St. John Bosco Today June-August 2018

The Servant of God,

Carlo Father

BRAGA, SDB

Special Issue

Contents St. John Bosco Today

Volume 48 I Number 1 | June-August 2018 S

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A Magazine of Information and Religious Culture of the Salesian Family in the Philippines

Message of the Rector Major..................3 Editor’s Note .............................................4 Fr. Braga: A Brief Biography ...................5 MEMOIRS OF THE SERVANT OF GOD, FATHER CARLO BRAGA The Formation Years ........................ 10 Preparing For The Missions............. 14

EDITORIAL TEAM

A Young Missionary in China ........... 16

Owner Salesian Society of St. John Bosco Printer Don Bosco Press, Inc. Publisher Don Bosco Press, Inc. Editor Fr. Bernard P. Nolasco, SDB Associate Editor Fr. Joel Camaya, SDB Copy Editor Fr. Mario Baclig, SDB Coordinators Fr. Fidel Ma. Orendain, SDB (FIS) Sr. Rachel Flor, FMA & FMA Past Pupils, Sr. Sophia Akiko Oshita, SCG, Imelda Benitez-Domitita ASC, Dr. Victor B. Endriga DBAPNF, Maria Junifer Maliglig, ADMA, Evangeline Dolliente FADS Art Director Early Macabales Graphics & Design Studio DBPI-Multimedia Section Circulation Commission on Social Communication For subscription, please contact Commission on Social Communication 3/F Don Bosco Provincial Office,Don Bosco Compound,C. Roces Ave. cor. A. Arnaiz Ave. Makati City, Philippines Tel (02) 893-8227 loc. 114 | Telefax (02) 892-8174

On Dangerous Grounds ................... 20

Annual subscription (4 issues) P300.00 Send your comments and suggestions to salesianbulletinphilippines@gmail.com Visit us at www.sdb.org.ph Copyright© 2018 by Don Bosco Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without permission from the publisher.

Communist Invasion in China ......... 18 Overcome Evil with Good ................ 22 World War II ....................................... 24 Post-World War II .............................. 27 34 Grace-Filled Years In China ........ 28 The Rise of The Chinese Communist Party .............................. 32 From China to the Philippines ......................................... 34 Salesian Family News........................38

I DREAM OF A SALESIAN FAMILY WITH A

Message of the RECTOR MAJOR

MISSIONARY HEART

The 147th Missionary Expedition proclaims that the Lord continues to love the Humanity he created and desired and that we, the Salesian Family, feel full of God’s Tenderness in a special way. It is precisely this load of love that asks to “overflow” around us and calls for an answer of demanding fidelity. This is why I told our missionaries that my dream of a Salesian Missionary Family has four “petals”.

BE MISSIONARIES OF HUMANITY

We are not missionaries in the world to make some conquests. We are here to share life with the people who welcome us; we are to serve, whatever the circumstances and situations are. We feed the hungry and drink to the thirsty because it is good to do it, whatever the consequences.

You must bring your own wealth of humanity, that which you have received from your families and cultures and the profound one that you nurture every day in your trusting relationship with the Lord Jesus “.

BE MISSIONARIES OF MERCY AND FRATERNITY

The second petal of my missionary dream is the consequence of the first, as I said: “For missionaries of humanity, I invite you to also be missionaries of mercy and fraternity.

Today the world suffers everywhere. You will find wars, divisions, extreme poverty, refugees, hungry, sick, abandoned. You will also meet speeches of racism and xenophobia, but you bring a message of peace and development, of forgiveness and of fraternity. And not just as a speech or a sermon, but in your own life, in your own daily life, in your testimony.

BE MISSIONARIES FOR THE LAST

Being a Salesian missionary today means having eyes and a heart for the least and the little ones. “I commend you with all my heart: have your eyes open to see them and to see them in your face, have your heart and arms open to receive them, have the courage to give your whole life to them. Like Don Bosco you can be close to everyone, but your heart must always be with the last ones and your life, always for the last ones.

BE MISSIONARY DISCIPLES

We can never forget that the root and strength of our missionary being comes from being disciples. We are essentially missionary disciples, members of a believing community that takes Jesus’ commandment to teach in his name and that all nations can know the Merciful and Faithful God who loves his every son and every daughter on earth. We are also heirs to a more than centenarian tradition of our Salesian Family.

Mary, Teacher and Help, Mother of Mercy, accompany you every day and in every step. Learn from her to be attentive to the needs of the poor people, the boys and girls and the poorest young people who, I am sure, bring into your heart and learn from her to praise God for the wonders he does in every corner of the earth, in every culture and nation.

Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, SDB Rector Major St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

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EDITOR' S NOTE Dear Readers, Our June-August issue of St. John Bosco Today is special.

It presents the life and works of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB. He was a holy man, who played a significant role in the establishment of the Salesian presence in the Philippines. As you read through the pages of this issue, you will discover how God used Fr. Braga to spread his Good News wherever he was sent. He was definitely a man of God, a faithful son of St. John Bosco.

The Salesians of Don Bosco of the Philippines-North Province formally introduced his cause for canonization last January 30, 2013 in the cathedral of the Archdiocese of San Fernando (Pampanga). The then Archbishop of San Fernando, the Most Reverend Paciano B. Aniceto, D.D., who recalled the several times he went to confession to the saintly priest, presided over the Solemn Mass. A big number of Salesian and diocesan priests concelebrated. Since then, the Salesian Family has been promoting his cause and encouraging individuals to ask for Fr. Carlo Braga’s intercession. It is our ardent hope that through this quarterly magazine, people may get to know him more and seek his intercession in their prayers.

Fr. Nesty Impelido’s brief biography about the Servant of God is in pages 5 to 8. This biography was published in the book “Don Carlo Braga, Un Padre con il Cuore di Don Bosco” by Fr. Vasco Tassinari, SDB, in 2011. The memoirs of Fr. Carlo Braga are in pages 9 to 37. They cover his childhood years until 1962. The reading of his memoirs will let readers be aware of how God is ever gracious to those who are docile to his inspiration, no matter how difficult or challenging the situation may be. Hopefully, you will be enriched and inspired.

The last two pages are expressions of how God has continued to bless the Salesian Family. Some members have been ordained as Salesian priests, others have been accepted to the religious life, and many others have been inducted as officers and new members in their respective groups.

Let us continue to give glory to God for the gift of generous and happy members of the Salesian Family.

VIVA DON BOSCO!!!

Fr. Bernard P. Nolasco, SDB Editor

FATHER CARLO BRAGA: A Brief Biography By: Fr. Nestor Impelido, SDB

THE BEGINNINGS “Fr. Carlo Braga enchanted everybody with his largehearted goodness and superabounding gratitude.”

–Fr. Luigi Ferrari, SDB

Fr. Carlo Braga was born in the year after Don Bosco died and on the day before the annual solemn feast of Mary Help of Christians, in 23 May 1889. He lived his boyhood and early adolescent in Tirano, of the Valtellina zone of the Lombard Region of Northern Italy. He, the second child of a second marriage (his elder brother also named Carlo died while still an infant), started losing his loved ones while he was still in the prime of his life. His father (Domenico Braga) had migrated to the Americans but never came back, while he was barely two years old. His mother (Maddalena Mazza) died alone in a hospital while her Carlino was merely age six. These made his boyhood more bitter and dramatic than that of the boy Giovanni Bosco.

Nonetheless, in these moments of unwanted losses, Fr. Braga found providential substitutes in the Salesians, in both the masculine and feminine. The Daughters of Mary Help of Christians took him in their kindergarten and elementary school in Tirano. Herein, he met one whom he later considered as his second mother, Sr. Giuditta Torelli.. Later, the Salesians of Don Bosco received him in the Salesian College of San Rocco in Sondrio. This first experience of the Salesians amorevolezza or loving kindness for Fr. Braga came early enough to off-set that loss of his beloved ones, whose absence could have been tragic for a child.

But it was during Fr. Braga’s stay with the Salesians in Sondrio that Providence extraordinarily gave him the opportunity to encounter St. John Bosco’s successor, the Blessed Michael Rua, who opened to him the way to be one day to emulate St. John Bosco by becoming a Salesian himself.

He was then chosen to be the little secretary of the Rector Major while the latter was visiting the house of Sondrio. And in this unforgettable experience (27 June 1904), Blessed Michael Rua expressed to him those benevolent words: “Noi saremo sempre amici.” (We will always be friends.) What better expression of loving kindness could the young Carlo expect from the “Don Bosco” in the Blessed Michael Rua. And so began Carlo’s journey of becoming a Salesian. In 1904, he was sent to the novitiate of the Central Province (Foglizzo, August 1904), when the original plan was to send him to the novitiate of the LombardyVenice Province which was his Salesian province of origin. This, too, he considered providential in as much as he now came in direct contact with the origins of the Salesian charism in Valdocco and in Turin. But the novice Carlo was not immediately accepted to the first profession; instead, he was sent for a second novitiate in Valsalice, where at the same time he was allowed to continue with his studies. Finally, he made his profession on 30 July 1906. Then followed his first experience as a Salesian: practical training (1908-1911) at Trino Varcellese, during which he made the perpetual profession (1909) and did studies in the University (1911); study of theology (1911-1914), and at the same time work at the Oratory of San Luigi (1912) where

the superior of the Community was the Venerable Vincenzo Cimatti. Finally, in 11 April 1914, he was ordained a priest, but not after some delay in his admission to the orders.

