Through a mysterious but providential set of circumstances, the Columban Fathers began with Father Edward Galvin. Before going to the seminary in Ireland he seriously considered becoming a missionary but in deference to his parents’ misgivings about missionary life, he entered the Maynooth seminary where young men were trained for their home dioceses. In 1909, on the day he was ordained, his bishop, having no opening for him in the diocese, advised him to go to America and return to home in three years. Fr. Galvin went to New York and became an assistant in Holy Rosary Parish in Brooklyn, New York. It was there he met Fr. John M. Fraser, Canadian missionary, who was the returning to China.
Fr. Galvin told Fr. Fraser that he had long been haunted by a desire to be a missionary and that he had read every book in the Brooklyn public library that had anything to do with China. Although Fr. Fraser discouraged Fr. Galvin’s enthusiasm for China, he finally said, “If you want to go with me, you’ll have to hurry. You’ll need permission from your bishop.”
Fr. Galvin wrote immediately to his bishop and within a few weeks received permission. On February 25, 1912, he was on his way to China. In those days, the Catholics of the English-speaking world played a minor part in the foreign mission work of the Church. Of America’s 17,000 priests, less than 50 were in the field as missionaries.
In China Father Galvin was shocked at the poverty and wretchedness he found. He was even more appalled by the spiritual poverty. Here were millions of friendly and industrious people who, because of the lack of missionaries, knew nothing of Christ. But what could one priest do on his own? More missionaries were the answer but who would recruit them?
Father Galvin bombarded his friends with letters seeking help and in 1916 two priests joined him. Father Patrick O’ Reilly and Joseph O’ Leary- They soon realized that if they were to have any lasting effect, they needed to set up some kind of an organization. The two new arrivals urged Father Galvin to go home and organize a new Mission Society. He hesitated. A novena of masses was suggested.
“When the novena was completed, “Bishop Galvin later wrote, “ we knelt down in my room facing each other. I cut the leaves of our Bible and on the top of the right-hand page read the following verse: “I command you: be firm and steadfast. “ Do not fear nor be dismayed for the Lord your Go is with you wherever you go.” – (Jos. 1,9)
Father Galvin broke the tense silence saying, “ I have my orders, I’ll go.”
In June of 1916, he returned to the United States. From San Fernando to Brooklyn, he visited priest friends and bishops. He shared his plans with them. He got encouragement from them. In August, he sailed to Ireland – to Maynooth, where he got his first recruits. An able young professor, Father John Blowick, joined him to help establish a mission to China. By October, the new society numbered eight priests.
With the blessing of Pope Benedict XV, Father Galvin and Blowick spent 1917 planning and laying foundations. On June 29, 1918, the Society of St. Columban was formally approved. The first Columban seminary was opened in Ireland. A few months later the American headquarters was established in St. Columban’s, Nebraskas. In a few years a seminary was opened there too.
From 1912 to 1950, China was in constant chaos. In the 20’s, the Nationalist Chinese Army fought the Communists. War lords, many of them vicious brigands, fought anyone who got in their way. Add to this the free-lance bandits who fought for no cause excepting their own, often seeking trouble for its own sake. They held individuals ransom and would loot a city unless it paid to be left alone. In the midst of all this chaos, Father Galvin was consecrated Bishop of Hanyang in 1927.
When bandits attacked Columban priests in remote mission stations, they made such serious threats and demands that sooner or later something tragic was bound to happen. On July 15, 1929, Red Army bandits captured Fr. Timothy Leonard. After a few days as a prisoner, he was murdered by them. Other Columbans were taken captive and released, but one. Fr. Cornelius Tiemey, died after three months in harsh captivity.
In the fall of 1932, Chiang Kai-sheks’s troops began attacking th Reds with a vigor never seen before. The Communist fell back on all fronts and once more people could move about with relative safely. “the reign of terror,” wrote one Columban, “far from weakening the appeal of the Catholic Church in this area, seems to have strengthened it.” It was an extra ordinary time as thousands expressed a sincere desire to enter the Church.
In 1933 the Holy See conferred a new territory to Columbans and Columban Father Patrick Cleary was appointed in charge of the Vicariate of Nancheng, south of Hanyang.
In the following year, the relative peace that began the year before shattered by the disastrous flood of the Yangtze river that left thusands homeless. Columban priests and Sisters exhausted themselves in caring for sick and dying refugees.
On the night of july 7, 1937, China’s war with Japan, that would in time become a part of Second World War, began. Columban priests and Sisters were called on to care for thousands of wounded Chinese soldiers as well as countless refugees, often dying of cholera.
Of frequently recurring disasters Bishop Galvin said, “Calamities are forerunners of waves of grace.” He recalled that when the Columbans arrived in 1920, there had been 17,000 Catholics in Hanyang Vicariate and in 1932 there were 55,000.
World War II followed in 1940 and a new era of turmoil and destruction began. Cities and town were bombed and reduced to rubble. American and Australian Columbans, regarded as enemy aliens, were repatriated to their home countries in exchange of Japanese civilians. Those who remained were restricted in their movements.
The war had hardly ended when it became clear that the Communist under Mao Tse Tung would soon defeat the Nationalist under Chiang Kai-shek. In 1946 the Holy See entrusted a new mission, known as Huchow, to the Columban Fathers. Three years later the Communist took over this area and before long they were in control for all of China. Several Columbans were thrown into jail and eventually all the Columban priests and Siters were expelled. Bishop Galvin and Bishop Cleary were expelled in 1952. By 1954 everyoone of the 146 Columban serving China were “expelled forever.”
On September 19, 1952, a weary, haggard man stumbled across the Red China border into Hong Kong. Forty years of heroic missionary service had ended – Bishop Galvin was even branded a “criminal.” Three and half years later death came quietly for this great missionary.
In spite of the nightmare of banditry, war, bombing, destruction, death, disease, flood, famine and suffering, the China venture, begun by Bishop Galvin was one of the most heroic and successful mission apostolates In modern times.
When the Columban Fathers celebrated their golden jubilee in 1968, someone asked Fr. Blowick if they had foreseen the catastrophe in China, would they have stopped in their tracks? Then 81, he considered this for a few moments, “probably not. The harvest that was garnered was immense. The good seed in the ground for a econ spring.”
That good seed no only remained in China but it put down deep roots and bore splendid fruit during the years of cruel persecution of every Chinese Catholic – bishops, priests, Sisters and laity without exception. An account of Chinese Catholic’s fidelity and heroism reads like that of Christians who suffered and died during the persecutions of the early centuries of the Church.
Today the church in China is experiencing a second spring in spite of restrictive and controlling efforts of the Communist government…
We Columbans continue to long for and are preparing for the day when the doors of Bsihop Galvin’s beloved China will once again be opened to the whole world.