Francis Xavier Ford
Encyclopedia
Francis Xavier Ford, M.M. (January 11, 1892 – February 21, 1952) was an American
Roman Catholic bishop
and Maryknoll
missionary
in China
. Because of his torture by the Communist Chinese and death in prison in 1952, he is considered a martyr
, and his cause for canonization
is pending.
, New York
, the son of Austin Brendan Ford and Elizabeth Rellihan Ford. He attended Cathedral College
in Elmhurst, Queens
. When he reported to the Maryknoll seminary in Ossining
on 14 Sept 1912, he became the first student of the fledgling Maryknoll. He was the first person to matriculate in this institution. He was ordained on December 5, 1917 and became one of the first four American Catholic priests to arrive in China in 1918.
of a new mission at Kaying in Northern Guangdong
in 1925, and appointed titular bishop
of Etenne and Vicar Apostolic of Kaying in 1935. He was consecrated as a bishop on September 21, 1935.
In twenty years of ministering to the Chinese in the Diocese of Kaying, Ford increased his flock from 9,000 to 20,000, and built schools, hostels and churches. He was chairman of the Chinese Catholic Welfare Conference for Southern China and played an important role in establishing the first overseas convent for Maryknoll sisters. When World War II
started, Kaying was surrounded by hostile Japanese troops. Nevertheless, the bishop remained at his post, aiding Chinese guerrillas, helping downed Allied airmen escape, relieving war refugees in distress.
In one town, a Communist-orchestrated mob beating was so intense that even Ford's Communist guards fled. Though knocked to the ground repeatedly, Ford continued to walk calmly through the crowd until his guards returned. In another town, his neck was bound with a wet rope which almost choked him as it dried and shrank. Another rope was made to trail from under his gown like a tail. To humiliate them both, the Communists forced him to undress before Sister Joan Marie. The last time Sister Joan Marie saw Ford alive was in February 1952, just before he died. She reported that his hair had turned completely white and he was so emaciated that a fellow prisoner remarked that he looked "like a sack of potatoes".
Ford died in prison in Guangzhou
(Canton) on February 21, 1952. He was the first American Roman Catholic bishop and fourth American civilian known to have died in the prisons of the Chinese Communists.
Ford's diocese would have been the first Maryknoll territory to be turned over to the native clergy had the Communists not suppressed the local Catholic community. Ford was Maryknoll's first martyr
, and the first to be martyred at the hands of Chinese Communists. Ford's remains were never found, having been intentionally scattered by the Chinese Communists. At the time of his death, Ford had been a priest for 34 years and a bishop for 16 years.
of Brooklyn, New York is the promoter of the cause.
On July 27, 2011, George Weigel
wrote an article for the First Things
blog, questioning why Bishop Ford has not yet been beatified
. Wiegel opined that the process has been put on hold because of Roman authorities' concerns about offending the Chinese government. Weigel further stated that "[persecuted] Catholics [in China] need the encouragement of a witness like that given by Francis Xavier Ford, whose blood may yet prove to have paved the King's Highway in the Middle Kingdom".
Bishop Ford is the cousin of another Roman Catholic Maryknoll martyr, Sister Ita Ford
, M.M., who was tortured, raped and murdered in El Salvador
by members of a military death squad along with fellow Catholic missionaries Maura Clarke
, M.M., laywoman Jean Donovan
, and Dorothy Kazel
, O.S.U. on December 2, 1980. She had previously worked with the poor and war refugees as a Maryknoll Sister missionary in Bolivia
and Chile
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Roman Catholic bishop
Bishop (Catholic Church)
In the Catholic Church, a bishop is an ordained minister who holds the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders and is responsible for teaching the Catholic faith and ruling the Church....
and Maryknoll
Maryknoll
Maryknoll is a name shared by three organizations that are part of the Roman Catholic Church and whose joint focus is on the overseas mission activity of the Catholic Church in the United States...
missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. Because of his torture by the Communist Chinese and death in prison in 1952, he is considered a martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
, and his cause for canonization
Canonization
Canonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...
is pending.
Early life and priesthood
Francis Xavier Ford was born in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, the son of Austin Brendan Ford and Elizabeth Rellihan Ford. He attended Cathedral College
Cathedral Preparatory Seminary (Queens)
Cathedral Preparatory Seminary is a private, Roman Catholic high school and seminary in Elmhurst, Queens, New York. It is located within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn...
in Elmhurst, Queens
Elmhurst, Queens
Elmhurst is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is bounded by Roosevelt Avenue on the north; Corona to the northeast; Junction Boulevard on the east; Rego Park to the southeast; the Long Island Expressway on the south; Middle Village to the south and southwest; and Maspeth...
. When he reported to the Maryknoll seminary in Ossining
Ossining (village), New York
Ossining is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 25,060 at the 2010 census. As a village, it is located in the Town of Ossining.-Geography:Ossining borders the eastern shores of the widest part of the Hudson River....
on 14 Sept 1912, he became the first student of the fledgling Maryknoll. He was the first person to matriculate in this institution. He was ordained on December 5, 1917 and became one of the first four American Catholic priests to arrive in China in 1918.
Missionary ministry
In 1918, he served in Yeongkong, Southern China, and in 1921 opened the first Maryknoll seminary in China. He was named Prefect ApostolicApostolic prefect
An apostolic prefect is a priest who heads what is known as an apostolic prefecture, a missionary area where the Catholic Church is not yet sufficiently developed to have it made a diocese....
of a new mission at Kaying in Northern Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
in 1925, and appointed titular bishop
Titular bishop
A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese.By definition a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop the tradition of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches is that he be ordained for a specific place...
of Etenne and Vicar Apostolic of Kaying in 1935. He was consecrated as a bishop on September 21, 1935.