Almost a year after his ordination, May, 1915, Fr. Carlo Braga was called to join the Italian army. This would make him experience the rigors of war until April 1919. During this bellicose period, he also met the Salesian and Army Captain Renato Ziggiotti, later fifth successor of St. John Bosco. But it was also during this particular moment that he thought of going to the missions. Struck by serious sickness, he decided to become a missionary in case he was cured. Thus, in 29 November 1918, Turin invited him to be part of the second missionary expedition to China, to substitute a confrere who was refused permission by his mother and who actually died during the war. He hardly made it in time to receive the missionary cross (April 1919) from the Rector Major, Fr. Paolo Albera, in Valdocco, together with eight other Salesians and ex-soldiers like him. Again, after more delays, he left Italy in 23 August and arrived in China 29 September 1919.

THE CHINA EXPERIENCE “Father Braga had a soul sparkling with optimism and healthy enthusiasm, with missionary zeal and cultural sensibility.”

– Fr. Egidio Vigano, SDB Fr. Carlo Braga divided into two periods what he considered as the “summa capita” of his missionary life which he spent beside the Salesian bishop and martyr Luigi Versiglia: the first, from 1919-1924, when he was assigned as superior of the orphanage “St. Joseph” of Ho Sai; the second, from 1925-1929, when he was rector of “Don Bosco College” of Shiu Chow. In 1930, he was made provincial, following the nomination of the Superior of the Mission, Fr. Ignacio Canazei, as bishop of Shiu Chow, in the place of the deceased Bishop Luigi Versiglia (+February 1930).

For 22 years (1930-1952), Fr. Carlo Braga would lead the “Chinese Salesians” through difficult moments. In 25 February 1930, he received the news of the martyrdom of the Salesians Bishop Versiglia and Fr. Caravario. Being in Turin as general chapter delegate, he gave the eulogy during the solemn

commemoration at the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians. As missionary, he was caught in the midst of the Civil War in China between the communists and the republicans from 1927 to 1937.

He also had to confront the reality of destruction of Salesian works and escape of Salesians during the Sino-Japanese Conflict (1937 to 1945).

Nonetheless, in 1941, in spite of the difficulty of exercising his mandate in the northern region of China, he opened five presences, including two in Indo-China which were later occupied by the Japanese. There was a moment of adjustment from 1945 to 1949; this however, became a mere prelude to the communist takeover of all the Salesian works in the Mainland, the imprisonment of Chinese Salesians, as well as the exodus of the confreres to the adjacent islands of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. During all these years, Fr. Carlo Braga bore on his shoulders the burden of trying to maintain intact the Salesian presence in China, to diminish as much as possible the destruction and dispersions (Salesians were put into concentration camps too) caused by the continuing crisis in China.

THE PHILIPPINES EXPERIENCE “Fr. Carlo Braga was a splendid example of total surrender to Don Bosco and the Congregation which only few loved more than he did.”

–Fr. Albino Fedrigotti, SDB, Prefect General From 1952 to 1953, he was given a pause after his long mandate as superior of China. However, in 1953, he underwent a moment of adjustment when he was sent to the Philippines as rector of the two-year old Salesian Technical School in Victorias, Negros, Occidental. He considered this a year of martyrdom for the lack of knowledge of the language of the place, as well as the new environment that is entirely different from that of the Chinese. One should remember, however, that it was while he was still provincial of China that the Salesians negotiated to start in the Philippines at the invitations of the Ossorios of Victorias and the U.S.A chaplain Fr. James Wilson of Tarlac.

In 1955, he was named delegate of the Provincial of China to which the Philippines was dependent. Three years later (1958), he was named “Visitatore” of the Philippines, when it was finally detached from the China province. In 1963, Fr. Braga was relieved of the office of superior which he exercised for almost 33 years (1930-1963), and was assigned as confessor and director of souls of both Salesians and aspirants to the Salesian life. Like those who trail blazed in the Salesian adventure, he knew that Don Bosco could only be prolonged, further extended and continued, as long as there were those who would be the young who would make the elder convinced that what they started would go on.

For Fr. Braga, the Philippines was a country scarce in vocations and wanting to become industrialized. For this, he considered as success the acquisition of vocations and the creation of technical schools. The year before he passed away, there were 28 Filipino SDB confreres among the newly professed. There were also about 66 aspirants in the Juniorate in Pampanga.

Fr. Carlo Braga with the boys of Don Bosco Victorias, Phillipines.

Like those who trail blazed in the Salesian adventure, he knew that Don Bosco could only be prolonged, further extended and continued, as long as there were those who would be the young who would make the elder convinced that what they started would go on.

CONCLUSION “Fr. Braga was a popular figure with an unmistakable optimism of his own [...one of those] dynamic celebrities that have kept the Salesian Congregation going.”

BRIEF CHRONOLOGY 1889 1904 1906

–Fr. Luigi Fiora, SDB, Procurator General

1914

During the 65 years of his religious profession as Salesian and 57 years as priest, Fr. Braga was rector for 14 years, provincial for 23 years and “Visitatore” for 5 years. He passed away in the early morning of 3 January 1971, Solemnity of the Epiphany, in Don Bosco Juniorate, San Fernando, Pampanga. The next day, I, who was then a second year aspirant, was there to pay homage to his mortal remains. The death of Fr. Braga was a first in the history of the Salesians in the Philippines. But it would remain a first of those who would wish to reminisce the taste of a true and authentic Salesian.

1915 1918 1919 1919-1924 1925-1929 1927-1937 1930-1952 1930 1941 1945-1949 1952-1953 1953 1955 1958

The Bust of Fr. Carlo Braga in Don Bosco Academy Pampanga now buried by lahar

1963 1971

Birth of Fr. Carlo Braga (23 May) Novitiate in Foglizzo (August) First Religious Profession (30 July) Ordination to the priesthood (11 April) Conscripted by the Italian Army (May) Invited to join the missionary expedition (November) Left Italy for China (23 August) and arrived in China (29 September) Superior of Orphanage of St. Joseph Ho Sai Superior of Don Bosco College Shiu Show Chinese Civil War Provincial of China Martrydom of Bp. Versiglia and Fr. Cavario (25 February) Five new presences in Northern China Communist threat and adjustment In Italy Arrival in the Philippines (Rector of Don Bosco Victorias) Delegate of the Provincial of China Visitatore of the Philippine Visitatoria End of term as Visitatore Death of Fr. Braga (03 January)

Memoirs of the Servant of God,

Carlo Father

BRAGA, SDB

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decided to become a priest since I was nine years old. But I could not see much joy in the idea of becoming a parish priest who has to handle too much money, and at that time parish priests also had housekeepers who tended to give the orders around the house! It was my saintly mother, whom I loved but never got to know, who ďŹ rst sowed the seeds of a vocation. She nurtured this through constant prayer and had already offered me to Our Lady at the age of two.

THE

FORMATION

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n a cold and foggy day, 2 February 1901, I entered the San Rocco Institute accompanied by my brother Antonio and my cousin Tunin. As I said goodbye to them I promised I would do everything I could to be good.

I was happily welcomed by my friends from Tirano and by the superiors, Bro. Vallarino, Frs Giovanni Olgiati, Antonio Rossini, Albino Del Curto, and by the Rector, Fr Lorenzo Capra.

How wonderful those priests were! They were musicians and poets. I immediately decided to become a priest like these marvelous Salesians, with their many abilities and rare simplicity. The decision that I took during the Feast of the Purification was one I never shifted from.

Having entered the Piazzi secondary school, I immediately announced to my schoolmates and my teacher, Giacinto Carbonera that I wanted to be a priest. From that moment on my unforgettable teacher nicknamed me Canon. It wasn’t a term I was ready to accept: “Priest, yes; Canon never!”

I spent three years at Piazzi, where I felt loved by the teachers and respected by my schoolmates, who never attempted to stain my innocence. On the contrary, they were a help to my vocation by not inviting me to be part of certain

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St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

escapades which made that class famous. In 1904 I left for Turin, to be admitted to the novitiate at Schio, which had opened that year for the Lombarda-Veneto Province, but I was transferred to the Cisalpine (Subalpina) Province. Thus, I had the good fortune to spend eleven years in Turin in contact with great Salesians whom I came to know personally; I got to know the Mother House and all the special places of origin of the Salesian Congregation.

