Father Auguste Chapdelaine (Chinese name: Ma Lai) (February 6, 1814 - February 29, 1856) was a French Christian missionary of the Paris Society of Foreign Missions. February 6 is the 37th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1814 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... February 29 is the 60th day of a leap year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 306 days remaining. ... 1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament writings of his early followers. ... A missionary is a propagator of religion, often an evangelist or other representative of a religious community who works among those outside of that community. ...

Biography

He was born in La Rochelle, France. He left France in 1852 to join the Christian mission in the Guangxi province of China. Location within France La Rochelle is a city or commune of western France, and a seaport on the Atlantic Ocean (population 76,584 in 1999). ... 1852 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Guangxi (Simplified Chinese: 广西; Traditional Chinese: 廣西; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kuang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kwangsi; Zhuang: Gvangjsih Bouxcuengh Swcigi or (old orthography) ) is an autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

After a stay in Guangzhou, he moved to Guiyang, capital of the Guizhou province, in the spring of 1854. In December, he went, together with Lu Tingmei, to Yaoshan village, Xilin county of Guangxi, where he met the local Christian community of around 300 people. He celebrated his first mass there on December 8, 1854. He was arrested and thrown into the Xilin county prison ten days after his arrival, and was released after sixteen or eighteen days of captivity. Location within China Guangzhou (Simplified Chinese: 广州; Traditional Chinese: 廣州; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kuang-chou; Jyutping: Gwong2zau1; Yale: GwóngjaÅ«) is the capital of the Guangdong Province in southern China. ... Typically known as the Forest City, Guiyang (Simplified Chinese: 贵阳; Traditional Chinese: 貴陽; pinyin: ) is the capital of Guizhou province in the Peoples Republic of China. ... Guizhou (Simplified Chinese: 贵州; Traditional Chinese: 貴州; pinyin: Gùizhōu; Wade-Giles: Kuei-chou; also spelled Kweichow) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. ... 1854 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) presiding at the 2005 Easter Vigil Mass in place of the dying Pope John Paul II. Mass is the term used of the celebration of the Eucharist in the Latin rites of the Roman Catholic Church. ...

Following personal threats, he went back to Guizhou in early 1855, and came back to Guangxi in December of the same year. He was denounced on February 22, 1856, by Bai San, a relative of a new convert, while the local tribunal was on holiday. He was arrested in Yaoshan, together with other Chinese Christians, by orders of Zhang Mingfeng, the new local mandarin on February 25, 1856. He was severely beaten and locked into a small iron cage, which was hung at the gate of the jail. He was already dead when he was beheaded. 1855 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... February 22 is the 53rd day of every year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... A Mandarin was a bureaucrat in imperial China. ... February 25 is the 56th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ...

Political exploitation

Under French diplomatic pressure, the mandarin was later demoted. This act, the "Father Chapdelaine Incident", was used as the pretext for the French involvement, following Britain, in the Second Opium War (1856-1860). This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... 1860 is the leap year starting on Sunday. ...

The article 13 of the Treaty of Tientsin, signed at the end of the war, gave Christians the right to spread their faith and hold property, thus opening up another means of western penetration. The Treaties of Tientsin (天津條約) were signed in Tianjin in June 1858, ending the first part of the Second Opium War (1856-1860). ...

Recognition and controversy

August Chapdelaine was beatified in 1900. He was canonized on October 1, 2000, by Pope John Paul II, together with 120 Christians martyrs who had died in China between the 17th and 20th century. In Catholicism, beatification (from Latin beatus, blessed, via Greek μακαριος, makarios) is a recognition accorded by the church of a dead persons accession to Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their name (intercession of saints). ... 1900 is a common year starting on Monday. ... Canonization is the process of declaring someone a saint and involves proving that a candidate has lived in such a way that he or she is worthy of sainthood. ... October 1 is the 274th day of the year (275th in Leap years). ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Pope John Paul II (Latin: ), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (May 18, 1920 – April 2, 2005), reigned as pope of the Catholic Church for almost 27 years, from 16 October 1978 until his death, making his the third-longest reign in the history of the Papacy according to the... Historically, a martyr is a person who dies for his or her religious faith. ...

On October 3, 2000, Xinhua News Agency reacted to the canonozation by issuing a press release, painting a very negative portrait of Father Chapdelaine. The Xinhua News Agency (Simplified Chinese: 新华社; Traditional Chinese: 新華社; pinyin: ), or NCNA (New China News Agency), is the official press agency of the government of the Peoples Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in the PRC. It is one of the two news...

External links

• Article about the Christian martyr saints of China, with biographies (in French)
• A biography of Father Chapdelaine (in French)
• An article about the Xinhua press release