{{short description|Chinese Jesuit priest and martyr (c.1905–1951)}} {{Modern persecutions of the Catholic Church}} '''Beda Chang''' {{post-nominals|post-noms=SJ}} ({{zh|s=张伯达|t=張伯達|p=Zhang Boda}}) (c. 1905 – November 11, 1951) was a Chinese Jesuit priest. He was martyred after being tortured during a wave of persecution by the communist government.
== Biography == Born as Zhang Zhengming ({{zh|t=張正明|s=张正明}}) to a Shanghai family which had been Catholic for many generations, he studied at St Ignatius College in Shanghai and completed his doctorate of letters in sinology at the University of Paris in 1937.<ref>{{cite thesis|title=L'écriture chinoise et le geste humain : essai sur la formation de l'écriture chinoise|author=B. Tchang Tcheng-ming|year=1937|publisher=University of Paris|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5438520r}}</ref> He became dean of faculty of arts at Shanghai's Aurora University.<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite book|last1=Liu|first1=William T.|first2=Beatrice|last2=Leung|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jhItFagifIoC|title=The Chinese Catholic Church in Conflict: 1949-2001|page= 68|publisher=Universal Publishers|year=2004|isbn=9781581125146 }}</ref>
Because he refused to renounce his faith and to cooperate with the government in their persecution of the Church, Chang was arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and then died.<ref name="books.google.com" /><ref name="dawneden.blogspot.com">[https://dawneden.blogspot.com/2008/06/first-time-in-print-archbishop-sheen.html Excerpt from a 1952 speech by Archbishop Fulton Sheen at University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy]</ref> William Aedan McGrath, in the cell opposite Chang, reported that he saw the priest languishing and vomiting in the cell for two months before he died on the morning of November 11, 1951.<ref>{{cite web|last=Moreau|first=Theresa Marie |url=http://tmmoreau.com/mcgrath.html |title=Warrior Priest: Father McGrath and the Battle for the Soul of China |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717064240/http://tmmoreau.com/mcgrath.html |archive-date=2011-07-17 }}</ref>
==Veneration== Chang's body was returned to the Church the next day on November 12 and Shanghai's Catholics began to venerate him as a martyr, turning out in great numbers for a series of requiem Masses.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-sTu575cOyAC&pg=PA87|title=Church Militant|last=Mariani|first=Paul P.|date=2011|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780674063174|location=Cambridge, MA|pages=87–91|language=en}}</ref>
The government issued a statement denouncing the prayers and Masses for Chang as a "new type of bacteria warfare by the imperialists – a counterrevolutionary mental bacteria."<ref name="The Wisdom of the Popes">{{cite book|last=Weir|first=Charlene|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qqEAYmLkP9wC|title=The Wisdom of the Popes|page=219|publisher=Macmillan|year=1957|isbn=9780312300296 }}</ref> The police guarded the grave to prevent veneration, but reports of miracles accomplished through the intercession of Chang began to be reported.<ref name="dawneden.blogspot.com" />
The Chinese authorities later admonished Shanghai's Catholic Bishop Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei.<ref name="dawneden.blogspot.com" /><ref name=":0" />
==References== <references/>
==Further reading== * {{cite book|first=Jean-Claude|last=Coulet|title=Father Beda Chang: Witness for Unity|publisher=Catholic Truth Society|location=Hong Kong|year=1953}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chang, Beda}} Category:1905 births Category:1951 deaths Category:20th-century Chinese Jesuits Category:20th-century Roman Catholic martyrs Category:20th-century venerated Christians Category:Chinese murder victims Category:Chinese torture victims Category:Jesuit martyrs Category:Martyred Roman Catholic priests Category:People murdered in 1951