While at the studentate of Philosophy I was assigned to the weekend (‘festive’) oratory at Martinetto. I would walk to this oratory to save paying ten cents for the tram.

With this money I could buy sweets for the boys. I learned Piedmontese from them and I even spoke it with a Turinese accent.

I did my practical training at Trino Vercellese from 1908 to 1911, as teacher of the elementary students. But I was also teacher of music, led the band, and was director of the small theatre, sports organizer and head of the gymnastic society which received numerous awards. For all practical purposes, then, I was the director of the oratory with 400 members, plus a Catholic Youth Club made up of 80 members involved in drama, sports, music. During winter I also took the night school with older students 25 years and above. I was able to master that task and control the students without difficulty

YEARS

in such a way that I could bring them in orderly fashion to a closing celebration in a distant parish or take them on various outings.

In 1912, I was transferred to St John the Evangelist’s so I could attend the faculty of pedagogy, with Giovanni Vidari, a great admirer of Don Bosco, as my teacher.

With my superiors and my classmates, we managed to give to the school the Salesian tone that it keeps to this day. It had also been down in numbers, boarding and day students, but was at maximum capacity within two years. The past pupils, with their children, remember the holy joy of those years, playing games of dodge ball between “Arabs” and “Italians” which lasted days.

Beside the five hours of school each day, I was in charge of the St Aloysius festive oratory under the supervision of Fr Cimatti. I organized a sports team, the Robur, and the Association of Young Salesian Excursionists (AGES), the president of which was Ettore Calcagno, present-day chief accountant at FIAT. Professor Valetta was also amongst the students and was a dynamic and resourceful member.

I was ordained a priest on 11 April 1914. On 12 April, I celebrated my solemn first Mass at St John’s, surrounded by a crowd of boys from the oratory, students and friends. Frs. Pagella, Caviglia, Cimatti and Bro. Zanoletti were in the choir.

I immediately decided to become a priest like these marvelous Salesians, with their many abilities and rare simplicity.

A YOUNG SALESIAN PRIEST

Fr. Paul Albera allowed me to be ordained five months ahead of my companions in order to be able to console a great-aunt who had been very close to me since I was a child. She was the housekeeper for Mons. Giuseppe Merizzi, an extraordinary confessor at the Shrine of Our Lady of Tirano. Her name was Maria Mazza, a Salesian Cooperator and she was greatly esteemed by Fr. Michael Rua. From 24 May 1915 to 16 April 1919, I was a soldier-medic attached to the 108th movable field hospital. They were years of activity and of fertile apostolate.

I was never a military chaplain, notwithstanding the insistence and repeated requests from Bishop Bartolomasi, Bishop Castrense, and the Salesian, Bishop (Colonel) Rubino, Army Chaplain.

I fitted in very well with the 150 soldiers and 10 officers of the 180th. I was able to organize help for families who had nobody to help them, arrange the timetable and services so everything functioned perfectly. I organized a fine ‘Schola Cantorum’ which enriched the functions of the church and gave joy to our field hospital, making us acceptable to everyone. I organized academies on Feast days, and for officer graduations. We lived like brothers with a wonderful family spirit and harmony.

Though a soldier, I continued to live as a Salesian, helping everyone, happily giving out permissions, helping miscreants avoid punishment. I was happy to have saved one from the firing squad, a certain Pietro Ponzio of Turin, who had assaulted the lieutenant with his bayonet while he was inspecting them.

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St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

Captain Tangheroni of Marina di Pisa often wanted to know about our system of treating the young, marvelling at the volumes of correspondence which I received daily. He wanted to (and I had asked him to anyway) apply the preventive system to serious cases. One guilty soldier, a possible murderer, spent several hours despising death, insulting the officers and military justice, but when Captain Tangheroni reminded him, with quavering voice, of his faithful and innocent wife and his children far away, and that he would bring shame on them for the rest of their lives if their father were executed as a traitor, he changed into a hero. He threw himself at the Captain’s feet, begged for forgiveness and asked him to have pity on his family, saying, amidst his sobbing: “I deserve the firing squad, but they are innocent. Please have mercy on me and you will not regret it.” This solder then always became the first to offer himself for the most dangerous operations on Mount Grappa.

I was a soldier but everybody, like my boys, called me “Don Braga”. One talk I gave to the troops became famous.

I tried to explain to them and convince them that the Italian soldier’s rations were richer in calories than those of the allies.

None of the officers had the courage to tackle the issue. The Captain asked me to speak, and after having boned up on some scientific knowledge of calories, I produced a defence which touched the hearts of our good young soldiers “Now listen to me, my fellow combatants. We have our meals, our rations of anise and coffee at a fixed schedule, our five days’ pay all paid exactly. So let us look for a moment at Grappa, where our brothers defending the fatherland are submerged in the mud of the trenches; where they are threatened by frost bite and deprived of the comfort of correspondence. They cannot leave their assigned place, and are ready to sacrifice their life. So let’s not complain anymore!” So when rations were scarce or poorly made, or cold, or without salt, our rugged young soldiers, not without a certain hint of malice, would say: “Don Braga, let’s look at Grappa today!”

I was also able to give great consolation to good mothers.

No one died without the sacraments in our hospital, except one lieutenant. They thought his wounds were not serious and would not have had serious consequences.

Though a soldier, I continued to live as a Salesian, helping everyone, happily giving out permissions, helping miscreants avoid punishment.

On 4 November, our brave captain-doctor, Balestrassi, a very capable, competent man, very generous and of proverbial kindness wanted to go to Trent, which had recently been liberated. I suggested he not leave without his leather greatcoat, since he had to cross Mount Pasubio amidst a snowstorm.

However he just smiled, showed me his solid and strong physique, and said “Goodbye. We shall see each other later this evening”.

He returned later that evening with Spanish fever in his bones; he never recovered. Colonel Giugni, Military Police Commandant and close friend of the Captain, called my attention and prohibited me from speaking to him of the sacraments and extreme unction. I did my duty as a Salesian and as a priest-soldier. I arranged with the venerable parish priest of San Zenone, Ezzellini, for confession, viaticum and all the rest, including extreme unction. The day after his death, which occurred on 9 November 1918, the deceased’s brother arrived from far-away Bari and I was the one who had to receive him.

He asked me immediately: “My mother wants to know one thing only: if he died as a ‘Christian’”. I had the satisfaction of being able to stand at attention and salute: “Please tell

your venerable mother that he died like a saint”. Colonel Giugni, who happened to be present, notwithstanding my disobedience, proposed I be promoted to sergeant, following the farewell I gave before the coffin in the name of all the troops.

On 17 July 1917, with the help of two Milanese soldiers, Giovanni Biraghi and Luigi Vanoni, I was able to save the kindergarten and the clinic at Castel Tesino, only recently finished buildings, from being burnt to the ground. In order to do this we had to face up to the medical commandant’s revolver - Captain Napoleone Zapponi who thought we were intent on looting the area which had been evacuated several hours earlier. The saved buildings allowed us to host the wounded, the sick and victims from the front.

In November 1918, I was struck down by Spanish fever and decided that if I was cured I would leave for the missions.

On 29 November, the invitation from Turin arrived asking me to be part of the second missionary expedition to China, to take the place of someone whose mother denied permission to go as a missionary to China, and who had died that very night on the slopes of Grappa. I said yes immediately.

St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

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Sergeant Braga, 1915-1918

PREPARING FOR THE

MISSIONS 14

St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

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eturning to Turin from the front in January 1919, I continued service as a sergeant at the Maria Letizia Hospital and later at the San Vito hospital, for mutilated officers amongst whom I found several past pupils.

During my free time, I was busy as editor of the “Giovane Piemonte” magazine, with Carlo Rostagno, today senator, and Cesare Bertone, another dear friend who has already gone to his reward. We pooled our salaries. Everything was thought of: correct the draft, send it off and then gather money to have it printed. It was an avant-garde spirituality magazine.

I took on the pseudonym “Fra Ginepro” receiving hundreds of letters from young people eager for spiritual renewal for themselves and for Italy. I said goodbye on 16 April, at 4.30 in the afternoon, since they were waiting for me at Valdocco.

I hardly made it in time to run to Mary Help of Christians Church for the farewell function. I put on an altar servers cassock because I was still in my gray-green military uniform without any cassock to join the other eight missionaries. All of them were ex-soldiers, three of whom were former chaplains, and we received our crucifix from the hands of Father Albera, an embrace from Father Rinaldi and Father Ricaldone. I was resigned and happy to leave the country without even being able to see my relatives or greet friends, students and boys of the oratory.

We were supposed to leave on 17 April 1919. But in the evening a telegram from Marseilles communicated that the steamer Paul Lecat, which we were to board, had been rented by the French government to repatriate Annamese and Chinese workers. The departure was postponed until 23 August 1919.

