Martyrs return from China

INSBRUCK, Austria - 54 years after their violent death in China, the mortal remains of two Capuchin missionaries, Br. Antonin Schröcksnadel and Br. Theophil Ruderstaller returned to Tyrol (Austria), their homeland. On Whit Monday 1946, while praying Vespers, the two Capuchins were dragged from the church at Fudjin by the Communists, taken to their house and shot. The Bishop of Innsbruck, Manfred Scheuer together with the Provincial Br. Radek Celewicz, welcomed the return of the China missionaries, expressing the hope that they would “help us to be witnesses of the faith”.

In the packed Capuchin church the two small coffins were placed in exactly the same spot from where in 1933 and 1940 they had been sent out to Manchuria, the Chinese mission of the then Province of North Tyrol. . In all, 13 missionaries from the Province worked in the territory. The outbreak of the second world war and the political situation meant that no more new brothers could be sent. The revolution in China and the victory of the Maoist troops put an end to the missionary enterprise of the Austrian friars.

Helmut Rakowski