Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Tai Pei (Agenzia Fides) - “The Heroes of the Great Wall.” That is how people refer to the 679 Scheut missionaries (Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, CICM) who dedicated their lives to the mission in China between 1865 and 1955. According to Christian Life Weekly, the weekly bulletin for the Archdiocese of Tai Pei, the Ferdinand Verbiest Institute of the Catholic University of the Louvain, dedicated to European-Chinese dialogue, has published “The Names of the Scheut Missionaries in Missionary China.” It is a historical volume of great worth on Catholicism and the mission in China that includes a bibliography and photos of the 679 Scheut Missionaries that served in China from 1865 to 1955.
The Scheut Missionaries arrived in China, led by their founder Fr. Theophile Verbist, in 1865 (three years after founding the Congregation). The founder died only two years later from a disease caught in Mongolia, at the age of 44. The Scheut Missionaries founded various missions in Mongolia: Re He, Shaan Bei, Ning Xia, Ga Su, Xin Jiang, Qing Hai, and Da Tong. Of the 679 Scheut Fathers in China from 1865 to 1955, 248 died in the mission. Until 1948, there were still 239 missionaries serving in China, making a great contribution in the area of evangelization, as well as in the cultural and artistic field, through their 1947 establishment of the Ferdinand Verbiest School within the Chinese Catholic University of Fu Ren.
Today, the Scheut Fathers are once again active in Chinese missionary lands, even in the most remote areas, announcing the Good News to the simplest and most marginalized peoples. (NZ) (Agenzia Fides 7/4/2008 righe 21, parole 267)