From the end of April to 10 August I was in charge of the parish at Baruffini, a hamlet of Tirano. The parish was made vacant by the death of its zealous pastor, Father Frigerio. His successor was not available for the parish until September of that same year.

Those three and a half months were for me amongst the most beautiful of my life, being completely given to those souls, so rich in faith and so generous.

I preached every evening in May, and then June. The separation was very painful for everyone and I did not know how to hide my copious tears. Fortythree years have passed, and it seems to me like yesterday. I know that many of the old people remember me and do not forget me.

I was resigned and happy to leave the country without even being able to see my relatives or greet friends, students and boys of the oratory.

St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

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A YOUNG

I

MISSIONARY IN CHINA

arrived in China on 29 September 1919, at 9 in the morning. There were nine of us missionaries. Fr Luigi Versiglia, Salesian superior and future proto-martyr, came to fetch us from the boat and greet us. After a warm embrace, he announced that the first Salesian in China, Father Ludovico Olive, had just died of cholera. He had earlier been miraculously cured by Don Bosco and was the son of the great benefactor Olive of Marseilles.

This was not encouraging news, since we had arrived full of life only to receive the news of the death of one who worked for the mission. I interpreted the event mystically: “To die to oneself in order to live in Christ.”

On 24 October 1919, we were at Shiu-Chow, which was the capital of the mission. The work was not of the ordinary kind at the time: we had to watch over the whole house, provide the food, cook the bread and see to whoever came in or left the house. However, the main task was to apply myself to the study of Chinese. This meant studying the language up to eight hours daily, with a teacher who spoke only Chinese, and with an English grammar and a French dictionary. Our mission lacked prestige: it was unknown to everyone. On the contrary, the seven Protestant groups had churches, schools, hospitals and an abundance of money. But we had our own extraordinary wealth: Don Bosco’s system, his charity, warmth and humility.

On 19 March 1920, I gave my first sermon in the Hakka dialect, knowing well what I was saying, and making myself understood by the Christians. Already three months earlier, I had been able to sustain a simple conversation with our catechumens and Christians.

The greatest pain was that at age thirty one, I need to return to being a child, unable to communicate Jesus’ divine message of joy. However, one of the greatest consolations which I then had was to see myself considered as a “Chinese” because I spoke fairly good Hakka and dressed like a Chinese.

I made myself like one of them, loving them like a brother. It was a memorable day when I heard someone call me “Old town mate”, a nickname never used for Europeans.

I was put in charge of St Joseph’s orphanage at Ho Sai.

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It began with seven students in 1921. But in a few years, the number of students grew to 250. We were pioneers without any experience. My guide and my teachers were the students themselves, who instructed me and got me up to speed in Chinese ceremonials and the customs and traditions of the people. I never had any difficulty with discipline. They loved me with such extraordinary affection that one night everyone was sobbing inconsolably because I had been assigned to the house in Macao for several months. I was in charge of a small community of Christians at Ho Sai, whose number steadily increased through the wonderful direction of Bishop Versiglia and Father Guarona. In a span of two years we had about 300 baptisms.

“

To die to oneself in order to live in Christ.

”

For the Chinese, I was everything: friend, doctor, peacemaker, counselor and defender against the abuses of the soldiers. They wished me well; they always greeted me from the vegetable gardens and their rice fields with shouts of exultation and joy. Thus began a great and fruitful understanding that bonded us to all the pagans, who considered themselves honored and privileged by our friendship and by the ability to send their children to our school.

Our graduates gained good results from our education and commitment and made the school famous and very much desired. Then it seemed that the Lord had given me the “Grace of Healing”, because with water and soap I healed gangrenous wounds; and with mint water I freed the sick from every kind of intestinal infection.

In 1925, with the foundation of the Don Bosco Technical School at Shiu-Chow, I became the director of this school.

Macau 1920

Bishop Versiglia was a guest in two rooms at the College. I also introduced a course at the Don Bosco School for teachers so we could provide all the schools of the mission with Catholic teachers.

It seemed necessary to form intellectual workers at the same time, in order to lift up the level of our poor orphans and educate them to love study and work. In fact they always obtained brilliant results in State the examinations. The students at the school, mostly pagans, became adults who occupied positions in society. Later, they became of great help in the different cities and small villages, giving refuge to missionaries, favoring them in the acquisition of building sites where they could construct schools, clinics, churches; they were available to the missionaries for any kind of help.

About twenty of the orphans we always helped graduated at Catholic universities. They became professors in these universities or in colleges or seminaries. Our school immersed itself in the life of the city, taking part in all the activities whether sports, music, drama. The Famous “Banda Valtellinese� bought in 1922 by Bishop Versiglia with donations from the people of the Valtellina, also took part in the life of the city.

But we had our own extraordinary wealth: Don Bosco's system, his charity, warmth and humility.

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17

Communist INVASION

in China

O

ne could say that there was no social activity that happened without our participation. I believe that the greatest miracle wrought by Don Bosco’s preventive system must have been the one he obtained for the school at Shiu Chow during the years of Communist government.

Obliged to be indoctrinated in Marxism, the students had to undergo two hours of school every Monday. None of them, most of them pagans, joined the Marxist ranks. They defended themselves against the assaults of the militants and the snares of perverse propaganda. They committed themselves to our defense during meetings in the squares and at the school.

Whenever it was necessary, they take up the presidency and direction of the students throughout the city, abolishing anti-Catholic demonstrations and promoting demonstrations of a Christian character, courageously resisting insult, mockery, defamation and bearing everything for the love of Don Bosco.

At some meetings, they wanted to be alone and without the presence of the teachers and the missionaries, because they feared for their safety. They triumphed, in particular circumstances, against the snares and traps of the Marxists.

During Christmas 1927, the Communists had organized a demonstration against Christians. Our school, together with two Protestant schools, warded off the demonstration.

Instead of an anti-Christian demonstration, it turned out to be a demonstration of Catholic faith, having channeled all the curious people who followed them to visit the Christmas manger in our orphanage at Ho Sai. During these tragic years, one was never sure of seeing the sun rise in the morning or setting in the evening, nor of admiring the fascination of the dawn or the moment to sleep.

When we arrived in the mission, we enjoyed a certain privilege. But the people, instead of loving us, feared us. We were respected because we belonged to countries that had concessions in Shanghai, Tientsin and Peking. None of us, 18

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however, took advantage of this position of privilege, except to defend the rights of our citizens. We did not have enemies, because the Chinese proverb says: “A thousand friends are not adequate for the task, but one enemy is already one too many”.

Just treating everyone simply, with regard, cordiality, sincerity; always being the first to greet and respect authority, defend the rights of another -- this created an environment of keen sympathy for our work.

In that way we were able to face the Communist invasion from 1925 to 1928 with courage, assured of the support of the population. Our conscience was clear: we had done wrong to no one, never made anyone dislike us. We could keep our works open, increase the number of the students and sustain the quality and solidity of their formation. When the Communists looked for accusers against us among the 150,000 inhabitants, they were not able to recruit even one.

The School began with 92 students who were almost continuously harassed and reviled by the Party’s newspaper, founded in April 1929, with the return of the nationalist army in Shiu Chow. It ended up with 739 students. It had grown to be a giant between tempests and storms, esteemed by all the good and feared by the bad. Those were terrible years, full of the unknown, perils and dangers. We stood up to the enemy with a solid faith and filial confidence in Mary Help of Christians, Don Bosco and the good Chinese people who knew and loved us. Several times we were saved from Communist occupation because of the concern we had for their commanders and because of the musical services provided through heroic sacrifice. One safety valve was sports, both for our boys as well as for those of the public schools.

I had also become popular because I was a teacher in the government school for teachers attended by thousands of students, and I got permission from the competent authorities to turn part of the old mandarinate into a sports field by filling up an enormous hole and leveling the small hill. It was the first sports field in all the northern part of Kiang Tung, testimony to our peaceful conquests and victories.

We always beat the Communist teams on the football field, with results like 20:2, or, in one game that could have turned into a tragedy, it was 3:0 in the first half. The game was suspended because thousands of the spectators were cheering for us. It was a game which the Communists began with the beating of drums and fireworks. However, it also ended up with another kind of ‘win’: with the baptism of a sick baby abandoned in a basket in the nearby river.

The captain of the Communist team had kicked the ball towards the river. One of our young boys saved it, however he noticed a bamboo basket with a dying baby in it, held in place between the rocks in the river. Called by the shouts of one of our players, I ran to the place and made it just in time to baptize the innocent child, who flew amongst the angels in heaven.

When the Communists looked for accusers against us among the 150,000 inhabitants, they were not able to recruit even one.

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On Dangerous

T

GROUNDS

hose were difficult years: we had to navigate obstacles and dangers of every kind. Life was always uncertain and death always ready to ambush us.