In twenty years of ministering to the Chinese in the Diocese of Kaying, Ford increased his flock from 9,000 to 20,000, and built schools, hostels and churches. He was chairman of the Chinese Catholic Welfare Conference for Southern China and played an important role in establishing the first overseas convent for Maryknoll sisters. When World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
started, Kaying was surrounded by hostile Japanese troops. Nevertheless, the bishop remained at his post, aiding Chinese guerrillas, helping downed Allied airmen escape, relieving war refugees in distress.
Torture and death
In December 1950, the Communists placed Bishop Ford and his secretary, Sister Joan Marie Ryan, under house arrest and charged them with espionage. Though never tried, Ford was taken from his home four months later and publicly paraded, beaten and degraded in some of the cities in which he had done mission work since 1918. His treatment at the hands of the Communists is attested to by Sister Joan Marie.In one town, a Communist-orchestrated mob beating was so intense that even Ford's Communist guards fled. Though knocked to the ground repeatedly, Ford continued to walk calmly through the crowd until his guards returned. In another town, his neck was bound with a wet rope which almost choked him as it dried and shrank. Another rope was made to trail from under his gown like a tail. To humiliate them both, the Communists forced him to undress before Sister Joan Marie. The last time Sister Joan Marie saw Ford alive was in February 1952, just before he died. She reported that his hair had turned completely white and he was so emaciated that a fellow prisoner remarked that he looked "like a sack of potatoes".
Ford died in prison in Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
(Canton) on February 21, 1952. He was the first American Roman Catholic bishop and fourth American civilian known to have died in the prisons of the Chinese Communists.
Ford's diocese would have been the first Maryknoll territory to be turned over to the native clergy had the Communists not suppressed the local Catholic community. Ford was Maryknoll's first martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
, and the first to be martyred at the hands of Chinese Communists. Ford's remains were never found, having been intentionally scattered by the Chinese Communists. At the time of his death, Ford had been a priest for 34 years and a bishop for 16 years.
Cause for canonization
A cause of canonization for Bishop Ford has been introduced, and Auxiliary Bishop Ignatius A. CatanelloIgnatius Anthony Catanello
Ignatius Anthony Catanello is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. From 1994 to 2010 he served as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn.-Early life:...
of Brooklyn, New York is the promoter of the cause.
On July 27, 2011, George Weigel
George Weigel
George Weigel is an American author, and political and social activist. He currently serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Weigel was the Founding President of the James Madison Foundation...
wrote an article for the First Things
First Things
First Things is an ecumenical journal focused on creating a "religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society". The journal is inter-denominational and inter-religious, representing a broad intellectual tradition of Christian and Jewish critique of contemporary society...
blog, questioning why Bishop Ford has not yet been beatified
Beatification
Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...
. Wiegel opined that the process has been put on hold because of Roman authorities' concerns about offending the Chinese government. Weigel further stated that "[persecuted] Catholics [in China] need the encouragement of a witness like that given by Francis Xavier Ford, whose blood may yet prove to have paved the King's Highway in the Middle Kingdom".
Bishop Ford is the cousin of another Roman Catholic Maryknoll martyr, Sister Ita Ford
Ita Ford
Ita Ford, M.M. was a Roman Catholic Maryknoll Sister missionary to Bolivia, Chile and El Salvador. She worked with the poor and war refugees. On December 2, 1980, she was tortured, raped, and murdered, along with fellow missionaries Maura Clarke, M.M., laywoman Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel,...
, M.M., who was tortured, raped and murdered in El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
by members of a military death squad along with fellow Catholic missionaries Maura Clarke
Maura Clarke
Sister Maura Clarke, M.M., was an American Roman Catholic Maryknoll Sister, who served as a missionary in Nicaragua and El Salvador. She worked with the poor and refugees in Central America from 1959 until her death in 1980...
, M.M., laywoman Jean Donovan
Jean Donovan
Jean Donovan was an American lay missionary who was murdered with three nuns in El Salvador by a military death squad while volunteering to do charity work during the civil war there.-Life:...
, and Dorothy Kazel
Dorothy Kazel
Dorothy Kazel was an American Ursuline nun and missionary to El Salvador. On December 2, 1980, she and fellow missionaries Ita Ford, Jean Donovan and Maura Clarke were raped and murdered by members of the military of El Salvador.-Life and work:Kazel was born Dorthea Lu Kazel to Lithuanian American...
, O.S.U. on December 2, 1980. She had previously worked with the poor and war refugees as a Maryknoll Sister missionary in Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
and Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
.
Memorials
- In 1952, the Maryknoll Fathers in Hong Kong founded a co-educational primary school, and named it Bishop Ford Memorial School . The school was the first founded by the Maryknoll Fathers in Hong Kong after the Second World War, and is now managed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong.
- In 1962, the Roman Catholic Diocese of BrooklynRoman Catholic Diocese of BrooklynThe Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes territory that was previously part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, was established as a separate diocese in 1853 when the City of Brooklyn was separate from New York City....
named one of its high schools after Ford. Bishop Ford Central Catholic High SchoolBishop Ford Central Catholic High SchoolBishop Ford Central Catholic High School is a private, Roman Catholic high school in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, New York. It is located within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.-Background:...
is accredited by the Regents of the State of New York and the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. It is located in the Park SlopePark Slope, BrooklynPark Slope is a neighborhood in western Brooklyn, New York City's most populous borough. Park Slope is roughly bounded by Prospect Park West to the east, Fourth Avenue to the west, Flatbush Avenue to the north, and 15th Street to the south, though other definitions are sometimes offered. Generally...
area of Brooklyn.