bottles and tubes for the long journey. The compassionate hospital director was a willing partner, but he later turned the nephews’ request down, citing directions from the government. The cowardly authorities, maddened by the courage of someone who refused to compromise his convictions, were still fearful of the influence the comatosed 80-year-old bishop had.

One of the nephews was still not willing to give up. He returned home and rented a private car from one of his neighbours. He gathered a doctor and a supply of oxygen and together they drove all the way back to Kuancheng, only to find the beloved Bishop of Anguo had, on November 14, 1992, already passed into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even after death the government were afraid of Steven Liu Difen. The director of the Religious Affairs Bureau demanded to accompany the corpse back to Biandukou village, not allowing it out of sight for a moment. The authorities were keen to avoid a mass public funeral, such as what had happened at the funeral of Paul Shi Chunjie the previous year.

It was a sad moment when the vehicle returned home. Excited Catholics from far and wide assembled expecting to see their beloved bishop whom they had prayed unceasingly for since his arrest. Instead, they were allowed to catch a glimpse of his decaying corpse. One account said:

“The degree of anger and mourning experienced by every one of the faithful can be truly imagined. What was even more unbearable was the fact that when they were changing the bishop’s clothes, they discovered that the corpse was covered with bruises and wounds…. The mortal illness which caused his death could be positively attributed to the aftereffects of severe physical torture.”[2]

Steven Liu Difen was the third underground Catholic bishop to die in police custody in the previous two years. The authorities tried to interfere with the funeral arrangements, prohibiting any non-registered Catholics to attend. Despite this threat, more than 3,000 mourners (including 14 underground priests) turned up, blocking the roads in and out of the graveyard. By their hellish and insensitive methods, the government only succeeded in driving a deeper stake between the Catholic Patriotic Association and the underground Catholic communities, who today outnumber the registered believers in China at least two to one.