What comforted our life and animated our work was the gratefulness and the attachment of our boys, their heroism in bearing insults, derision, and mockery. How many missionaries were treacherously assaulted and eliminated! When the Communists were officially defeated in April 1929, they were banished and became fugitives, but they became more ferocious than before. Then on 25 February 1930, came the martyrdom of Bishop Versiglia and Father Caravario. I was in Italy at the time as delegate to the General Chapter. I refused to believe this terrible reality.

I did not believe the telegram that announced that the massacre of the Bishop and the young missionary was the work of pirates. In all their different groups, they had never done us wrong nor touched a hair of the missionaries. One of their patrols had even accompanied Fr Calixtus’ boat for two days, to protect it from a ferocious and blood-hungry band of soldiers who had recently arrived in those parts. My heart was telling me this. Because of my knowledge of those elements, my personal experience, I could not accept that pirates were the killers. I thought instinctively of the disbanded soldiers and the hatred for Christians that had been inculcated in them.

With nobody to guide or restrain them, they had now begun to assert themselves through terror, their battle cry: “Kill! Kill!

Plunge the knife into the heart of the enemies of the people who administer them the opium of religion!”

Ulterior motives confirmed that I was right, the real carnage pointing to the banished Communists. I took part in all the commemorations of the martyrs. I gave the funeral eulogy in the Church of Mary Help of Christians, my voice often choked by tears. It was a great glory for the Congregation; but I could not deny that for the mission it was a great trial.

From 1925, Shiu Chow became the center and general headquarters of the planned unification of China. The father of the Chinese Republic, a great idealist like Mazzini, had destroyed all the economic and disciplinary structures which had marked the centuries. Several generals declared themselves independent, and the most famous who had resisted longer against the South, was Zhang Zuo-lin who made himself owner of Manchuria and the north of China. Sun Yat-sen needed money, canons, and airplanes in order to weaken the rebels. He sought help from the 20

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Western powers and from America. Finding the doors closed there, he slipped headlong through the open door of Russia.

The Russians immediately sent their experts, pilots, and sea and river cruisers. At the head was the most able Borodin who knew how, through Communist tactics and cellular infiltration, to penetrate every branch of political, commercial and cultural activity of the nation. It was like a vast and overwhelming earthquake, which shook the Old China at its foundation, unleashed the old aversion of hatred against the whites and spilled over in uncontrolled fashion. It seemed that there was nothing else the missionaries could do: residences, schools, churches, hospitals, orphanages were left abandoned to themselves. It meant abandoning positions conquered through immense sweat and sacrifice. The consuls in the different provinces and much later the Italian ambassador himself in Peking sent a telegram telling missionaries to retreat to Hong Kong or Macao or to international concessions.

None of us had the least uncertainty about what to do. The only imperative was to remain beneath the sign of the Cross and in the name of Don Bosco.

The Protestants, except for the German Lutherans who did not have any political entity, slipped away. Some rare Catholic missionary too who was very much supported by the national authorities, withdrew. But the great majority awaited the clash of war. The Lord sent me his message: “The victory will be for him who has more patience: ‘in patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras et vestrorum’.” Often times I looked at the waters of the two rivers that embraced each other before they flowed into one, at our city of Shiu-Chow, pummeled by rocks and scourged by the currents, now calm, now impetuous, often overwhelming, and I thought: “Our work is founded on rock. Men pass and Don Bosco remains!” And he remained with his sons until all his adversaries were driven away. Don Bosco remained in the hearts of his most faithful Christians and of the majority of the past-pupils and also the pagans, giving them inspiration and courage.

One Sunday, a Communist propaganda team was sent to our Church to prevent the afternoon services taking place, meaning the sermon and benediction. The soldiers had already arrived near the presbytery: I stopped them decisively. I made a sign to all the Christians, our young people and the students at the girls’ school. Everybody made their exit through different doors. The Communists, with evil intent, tried to cross their guns at the main door to stop the exodus. Courageously but

None of us had the least uncertainty about what to do. The only imperative was to remain beneath the sign of the Cross and in the name of Don Bosco.

serenely, I pushed the guns to the side of the door and said to my friends: “You have preached and you do preach freedom; let each one go where he wants to go.” When the people reached the playground, the well-armed patrol made up of 25 individuals wanted to collect the people who had missed out on indoctrination classes.

The faithful and the young people reacted. They tried to break into the circle of guns made around them. I threw a couple of balls from my room so the boys could entertain themselves, but the soldiers, with the point of the bayonet, deflated them. The boys had begun to lose their calm and the Christians had become furious. In this difficult situation the girls, accompanied by the Sisters, returned to the school that was adjacent to ours but which was well separated.

The head of the patrol, blew his whistle and ordered the boys to line up. But the boys, regarding the order as not belonging to the school regulations and given by persons alien to the school, tried to escape. So the commandant ordered the soldiers to fix their bayonets and force the boys into a circle.

At that moment, Providence arrived. It entered through the official door, in the guise of a soldier assigned to General Chang Kin Yao. The soldier went straight to the commandant of the group, presenting him with a note. The commander read and re-read its contents. Then, looking ferociously at the boys and casting a rather threatening look at me, he ordered his patrol to march away. He left, leaving a sense of fear and threat. I came to know the contents of the General’s note later. The words were few but clear: “Leave Fr. Braga in peace. I make myself responsible for his life and actions.”

On another occasion, during a three-day doctrinal and scholastic updating session, a Communist ‘teacher’, thinking I was absent, allowed himself to be carried away by vulgar insults against our school and against me personally. The president of the assembly cut him short, taking my defense, praising my Chinese patriotism for never having failed to respond to any of the Assembly’s acts, having placed my band and my person at the service of the public. The speaker, disoriented and humiliated, raised his fist against me. I gave him my hand as soon as he came down from the podium; I accompanied him along the road as if we had been old friends. To be honest, it was displeasing to me that he had “lost face” in front of thousands of people. Wanting to get to know the event personally, I went to the meetings day and night. My presence alone gave courage to the pagans who were thinking like me and we managed to stop unjust and unreasonable arrangements. To guide the boat through this new situation, where Europeans who had previously been favored were now hated, was not an easy thing to do. It was good that we had never used the Italian flag to protect the unworthy nor the interests of parties. We had always treated everybody well.

We should never lower the flag, or change the style of our official relationships. I simply took great care never to compromise our friends, including those whom we knew intimately, and treated them as people I did not know, strangers, as if I’d never had anything to do with them.

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21

Overcome Evil w

1927

I

t was difficult at first going around alone and isolated, without meeting a friend or a smiling face. It was not easy for me to be there in person in the different meetings; nor could I always send a representative to all the meetings.

However, Divine Providence sent me two informers, one whom I had known for a long time already and who was a sincere friend of the school.

From the very outset, he kept me informed of the decisions taken by the communists the night before. The other, a fine well-known pagan who went by the (code) name of Nicodemus, told me everything in the evening, from 9-10 p.m. about what the Communists had decided during the day. I never knew who he really was, nor could I ever express my gratitude to him with some gift.

I am certain that the Lord will never forget him. This secret information saved us from serious problems. But it tested the blind obedience of the confreres who often found that decisions taken by common agreement in the evening had changed by the morning, often in quite the opposite direction! In those years, St Paul’s “Vince in bono malum.” (Overcome evil with good.) was light, guide, counsellor and inspirer for us. It was applied heroically to protect ourselves from our worst detractors, blinded by hatred and ‘red’ propaganda. What we did instead was to take in their children, assuring them of life and education.

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The confreres and I did not have time to come together for conferences. But during lunch time, we were able to talk together and establish the general line of conduct we wanted to follow without deviation - “Vince in bono malum”. After so many years, the confreres still recalled those meetings, and they blessed the fact that they were faithful to the program.

It seemed that Don Bosco came to our aid, eliminating our most bitter enemies whom we always treated with exquisite and sincere courtesy. In 1927, a government decree prescribed the teaching of the “Triple Demism”, the spiritual testament of the founder of the Republic, Sun Yat-sen, as a textbook for all the schools. I spent two days and a night reading the solid volume, helped by two experts in Chinese; and I was convinced that it contained nothing contrary to faith and morals. Knowing that His Excellency, Archbishop Celso Costantini, the Apostolic Delegate to China, was in Hong Kong, I left on the first train so I could obtain his authorization to use the complete text or the extracts from the book. He had, in fact, also consulted experts on the matter. When I think how two thousand Catholic schools were closed for not having complied with this government order, I blessed Don Bosco who had given us solid principles, but with a certain openness of ideas and adaptability of spirit.

All the schools of the Mission followed the example of the “Don Bosco” School; this is why they were spared. Another

with GOOD

1927

decree prohibited Europeans from administering Chinese schools; such authority was reserved to the Chinese. I was the ďŹ rst to resign my authority and hand it over to our pagan professor who was unique among the other teachers. He was an elderly and most able father, as well as a very profound teacher of Chinese literature.

This act was interpreted very well by the authorities.

