PEKING CHURCHES SHUT AND DEFACED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010021-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2012
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: August 24, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010021-5
PEKING CHURCHES
"SHUT AND DEFACED
Teen-Age 'Red Guards' Push
Drive Against Religion,
Flowers and Philatelists
ands of teen-agers: enforcing
China's -tough new drive for a
stricter. Communist, way of life
closed and defaced ; Christian
Red flags, fluttered from'the
dome and western ~ tower of -the
South, Cathedral,. . the : main
i demonstrators curtly refused to
filet foreign newsmen' enter -the
walled compound.
From across the street it could
be seen that some of the cathe-
dral's windows had been shat-
?tered. Communist slogans were
pasted on its walls and Biblical
Bust of Mao in Church
At the Protestant , church
newsmen were again kept out-
side but it was possible to see
that the interior had been com-
pletely rearranged, with a larg-
er - than - life white bust of
China's leader, Mao Tse-tung, at
t
th
e cen
er,
The campaign to change street
names _and other signs contin-
ued. The capital's huge Heaven-
ly Peace (Tien An Men) Square,
where major, rallies and parades
{ are held, is now East Is Red
(Dong Fang Hung) Square, ac-
cording to a proclamation past-
ed over the old signs.
The campaign to oppose bour-
geois, tendencies has taken some
unexpected forms. ,
A poster outside' a- depot for
,pedicabs-tricycles pedaled by
a driver with a sept behind him
for his passenger - said that
they. might still be 'hired ' slut
that the passenger should pedal
himself while the driven sits in
the passenger seat.
Flowers 'Not Revolutionary'
"Posters outside flower shops'
declare that having flowers ink:
the house Is not revolutionary.
Several flower stores have been,
closed this week,
'closed; with posters criticizing
I thedral were used to display
Biblical scenes previously used
by the cathedral but now heav-
ily crossed out with black
brush strokes. The mutilated
!pictures included scenes of the
Nativity, 'Jesus teaching and
various saints:. ' .
Slo
ans
lli
t
th
g
eg
o
ng
aei;new; ,
Y' eft of organized religion in Corn.
auitualnsoist China has been destroyed
bourgeeoiis revolution" tendencies were e m
o
placed on the outside of the y the officially sanctioned youth-
dome, and .a carved stone cross El mobs of Red Guards.
were chipped away. I'
Catholic and Protestant
Mao and
Pictures of M r
.
other Communist chiefs also .hurehes have been physically to e'athcdrai showing the ,nativity,,
hung on ' the walls, and the en over by the red-banded mill Christ teaching and various saints
church was covered inside and ,ants. Altars have been smashed] were hung up heavily marred
out with red flags, banners and the insides of churches have been' fifth black brushstrokes a d signs
posters. tclaI Support Given `ipped out and covered with pos ' saying ,that religious activity was
forbidden.
"ei'sof'Mao Tse-tung, Communist,
t
ors
The teen-age demonstra
responsible for the activity khetcultural revolution. slogans dl; interiors Stripped
nd other
i
s
t
h
h
ns
c
e
a
aga
urc
; Ancestral Tablets Burned
"bourgeois" elements are
known as Red Guards. They are . Buddhist temples have. also
acting with official blessing.
None of the Red Guards
would not explain today wh
newsmen were not allowed to
enter the cathedral. But t4ey
BALTIMORE SUN
11 September 1966
BY PETFR J. SUJMPA
tRonF Xroni.aureau of TILe Xunl
Crosses on top of the cathedral
were replaced with Red flags. A
heavy, stone cross on the west
front was chipped. Windows ware
mashed In both churches and
both were plastered heavily withL
posters. jI
were stripped or wrecked. In the
Protestant church a new altar
,tatues In the. renowned Temple'' erected. v
if the Sleeping Buddha outside; The Convent of the Sacred
d d 1.1, n
Pekin were wrecked b H t t
r
e
e
y raging ear was s o
m an
appeared to have taken over[ permanently the churches sere-guacdsmen. over next.
