Last Trappist monk who lived through Mao communist persecution dies at 108
Father Chao survived the destruction of China’s Trappist monasteries and helped preserve their contemplative tradition.
The last surviving member of a group of Trappist monks forced from mainland China during Mao-era communist persecution died July 31 at age 108 after 79 years of religious life.
Father Benedict Chao was the world’s oldest Trappist monk and helped reestablish the Abbey of Our Lady of Joy in Hong Kong after communist persecution displaced his community from its original monastery in Hebei Province, according to an Aug. 9 report from AsiaNews.
Father Chao professed his perpetual vows in 1947, the same year an advancing communist army forced his community to flee to Sichuan Province, according to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance. AsiaNews said that two monks at the abbey were killed, and communist authorities later confiscated the original monastery.
AsiaNews recounted the persecution faced by monks at the nearby Abbey of Our Lady of Consolation in the Yangjiaping Mountains, noting that they were publicly beaten and tortured in an effort to make them renounce their faith.
“After burning down what remained of the monastery, the communists deported all the monks, leading them along rugged routes through the mountains of northern China on a ‘death march,’” the outlet reported. “Hands bound with chains or wire that exposed their bones, under torrential rains, the elderly and infirm carried on the shoulders of the fellow monks, forced to forage for food like animals, prevented from communicating with one another, and whipped when caught half asleep or moving their lips in prayer.”
As persecution intensified, Father Chao and several other monks found refuge at a Trappist monastery in Manitoba, Canada. When communist authorities dissolved what remained of their community in China in 1951, the exiled monks began planning a new monastery in Hong Kong.
Father Chao was among eight monks who returned to Asia in 1953 and opened the monastery on Lantau Island in 1956.
Father Chao was elected the community’s third prior in 1974 and served until 1998. The monastery was later recognized as an autonomous abbey and resumed the name Abbey of Our Lady of Joy.
Father Chao’s funeral is scheduled for Aug. 14 in Hong Kong.