The new director was not a mere puppet placed there as a ďŹ gurehead. On the contrary, he was truly the head of the Institute to whom I gave signs of esteem and warm dependence. He was intelligent enough to understand that if he cooperated with us, he had everything to gain; in the case of the contrary he had everything to lose, even his salary.

Once, the news spread that I had died in an air raid. How much sadness and how much sorrow there was! But when I appeared as strong and healthy as ever, they wanted to honor me with a grandiose reception followed by a tasty lunch. The speakers, and there were a good number of them, still had teary eyes and trembling voice when they recalled the false news. And that was two years later.

I felt at home everywhere I went, whether with Christians, past pupils or pagans. I experienced an atmosphere of mutual understanding, without all the formalities and compliments, but full of attention, care and perfect charity.

Ordinations, HongKong, 1935

None of us had the least uncertainty about what to do.

The only imperative was to remain beneath the sign of the Cross and in the name of Don Bosco.

WORLD

WAR II House of Formation, Shaukiwan,1935

T

hroughout the entire Japanese-Chinese War (19371945), it was very dangerous and even daring to travel anywhere in China. I never altered my route when there were real or threatened air raids. I never left the vehicle I was traveling in. During air raids on clear moonlit nights I never abandoned my bed, which was on the top floor. I did not know what fear was and I could not see myself causing or increasing fear in people who were worried to death. There was no particular merit in that. The life at the front during the World War I, had strengthened and prepared me. I felt very sorry for people who went to pieces at the first sound of the air raid siren.

I had to be shrewd and adventurous to reach the confreres working in the Mission and those farthest from Kung Ming. I used every means of transport in any kind of weather and every season, counting on a physique already accustomed to anything and a strong stomach. I confronted torrential rains at the height of typhoons, walked entire days along pathways through rice 24 St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

fields in the oppressive heat in July, and undertook interminably long, tough walks across mountains and valleys in cold winter nights.

1930 to 1941 were years of development, founding new houses and above places for the formation of Chinese confreres.

The novitiate, the studentates of philosophy and theology were opened … where Chinese, Europeans and Americans lived in peace and harmony even during the war in the Pacific (19411945).

What we achieved in those years had something of the miraculous about it. In 1940, after the Axis Powers declared war on the Allies, all the Italian and German confreres were interned.

I was able to save and keep open all houses under English jurisdiction, putting simple clerics at the head of them, who did rather well in their duties. Sunday 10 June 1940, I was in Macao and was able to stop there, certain that nothing could disturb me.

I flew that night to Hong Kong to share in the confreres’ pain and sorrow and to give some direction regarding the

Shaukiwan,1935

I confronted torrential rains at the height of typhoons, walked entire days along pathways through rice fields in the oppressive heat in July, and undertook interminably long, tough walks across mountains and valleys in cold winter nights.

situation. The majority of the confreres were present: novices, students and two schools with thousands of students. At 9.30 a.m. on 11 June 1940, we held a provincial council meeting. The house at Aberdeen where we were staying was surrounded by British police and all Italian and German confreres were arrested. I managed to gain conditional freedom and was able to present myself to the different government offices, always accompanied by the Scottish confrere, cleric Alex Smith. It was easy enough for me to organize the personnel to keep teaching till the end of the school year which was almost upon us, and convince the chief of police that it was best not to create the trouble that would follow if he dismissed two thousand students. This would have caused ill will amongst the Chinese. Despite the strict demands of the police, I was able to keep two Italian priests and a brother in the Colony, since they were considered to be above all suspicion of political interference. That was no small success.

Seeing that Hong Kong too was not safe and was easy prey for the Japanese, I asked the British government to pay for my journey to Shanghai, as well as for the confreres belonging to Axis countries and the Chinese students. The answer to my request was a very definite “no” accompanied with a solid thump on the table. This gave me a certain pleasure St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

25

because the chief of police, a Scot, was embarrassed at having lost his calm and British courtesy. The head of the Intelligence Service, Colonel Fraser, who was on our side and a most courteous man, paid all expenses adding a small sum for tipping for the waiters.

On 5 August 1940, very early morning, our entire Salesian troupe marched through the sad and deserted streets, still smoking, of Nantao city, part of Shanghai. We were 130 refugees, without resources, but with a great faith in God! We took lodging in Saint Joseph’s school in Nantao, built for us in 1925 by the Chinese ‘Commendatore’ Lo Pahong.

The house stood almost intact, but without furnishings.

We found a beautiful statue of Mary Help of Christians in one room, as if the good Mother had waited for us. We recited three Hail Marys that bore good results. Little by little we organized ourselves, dividing the personnel between Don Bosco House in Yang Tse Poo, Chapei, the agricultural school and Nantao.

We were not discouraged and began a work which was quite miraculous.

In order to survive, and unable to receive alms from anyone, we organized the technical school, working without respite, in perfect poverty. We opened an orphanage to oblige Providence to help us.

The greater part of the confreres was Italians and Germans who could not ask help from the Chinese, because we were political enemies.

The Chinese, generous by nature, were very ready to help our poor orphans. Every Saturday, we had the radio at our disposition for half an hour, with an attractive program: concerts by our “schola cantorum” and exhortations by a wordsmith who put some of the saddest and most moving stories of our orphans to air. These encouraged generous Chinese people to come forward. Eight telephone lines brought offers of money and kind for our work. In a secret inquiry carried out in the name of the nationalist government, our orphanage was found to be the best amongst the 30 organizations in Shanghai and brought us substantial assistance from a special appointee of Chiang Kai sek.

We organized a huge catechetical exhibition in one of our festive oratories: exhibitions which lasted for three months, attracting a huge crowd of visitors. This kept our confreres busy and distracted, most of them very young, and helped them forget the distance separating them from their families, and the straitened circumstances in which we were living. Schools, missionaries, convents, Chinese priests, religious associations and Catholic action took part in the initiative.

Another effective initiative, following in Don Bosco’s footsteps, was producing plays in grand style. Given the state of war and the Japanese occupation, no one dared call the attention of the public so as not to create suspicion amongst the invaders.

We staged the operetta “San Tarcisio” with a cast of 100, supported by 25 members of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.

The operetta played for 25 nights. It was received with much interest by theater critics and was also staged twice at the Jesuit Catholic University and Sacred Heart University of the Sacred 26

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Shaukiwan,1935: Feast Day of St. Charles

Heart. It brought sympathy and interest in Christianity.

Other successful operettas followed on from “San Tarcisio”: “Mark, the Fisherman”, “The Prodigal Son” and other theatrical works. Our theater, with a capacity of 2,000, was always packed full, and the public showed itself interested, cordial, attentive and grateful.

We celebrated the centenary of the arrival of the Jesuits in Shanghai with much enthusiasm. The Jesuits, led by the Bishop, showed themselves to be generous helpers. We staged a live tableau of 40 actors supported by a recital ‘a la Louis Veuillot’, supported by the contribution of the members of the Symphony Orchestra to which we added some of the members of the orchestra from the sunken “Conte Verde” and a choir in four voices from our “Schola Cantorum”. This was all accompanied by exciting lighting effects and stupendous set design. The production was a triumph, so much so that it was repeated four times at home and three times in the great hall of the Alliance Francaise in Shanghai. The Jesuits were deeply satisfied seeing their return to China 100 years earlier celebrated this way.

Our “Schola Cantorum” was much on demand for services in Shanghai. In 1946, they were asked to sing at the Race Course for the thanksgiving mass offered by the American troops and the people of Shanghai.

They sang in three solemn Masses: one at 7 a.m., the second at 9 a.m. and the last at 11 a.m., in different parishes. These were years of great activity that created a halo of sympathy and esteem around us, and, I would say, admiration; and to think that we were unknown when we first arrived. During the war in the Pacific, as well as the two houses in Shanghai, the houses in Chapei, Neziang and Shu-Chow to the north of Shanghai were added. The growth in the number of Chinese vocations was indeed providential. The Aspirantate at Nantao reached 160 aspirants. The novitiate and the studentates of Philosophy and Theology had an ever-increasing number of students. The Jesuit bishop who was a dear friend and great benefactor offered us three parishes to administer.

POST-WORLD

WAR II

A

fter the war in 1946, we opened the house in Peking which Don Bosco had seen in the famous dream in 1886. But first of all we felt the need for local vocations. How many difficulties we encountered because of our poverty in this regard. However, the Lord sent us a true apostle of vocations in the person of Mr. Liang, father of two Salesians, a Marist brother and two Sisters: one a Daughter of Charity and the other a Daughter of Mary Help of Christians.

The environment in Shanghai was decidedly uninterested in our needs if not hostile. We need to find daily bread and food for 103 growing boys with formidable appetites. We knocked at certain doors; but the answer was always the same: “We cannot help you.” Providence, notwithstanding, was like a loving mother.

From the Italian consulate I received what we needed for a week, which was sufficient time to get in contact with a few friends. Religious orders reluctantly told me of the restrictions placed on them by their respective superior generals who forbade any loan that could not be paid back within a fortnight.