In smaller cities and towns bon- .4 After being detained fort a week
, vv
ing Peking's Christians-esti-,fires have been made of the ante the eight foreign nuns ere ex-
mated celled and one 60-year-old' British
orl
humored today compared with
was chipped away.
two days when they used their
fists to batter the cars of diplo-
mats and newsmen.
Today, witnesses saw demon-
strators kick open a door and
enter a Chinese house that had
been covered with posters de-
nouncing "bourgeois ways." In
another street, Red Guards har-
angued an elderly man at the
door. of his small shop.
Soviet Embassy Still Target
Demonstrations in the street
leading to the Soviet Embassy
entered their third day. Children
holding pictures of Mars,
Engels, Lenin and Stalin-with
a larger one of Mr. Mao in the
middle approached the gates.
Cars in,the street have to edge
past a huge tableau consisting;
of Mr. Mao's portrait, a'model
of the book of his selected
works and many red flags and
banners.
The three Western newsmen
stationed here were surrounded
by a crowd of about 200 school
children when they visited the
street. The children shouted,
"Down with United. States im-
perialism i Oppose Soviet Revi-
strai tartlets Kept by most conser- I. sister died shortly after arriving
votive Chinese families. here in Hong Kong.
The attacks on religious institu The'inside of the convent was
Lions are part of the well-organiz- also covered with posters, Much::
ed campaign to destroy the "four of the interior was wrecked, cot
olds" on. mainland China, Red respondents were , able to see''
Guardsmen by the tens of thou- statues of Christ and the Virgin
--. a- -.a..s tiao~ ,, ., ~~. :Mary that had been dragged out
gangs to wipe out old ideas, old -here has been no repott on the
culture,' old customs and old ha- I fate of seventeen Chinese. nuns re-
bits. maining In the convent.
While official' Peking sources
have praised the guardsmen for
their deliberate destruction of old
street signs and business estab-
lishments and the invasion' of pri-
vate homes and physical MIX-
treatment of "feudalists," they
have not acknowledged the as-
saults on places of worship. In
theory religious liberty is consti-
Beginning Of Terror
From non-Chinese Communist,
BALTINDRE SUN
7 Septeriber -196 1
Red Guards Raze
Buddha Statties
Budapest, Sept. 6 (, i--Peking's
Japanese and Western correspon- Red Guards have wrecked most
.dents in Peking and from trave- of the Buddha statues and other
f h
d T
k
h
f
p
lers it is possible to piece together
the destruction of religion in the
country.
it began in Peking about Au-
gust 20 shortly ' after the Red
Guards, were publicly organized
and held their first gigantic rally;
. Both the walled compound of
Nantang, the Catholic South Cath-
edral and the Protestant. church
within the former Young .Wo-
men's Christian Association, were
physically taken over, by Red
Guards. '
em
e
e
ame
e o
,reties in t
Sleeping Buddha, one of the out-
standing ancient monuments in
the Communist 'Chinese capital,
the Hungarian News Agency, MTI,
reported today.
The agency's Peking corres?.
,pondent described the destruction
.after visiting the templed Sunday.'
with other Communist correspond-';
The ' report said the statues
were destroyed under the slogan
of "Fight against the remnants of
feudalism.,.
. J ,_ .
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010021-5
stamp-collecting as a bourgeois
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010021-5
A.ar Wt O7UALNWavtI rvoa
After Trip,
From China
Prom News 'bispatches
HONG KONG, Sept. 1
Thursday) -- The till! of
eight. Roman Catholic nuns ex-
pelled by Communist China
yesterday died this morning in
a Hong Kong hospital
Sister Eamon, I died from
.heart failure and strain after
an arduous, 'three-day train
trip marked by ; Red Guard
harassments and little if any
sleep for all the nuns. Last
week the nuns were tormented
in Peking; and forced to run
,up and down stairs.-The young-
est of the nuns was 40.
Sister Eamon, the former
Mary O'Sullivan of County
Cork, Ireland, had fainted yes-
terday on the Chinese side of
the frontier. In the words of
one of the other nuns, a Com-
munist guard "dumped her in-
to a baggage cart and just gave
the cart a.shove towards the
British side of the border.'
She was rushed to St.
Theresa Hospital. by ambu-
lance, along with the Mother
Superior of the group, 76-year-
old Sister Mary Mother of the
Cross, who also had fainted.'
