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.

Biography

He was born in La Rochelle, France. He left France in 1852 to join the Christian mission in the Guangxi province 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.

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 newly 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.

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).

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

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.

On October 3, 2000, Xinhua News Agency reacted to the canonozation by issuing a press release, painting a very negative portrait of Father Chapdelaine.

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