Our own Economer General, Fr. Giraudi, sent us a good sum from Turin which allowed us to live for a month. He had indicated a second sum but this was pocketed by someone who

took my part perfectly. We only got this when the war ended.

In these difficult situations the perfect joy of the poor was never lacking. We devised a thousand initiatives to obtain what was necessary. In order to have decent clothes, we had three different measurements. We took it in turns to wear them in case of visits to the doctor or for some service in the Church.

We were content with what was necessary, and without many of the things that would have been considered essential in other times and circumstances. We strengthened the bonds of charity. We lived in such harmony that in spite of our being from 23 nationalities, we refrained from speaking of politics.

On the contrary, confreres whose nations were at war became even closer friends.

Football was also a most effective way of eating very well.

Our team were the football champions. At every victory our players enjoyed the luxury of an abundant meal. Our wellorganized cooperators would send us rice, oil and firewood. A good German lady provided us with quilts and socks stuffed with cotton in order to bear the wet and freezing cold in Shanghai.

While everything collapsed around us and many were afraid of foreclosure by the banks, we had the consolation that our debt payments were postponed until a year after the war.

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27

34 YEARS IN C

GRACE-FIL

I

spent thirty-four very happy years in China; I was always happy with my vocation and confident of the future. I was convinced of the effectiveness of the preventive system that permeated my life and laid down the program I had developed “with Don Bosco and with the times.”

After a conference at the Hong Kong Hotel hosted by the Italian-British Cultural Association, the President, Doctor Mario Martin, and the director of education, made this observation: “It is my firm conviction that the Salesians, with Don Bosco’s method, may have been called on to arouse the best that is hidden in the depth of the Chinese soul and to make it shine out in new light, rich in intellectual and moral resources.”

The Superior of the Irish Jesuits, Father Burne, often wrote articles in the largest newspaper in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post. In the article he wrote following the very successful celebration of the canonization of Don Bosco, he warmly invited the Salesians to take care of Chinese youth, certain that this would have great success. Was he a prophet?

Our students made up of Chinese and non-Chinese students always successfully passed the examinations conducted by the State, whether for English or Chinese language. The fact was that 99% were always promoted; they never were less than 90%.

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They were 34 years lived in continuous political and social agitation, unsure of the present and/or the future. But I was guided by a clear program: to do good to all and evil to no one.

As friend and adviser of mandarins and of governors, I always tried to be cheerful, contented, helpful and understanding. I witnessed great fratricidal struggles, enormous floods and natural disasters. I was close to the Apostolic Delegates in China, Cardinal Costantini and his successors, to the deceased Mons. Mario Zanin, to his Excellency Mons.

Riberi, as well as to the bishops of more than half of China.

I was well known to the other missionaries; I was a welcome guest of every religious order or missionary institute.

I forced myself to serve, help, reconcile, comfort and lead.

I was trusted by the Apostolic Delegates and Nuncios who even confided in me for secret matters. I often held the fate of many kinds of armed groups and deserters in my hands. I tried to save everyone without distinction of faith or color. I would act as mediator between a big battalion of pirates and Governor Wong Yeng Yu from whom I obtained their complete amnesty and recruitment into the regular army.

At the end of December 1940, while I was carrying out visits to our mission amidst all kinds of dangers, the

LLED

CHINA Communists tried to kill me. I saved myself by a miracle, thanks to the alertness of a past pupil who was the station master. He made me leave on a special convoy an hour before its scheduled departure.

In China, I only had friends, including among the Communists themselves, who bothered me night and day with unscheduled visits and criminal proposals.

Knowing various dialects sufficiently, more than once I was able to act as interpreter amongst the Chinese themselves, giving the requested explanations both for Customs, and on trains and ships, especially during the fratricidal struggles where everyone was suspicious and fearful of the other. Two generals entrusted their children to me; a former governor made me the executor of his will.

As soon as the Nationalists occupied the city of Shiu Chow, the commanders came asking me for the list of Communist supporters, especially certain teachers and students in the schools who were openly ‘red’. They said: “Father, you have suffered so much on account of these criminals. They have harassed, calumniated and humiliated you for so many years: here, now, is the hour of justice.”

“Thank you for the visit”, I answered, “but I assure you

I spent thirty-four very happy years in China; I was always happy with my vocation and confident of the future.

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29

that I do not have enemies. As a priest, I have never felt offended. I do not know anyone who has been my adversary.” I learned later that my answer was very much admired and welcomed, especially by the families that rightfully feared human justice. They repeated: “Father Braga is really everyone’s friend. He wishes everyone well.”

Having returned to the south after years of absence, I had re-organized the schools and the works in Hong Kong and Macao. I added two other works to the first Salesian house in Macao: Yuet Wah College and Don Bosco College for the Portuguese. In Hong Kong, the new Fr Filippo Rinaldi House was built. San Luigi College was extended. One of the most beautiful churches on the Island in honor of Saint Anthony was completed. The large Tang King Po School was established in Hong Kong. It was a school offered us by a wealthy individual who was baptized a year before his death. In Hanoi, the Andre’ Robin orphanage was opened.

Kung Ming was extended by building an efficient mechanics workshop. Meanwhile, plans for a new location for Don Bosco College were in preparation, since even the large building was not up to taking all the students asking to be accepted. I was asked by the bishops to visit the provinces of Shenxi and Hunan, to found works at Changsha and Hang Haw. The zealous Franciscans requested our help at Tzing Tao, China’s Sorrento. The Apostolic Nuncio resident at Nangking, and Archbishop Paolo Yu Pin asked us several times to open works at Kon Moon, Kuei Lin and Nan Ning. Everyone wanted us to open technical schools.

“Latinisti” aspirants to the priesthood

As a priest, I have

never felt offended. I do not know anyone who

has been my adversary.�

I learned later that my answer was very much

admired and welcomed,

especially by the families

that rightfully feared

human justice. They

repeated: �Father Braga is really everyone's friend. He wishes

Inauguration of St. Joseph of Hosai

everyone well.�

St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

31

THE RISE OF THE CHINESE

COMMUNIST PAR

T

his stupendous and promising expansion of our works in China was cut short by the advent of the new direction brought on by Mao Tze Tung.

What La Civiltà Cattolica had already foretold in 1937 literally took place. After the defeat of the Japanese, the Chinese communists took advantage of the exhausted nationalist army and its spirit of plunder and corruption. The exasperation of the Chinese people, oppressed for seven years by the Japanese army, was fully exploited by undisciplined nationalist soldiers; they could not but fall, like a cooked pear, into the hands of the PCC (Chinese Communist Party) and the Russians who were supporting it.

The Marshall Plan, which brought considerable sums to Chiang Kai sek, went nowhere. On the contrary, it fomented desertions to Mao’s army. Chu Enlai, moreover, had been most able in convincing the same Marshall Plan that Chinese Communism was not like the Russian version, and that since he had collaborated with the Guomindang, he would also work with other parties in an American style democracy.

Having become absolute master through the victory of its armies, the PCC thought to eliminate all opposition, from the political to the religious. China was a huge country. The PCC needed to impose the new communist ideology at every level. There were four million soldiers; the areas in the north were only a small part of China. Mao did not immediately initiate the change. On the contrary, the first Communist 32

St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

soldiers who arrived not only were no trouble; they were kind, and dedicated themselves to order and justice, thus deceiving everyone somewhat. I was also deceived. I believed we were rediscovering the Communism of the 1920s. The Bishop of Hong Kong, Bishop Bianchi, was of the same opinion. But from 1951, the PCC showed its true face modelled on the Soviets.

Persecution, even if subtle in principle, became open and inexorable in the months that passed.

The PCC started its operations: confiscation of schools, shameful trials, torture, imprisonment, death sentences without possibility of defense. Our missionaries behaved like heroes, without yielding and without offering pretext for violence.

The students were beaten up, tortured and sent away from the schools they wanted to defend. All the churches were closed, so too the homes for the elderly and disabled and the orphanages.

No one betrayed, nor yielded to the vexations. The clinics and rice cooperatives run for the locals were taken over. At the end of 1952, after the Nuncio was expelled, only 18 Chinese Salesians remained in China: eight priests, nine brothers and a cleric, who was part of the national team in the Asian Games in India because of his football skills. He tried to escape but could not because he was closely guarded. I know of three priests who died: one in bed and the other two in prison. The Salesian cleric Peter Yeh was a true martyr; he sacrificed himself for the school and for the Congregation in a heroic manner.

Of the eight priests who remained, seven ended up in

Sfollamento a Shanghai

RTY They were 34 years lived in continuous political and social agitation, unsure of the present and or the future. But I was guided by a clear program: to do good to all and evil to no one one..

Shanghai

forced labor; one got sick and retired at home. The brothers suffered the same fate. This enormous disaster befell our works, but it strengthened the faith of many Christians who were lukewarm at ďŹ rst. Everything ended with the forced withdrawal (of the Salesians) from Peking in 1954. I then went to the Philippines.