A Catholic spokesman said
both suffered from "general.
fatigue."
The nuns crossed the border
as some 700, Red Guards jeered
land waved clenched fists ati
They were expelled by
China under the "great prole-
tarian cultural revolution," a.
purge that has convulsed all
sectors of Chinese society,
The six nuns who were not
hospitalized spent their first!
night in Hong Kong in a con-
vent.
Ran Peking School
"All of tht;.m are healthy," a
nun. at the convent said yes-
terday, "but they're all very,
tired and they would -like to
rest'
The nuns, members of the
Franciscan Order of Mary, had
run the Sacred Heart Acad-
emy in Peking for the children'
of foreign diplomats. The,
school was closed by Chinese'
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061 A000400010021-5
The nuns were reluctant to
speak of their tribulations in
Peking; they had left Chinese;
nuns behind. But Sister'
Thomas a Becket-told Alan.
Castro of the New York Daily'
Yews that the Red Guards:
'made us bow as they chanted
slogans. And as we prepared
leave, they harassed us with,
pieces of wooden board and!,
we were made to run up and
down stairs with our personal
belongings."
A Hong Kong newspaper
quoted the sister as adding:
"They terrorized us and hu-
miliated us but they did. not
assault us to the ; extent of
causing., bodily harm."
On Sunday, they began,
their train trip to Canton.
They were accompanied by.
armed guards ? and at every'.
railroad station crowds of Red
Guards derided them. "How;
could we sleep with the Red i
Guards around us?", one sis-
ter said. ?
Espionage Charged
Yesterday, the official New
China News Agency said the
nuns were deported because
they were involved in espi-
onage and Instigated counter-
revolutionaries.
The depredations against
the Academy, Which was
founded in 1915, were one of
the several excesses commit-
ted by the Red Guards, who
*ere unleashed on the public
Aug. 20. Susequently, Com-
munist. authorities several
times instructed them to car-
ry out their activity without
force.
only one non-Chinese Catho-
lic official in China, accord-
ing to Catholic sources here.
He is Bishop James E. Walsh,_
74, now in a Shanghai prison
hospital, serving a 20-year
sentence. on charges of espi-
onage.
British protest over
nuns rejected.
TRnM O''R DTPLOit.ATIC CO RESPON-DrNT
Mr. Hsiung Hsiang-hui, the Chinese
Charp6 d'Affaires in London, was called to
the Foreign Oflice yesterday. Lord Waistnn,
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, made, in the words of or, ortficial at
the Foreign Office later, " a very strong pro-
test" against the physical maltreatment
and humiliations suffered by a British nun,
Sister Catherine Rogan, when Red Guards
recently broke into the convent of the
Sacred Heart in Peking.
Lord Walston also protested against the
action taken by the Reef Guards against the
foreigners' cemetery in Peking and the fact
that officials of the office of the British
Chargd d'Affaires in Peking were prevented
by Red Guards from gaining access to it.
Lord Walston then sought an assurance that
the graves would not be desecrated.
The official added that Mr. Hsiun
Hsiang-hui rejected the protest slating that
neither Sister Rogan nor other nuns in the
convent had been maltreated. He said that
he had no information about the cemetery
and that the matter should be taken up
with the Chinese Ministry, for Foreign
Affairs in Peking.
London Times, 7 Sept 1966
FOREIGNERS' CEMETERY
CLOStD
rra,w, Sept, 4.-- ed ouards ii
have closed the c pital's ceme
foreigners and renamed it " Anti -in
Orchard'.' The
n?
is believed to contain about .200
British and L^`''.-0. -
mostly of
tery for
perialist
mete
,
y
c
e
graves,
R
EUta
HINDUJSTAN TINE
17 June 1966
Chinese desecrate
carry out acts of desecration in
Lhasa's temples and monasteries.
Chinese are making use of Young.
Communist League members to
Lhasa temples
of._M,ay. This disclosure came
within New China News Agency's
claim that the younger genera-
i .important role in Tibet."
i According to this refugee, one
nastery and destroyed the. reli-
gious text, consecrated Images:.