The 300 aspirants scattered in the various houses in the north needed my attention, and I decided to save the students from third and fourth year secondary level, plus the Chinese novices and philosophy students, evacuating about 105 Salesians and aspirants by boat, reversing the manoeuvre successfully carried out in 1940.

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Don Bosco-Victorias, 1956

T

From CHINA to th

hat well-considered evacuation gave the Congregation about 70 Chinese priests, many of whom studied in Italy and England. And now, having returned to their country, they do magnificent work. I suffered much at the time.

But the saddest thing for me was giving up all our works so solidly established, whether in the mission or in the various provinces. But the most intimate and painful wound which has never healed was having to renounce all those vocations. I am comforted by the fact that I tried to do everything to save what could be saved and to enrich the Congregation with good people.

Our SEI, the Salesian Press, opened in Macao, was one of the works dearest to me. This has published hundreds of thousands of leaflets and books: novels, short stories, plays and catechisms. It was well-known and well-appreciated by missionaries and Christians. Its publications were very popular and appreciated by all. Non-Christians found our books and treatises written in good modern language, well-presented and attractive. The life of Jesus, drawn from all the Gospels, saw several editions. The life of Don Bosco also reached the farthest cities. From all of this publishing activity the illustrated catechism, the Bible History, as well as the Peter Ricaldone 34

St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

Catechetical Center in Hong Kong was amongst the most flourishing.

To console us for this great loss, Providence opened the mission in the Philippines for us, almost like a reward and compensation for what we suffered in establishing our part in Christianity and our works in China. It was a great consolation for me to realize how the confreres were so attached to the missionary centers and, after the expulsion, yearned to return.

1950 to 1952 were most difficult years because we saw how everything was being dismantled, and how our own institutions were undermined. We had become giants, in the limelight, honored, esteemed and very much appreciated. It was not easy to keep up the morale of confreres in retreat. Nonetheless, there was comfort, and there still is today, in being able to say that nothing was neglected to save what could be saved and no one who was sent away had failed his mission.

In 1952, I was relieved of the weight of the China Province.

In 1953, I was sent to the Philippines. It was a very painful detachment.

In the Philippines too, I found much work and a truly enticing future: a situation which invited work and presented a great future. It was the work especially of his Excellency Archbishop Piani, Apostolic Delegate for 26 years, who made

Don Bosco - Victorias, 1960

he PHILIPPINES the names of Mary Help of Christians and Don Bosco so loved, known and invoked. Eight houses were founded over a period of eight years. Within this period, land was obtained for a further three works.

We are here in a Catholic country, with an enormous lack of clergy and in a young republic that wants to industrialize. This requires maximum effort to find vocations and put up technical schools.

Our long experience in China brought unexpected results, things considered impossible, like building and running technical schools. Many religious before us had tried but without success.

It did not seem possible for young Filipinos to fall in love with work, machines, manual effort and cleanliness in our workshops. Our success was thus a sensation. And this was due to the professionalism of the teachers, the spirit of sacrifice and self-denial, and above all the family spirit instilled in Salesians and apprentices. The latter felt they were loved before being instructed and enriched with the technical knowledge to find upright employment.

Certainly, the prayers and the blessing of Archbishop Piani had been useful for success in our endeavor. I had asked him which works he thought more useful for Filipino youth. He answered without hesitation: “Open technical schools and festive oratories.”

I am comforted by

the fact that I tried to do everything to

save what could be

saved and to enrich

the Congregation with good people.

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35

Our work today (this was written in 1962) is well looked upon, admired and appreciated by all, especially by large industries and mechanical enterprises. These have recognized our young graduates as workers who have solid foundation in design, theory and practice in their profession. Moreover, they have a solid formation to work and moral discipline.

They barely finish at school, and our apprentices are sought after for work.

In these ten years in the Philippines, we have good 28 Filipino confreres among our newly professed. There are 66 aspirants in the house destined for them where they can attend to their intellectual, religious and Salesian formation.

We look with confidence to the future of this wonderful nation. I am certain that the future province of the Philippines will have a marvellous development. I also foresee that this Catholic country will one day send missionaries to other lands.

Transplanting Don Bosco’s work from China to the Philippines was certainly part of Providence’s plans.

In conclusion, I cannot forget the generous Salesians who have offered their blood for the cause of the Church in China.

There are four: Father Giovanni Matkovicz who was slaughtered by a group of criminals who thought he had so much money in a basket that was in fact empty; Father Dupont who was a victim of the Communists in Hanoi who, after they had murdered him, threw his corpse into the river; Father Lorenzo Faccini Bassano, victim of his own charity, supplying salt to Christians behind Japanese lines; and, finally, Father Vincenzo Munda, who as a boy thought of dying as a martyr in China. He was bringing back money and materials made by Chinese in danger during the war.

He was on his way back to them after Japan’s surrender. He was kidnapped and everything taken from him, then he was shot and killed.

The Chinese came to know the truth about those killings and were edified by them. I consider that our contribution in blood, beginning with Bishop Versiglia and Father Caravario in 1930 to the martyrs of the persecutions in China now, will not be useless. Perhaps, when I am no longer on this earth, others will return to paths already followed, and will be able to bring to completion the titanic enterprise to evangelize China.

I am not accustomed to making prophecies, but I believe that it will be precisely from the Philippines, that groups of missionaries will depart to bring the light of the gospel to their Asian brothers.

Fr. Carlo Braga with Abp. Rufino Santos, benefactor and friend of the first Salesian works

We are here in a Catholic country, with an enormous lack of clergy and in a young republic that wants to industrialize. This requires maximum effort to find vocations and put up technical schools.

36

St. John Bosco Today | June-August 2018 Memoirs of the Servant of God, Fr. Carlo Braga, SDB

Fr. Carlo Braga embraced Bishop of San Fernando, Emilio Cinense

To console us for this great loss, Providence opened the mission in the Philippines for us, almost like a reward and compensation for what we suffered in establishing our part in Christianity and our works in China.

Fr. Carlo Braga with the Apostolic Nuncio, Abp. Egidio Vagnozzi, in Don Bosco Victorias Fr. Carlo Braga during the blessing of the statue of Don Bosco, work of Renato Villegas (past pupil of Victorias) in the presence of Abp. RuďŹ no Santos (Don Bosco Makati 1963)

Fr. Carlo Braga with Don Jose Yulo and wife at the inauguration of the new chapel in Don Bosco Canlubang

Fr. Braga with Don Jose Yulo who donated 15 hectares of land to the Salesians for the seminary, novitiate, philosophy and retreat house

PERPETUAL PROFESSION May 31, 2018, National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, Parañaque City – Five Salesian clerics made their Perpetual Profession. (from left to right) Antonio Maria Jose Guterres, SDB from the Vice-Province of East Timor (ITM); John Kanty Nang Khan Mang, SDB and Abele Nee Reh, SDB from the Vice-Province of Myanmar (MYM); Bonifacio Tison Lobaton Jr., SDB and Erwin Joey Escabillas Cabilan, SDB from the Province of the Philippines— South (FIS)

FIRST RELIGIOUS PROFESSION May 6, 2018, Lawa-an, Talisay Cebu – First Religious Profession of (from left to right) Cleric Michael Wenceslao, SDB, Cleric Jerick Magsino, SDB, Bro. Dandrew Matias, SDB, Cleric John Ling, SDB, and Cleric Ricky Evangelista, SDB.

NEW SALESIAN COOPERATORS May 12, 2018, Diocesan Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, Canlubang, Laguna – 26 New Salesian Cooperators from Tarlac, Mayapa, Pampanga, and Canlubang took their Oath of Promise during the Annual Convention of the Salesian Cooperators.

SALESIAN FAMILY NEWS FIRST RELIGIOUS PROFESSION

May 24, 2018, Don Bosco School, Manila – FMA First Religious Profession (from left to right) Sr. Regina Mae Sermonia, FMA and Sr. Princess Mae Ortiz, FMA

SILVER JUBILARIANS May 24, 2018, Don Bosco School, Manila – FMA Silver Jubilarians (from left to right) Sr. Ma. Nayda Alcaraz, FMA, Sr. Debbie Ponsaran, FMA, and Sr. Maria Pamela Vecina, FMA with Archbishop Francesco Panfilo, SDB, DD, of the Archdiocese of Rabaul.

NEWLY ORDAINED SALESIAN PRIESTS

April 7, 2018, National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians – Fr. Ryan Oliver Bautista, SDB was ordained by the Most Rev. Pedro Baquero, SDB, DD, Bishop of Kerema on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday.

May 24, 2018, Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Cebu City – The three new Salesian priests of the FIS Province (from left to right) Fr. Vince Michael K. Sabal, SDB, Fr. Keith J. Belcina, SDB, and Fr. Keith J. Amodia, SDB.